Home field advantage is a big factor for football handicappers to consider in the NFL. In the playoffs, though, home field advantage can be even more significant. The reason is that the impact of the advantage can vary widely in the playoffs. If the fan base is very fired up and (more…)
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Month: May 2012
In the divisional round and the conference championship round of the NFL playoffs we would expect the home team to be favored. They have worked hard to earn the right to host their playoff games, and they are playing in a building that has obviously been good to them. At times, (more…)
In the NFL playoffs the top seeded team in each conference holds a special place in the eyes of casual bettors. To earn that top seed they have had a very good season, and that means that the public is going to regard them highly, and is quite likely to bet (more…)
Betting on the Pro Bowl isn’t the most popular thing in the NFL. There are lots of people that do it though. Lots of those people make big mistakes when they do it, and those mistakes limit their chances of making a long term profit on the game. Here are six (more…)
It’s hard for most football fans to get too excited about the Pro Bowl game, and harder still for a lot of bettors to really seriously pay attention. Many people would argue that the game doesn’t need to be played – that making the Pro Bowl should just be a ceremonial (more…)
Super Bowl media day has evolved into a day of barely contained insanity. There was a time when it was about serious journalists meeting with focused NFL players to ask insightful questions in a controlled setting. Now it’s full of nutcases who know nothing about football wearing costumes and trying to (more…)
One of the big challenges with NBA handicapping is trying to find a winner in a game with a small point spread when both NBA teams are elite and well matched. With NBA basketball odds, It’s easy to get a sense of how a game will turn out when there is a (more…)
Early in the NBA season one of the best ways for smart handicappers to cash in is to have a sense of which teams are underrated by the general public. There will always be a few teams that don’t get nearly the respect they deserve. The odds from bookmakers for those (more…)
It has become an all-too familiar story in the NBA – superstar players who have grown unhappy with their situation and demand a trade in the middle of the season. Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Dwight Howard – the list of all-stars that have held their teams ransom is long and impressive. (more…)
The hardest position to play well in the NBA is point guard. They have to command the play, set the tone, avoid mistakes, and make their team work. It used to be that point guard was a position that young players had been able to ease into. Recently, though, it has (more…)
It’s not particularly common in the NBA, but teams will occasionally be subjected to the grueling challenge of playing three games on three consecutive nights. It’s an incredibly tough challenge for NBA players – especially because at least one of the games – and often more – is typically played on (more…)
Every year in the NBA there is at least one team that looks good during the regular season that just doesn’t perform once the postseason starts. Once they are eliminated you can often look back and see the signs that pointed to what happened. If a sports bettor could spot those (more…)
Every time a trade deadline passes in a sport that trades a lot of players around, such as the NBA, I’m obviously interested to see what players are traded and what impact that will have on their new teams. As an expert sports handicapper, though, I’m almost as interested in the (more…)
NBA player prop betting is getting more and more popular. There are several different types of player props that are available to bet depending on the book you use. While expert NBA bettors know that each type of bet obviously needs to be looked at slightly differently there is, at the (more…)
The NBA betting public is better at one thing than all others – overreacting to situations. They will regularly assume the worst about situations, and have an incredible ability to make mountains out of molehills. The NBA preseason isn’t typically taken as seriously by teams as the regular season, so there (more…)
The preseason in most major sports isn’t particularly illuminating, and the NBA is no exception. There are some things that smart NBA sports handicappers can learn from watching the preseason, though. That can be very helpful when the regular season starts and the games really matter – to the teams and (more…)
NBA bettors spend a lot of time looking at the long term impact of trades in the league. It’s important, though, to consider what the short term impact of trades are on professional teams. I’m talking about the first game or two played on the hardwood right after a deal is (more…)
Every year in the NBA there are a few things that we can be sure to see. One of those is that there will be several teams that play worse – often significantly worse – after the NBA All-Star break than they did before the break. If sports bettors can spot (more…)
Every year in the NBA there are a couple of teams that get off to a surprising start. On paper they don’t look like much, but for the first few weeks of the basketball season they seem to have forgotten how to lose. That can create a real headache for NBA (more…)
