What Do Sharps Know That You Don’t?

In sports betting, we talk a lot about finding out where the “smart money” is.  The smart money is the money bet by the “sharps,” who we contrast with the betting public.  Sharps are professional bettors, gamblers who can make money again and again when they wager on games.  They are able to make money betting reliably enough that they can do it for a living.  What exactly makes a sharp “sharp,” though?  What do they know that you don’t?  Why are you still a member of the betting public and not a sharp yourself?

• Sharps know that winning a bet is not really about the final score of a game.  There are a couple of reasons this is true.  Firstly, you can actually lose a bet on a winning team, or win a bet on a losing team, depending on how you play the lines.  Sharps pay close attention to the lines, and make decisions based off of not only their expectation for the game’s outcome, but also where the lines are at.  They also realize when analyzing historical data that why a game was won or lost has more bearing on the future than whether a game was won or lost.  Simply looking at the numbers and not on the qualitative facts behind them can obscure essential details. 

• Sharp betters often stick with simple wagers and avoid complex betting structures like teasers and parlays.  Why?  These types of bets may pay off big if you win them, but they tend to involve massive amounts of risk.  If the risk outpaces the reward, over time you are only going to end up losing with these types of bets.  So outside of special situations, it simply does not make sense to wager on them.  Online betting sites make a lot of money on these complicated types of bets for a couple of reasons.  First off, they confuse bettors.  Secondly, many gamblers in the public assume they are more “advanced,” and therefore associate betting on them with developing gambling expertise.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

• Sharps also know you cannot base all of your gambling decisions off somebody else’s decisions!  These people are not constantly chasing the “smart money.”  They are the smart money.  They do not simply look at what the public is doing and do the opposite, either.  They make smart betting decisions based off of their own analysis of data and value.  They do the hard work every day and never expect someone else’s expertise to be able to get them through the day.  They know success is built on their own initiative.

In short, if you want to be a sharp, you have to start changing the way you think about wagering on uk betting sites.  Shop for value before you place a wager.  Remember that winning a bet isn’t just about choosing a winning team.  It is also about choosing a winning wager where the points aren’t stacked up against you.  Go beyond the statistics in your analysis, and realize that why things happen is as important as what actually happens on the field.  Finally, most importantly, be willing to do the hard work yourself each and every day.  That is what separates the wheat from the chaff and the sharps from the betting public.