If you have bet the NBA for a while, or even just followed it as a fan, then this has certainly happened to you – you have had very high hopes and expectations for a team heading into the season but they come out of the gate totally flat. Their best (more…)
When it comes to superstars in the NBA there is no such thing as loyalty. If LeBron James can leave Cleveland then it’s unreasonable to assume that any star will stick with one team for their entire career. It does happen, but movement – either through free agency or trades – (more…)
There are few jobs in the world less secure than head coach of an NBA team. Teams change coaches seemingly on a whim, so it is very common to see several professional basketball teams make a coaching change during each season. Often times a team will experience a bump in play (more…)
Being a coach in the NBA is not a great job to have if you value job security. There is a whole lot of turnover every year, and coaches often don’t last in a job for very long if they don’t get immediate results. When a new basketball coach starts the (more…)
The media and fans love to talk about trades in the NBA. It’s a constant source of entertainment and endless speculation. The problem is, though, that because of the salary cap restrictions trades aren’t nearly as common as people think they are. That means that every year at the NBA trade (more…)
Every year in the NBA we see elite teams go into a slump later on in the season. These are teams that have been playing very well, are certainly going to the playoffs, and are a threat to win it all once they get there. For some reason, though, they hit (more…)
The NBA playoffs can provide great drama and excellent betting opportunities. Because of that there are a lot of people who are very excited to see the playoffs arrive, and very eager to bet on the games once they are here. If you are too eager to jump in and bet (more…)
When you think of Christmas day what do you think of? For me it’s trees, presents, family, turkey, and professional basketball. The NBA owns Christmas day, They are often the only game in town, and some of the best and most eagerly anticipated matchups of the year are scheduled for the (more…)
Home court advantage is particularly significant in the NBA. From year to year home teams win about 60 percent of games that are played, so there is undeniably a boost to be had from playing on the home hardwood. The advantage is almost universal as well – there was only one (more…)
Each year in the NBA it seems like we are seeing more and more players signed as free agents during the regular season. There are a number of ways a professional basketball player can become a free agent in the middle of a season – if they have been playing in (more…)
When the NBA season is about to get underway the attention of bettors inevitably is drawn towards the NBA Championship futures odds. For astute bettors these can be a great way to find some nice profit that can fatten the bankroll substantially. They are also a really easy way to make (more…)
Big favorites in the NBA are far from uncommon. There is a massive gap between the best teams in the league and those in the cellar, so double digit point spreads in the NBA are far from uncommon. Needless to say, though, the favorites don’t always cover the spread, and they (more…)
NBA bettors are regularly faced with massive point spreads in games when a heavy favorites plays a seemingly outmatched team. A point spread that big makes the expected winner clear, but it can be a real challenge to decide if the favorite is worth being so heavily favored. When a team (more…)
Consistency is the best friend of NBA sports bettors. When a NBA team consistently plays in the same style and with the same effort then it can be relatively easy to bet on them because you know what you can expect from them. When a professional basketball team lacks consistency, though, (more…)
The pressure to win in the NBA is intense, so it is not at all uncommon to see teams – even serious contenders – significantly overhaul their team from the end of one season to the beginning of the next. Teams will frequently go into a season with more than half (more…)
Each year in the NBA there always seems to be an intense race for the last couple of playoff spots in each conference. Sometimes the fight is among very good teams, while other times it’s just lousy teams moving towards an inevitable, quick loss in the first round of the playoffs. (more…)
Several times each year teams in the NBA are forced to play two games on consecutive nights. That situation can be particularly challenging for teams – they are typically played on the road, so teams face tough travel on a short schedule between challenging games. It rarely brings out the best (more…)
As a NBA bettor there are few things more thrilling to find than a team that is playing much better than their record indicates. That often means that the team has a record against the spread (ATS) that is significantly better than their record. The general betting public is driven by (more…)
In the NBA there are a few different tiers of teams each season. There are those teams that just aren’t very good. They aren’t going to make the playoffs, or if they do they won’t be above .500 and they won’t be particularly competitive. There are teams that are pretty good. (more…)
There are two kinds of NBA games – those that are nationally televised, and those that aren’t. The ones that are on TV – like on ESPN or TNT – often feature more popular teams playing more interesting matchups. Combine that with the added attention the media gives a televised game (more…)
Every year in the NBA there seems to be a small handful of good teams that disappoint early in the season. They enter the year with high expectations – to make the playoffs in style and make some noise when they get there. After a significant number of games have passed, (more…)
Public NBA bettors love superstars, so they will make their betting decisions based largely on the reputations of the superstars on the court. Unless there is a significant reason to do so the public is very slow to adjust those reputations to reflect current reality. That means that if a superstar (more…)
Sometimes a football team gets off to a horrifyingly bad start to the NFL season. They may have been expected to be a playoff team – or at least a serious playoff contender – heading into the season, but they have looked like a high school team – a bad one (more…)
Week 17 in the NFL can be a very tough week to bet. There are several different types of games that can be played, and each one is very different. The most exciting, and the easiest to decode from a motivation perspective, is when two teams are playing to determine their (more…)
ESPN hates the NFL quarterback rating. They always have. After years of complaining and mocking the statistic every chance they got, they have finally decided to do something about it. Their solution is a bold one – they have created a whole new statistic. Their Total Quarterback Rating, which they have (more…)
The football stadium is barely empty after the Super Bowl by the time that the Super Bowl futures are posted for the next NFL season. These ridiculously early numbers are entertaining and often informative. On very rare occasions they could even be worth betting a couple of bucks on. Most times, though, (more…)
Thanksgiving may be the best day of the year. Just think about it a whole day built around eating and drinking too much then passing out on a couch to watch NFL football. Plus, it’s a weekday that you don’t have to work on. Sure, you have to put up with (more…)
For most NFL bettors football training camp just seems like something you have to patiently endure before the NFL season finally starts. For astute sports bettors, though, the training camp is a time to pick up all sorts of information and insights that can help you find a big edge with your (more…)
It’s hard to know how good or how prepared an NFL team is going to be until the regular football season starts. It’s really hard to judge from the preseason what is going to happen – sometimes good teams look great and other times they look lousy, while bad teams can dominate (more…)
One of the great things about the NFL is that it always has the ability to surprise. Just when you think you have things totally figured out a result comes around that is precisely and totally the opposite of what you thought would happen. Of course, that’s also what can make (more…)
Playing quarterback in the NFL is a dangerous profession. Other than Brett Favre it is all but certain that a football QB is going to be hurt during his career, and chances are pretty good that he’ll miss a significant amount of time at some point. For sports bettors this can present (more…)
There are few things more frustrating for football handicappers than an uncertain QB status. When a quarterback is hurt or banged up but could conceivably still play then you can never be sure what is going to happen. Teams are rarely open or honest about these situations, either, so you spend (more…)
Typically in the NFL there is a rough transition when a new coach joins a football team. That new head man has so much to deal with – getting to know the players he has, addressing weaknesses, implementing new systems, changing the philosophy, hiring coordinators, and so on – that it almost (more…)
In the last week or two of the regular season in the NFL it is not at all uncommon to see playoff teams rest their starters. It can be very frustrating for football fans and bettors, but for the teams it is often the logical approach. If the team can’t improve their (more…)
Every year in the NFL there are a few rookie quarterbacks who are pressed into action at the start of the football season, and a few more who have to play early on. If you have been a fan of the NFL for any time at all then you know that a (more…)
The NFL season is long, and for football bettors it can be grueling. By the time the Super Bowl is over most sports bettors are ready for a break. They’ll forget about football for a while and look elsewhere – catching up on all the basketball they have ignored, betting on some (more…)
Every year in the NFL there seems to be a couple of football teams that make dramatic statistical gains in an area in which they really struggled. It could be, for example, that they were really terrible against the pass one year, yet after a couple of games in the new season (more…)
Several times a year – especially later in the football season – we’ll see a situation in which an NFL starting quarterback is unable to practice during the week but is still possible or probable to play in their game. That situation can be a major headache for sports bettors. It’s all (more…)
As a general rule I hate everything about the NFL preseason. You never know who is going to play, how long they will play, how hard they will try, or how much of their playbook they will use. Betting on preseason football games can be a very frustrating experience. From time to time, (more…)
The preseason is the time during which oddsmakers and NFL football gamblers need to look closely at teams to determine what they might be capable of when the season starts. What a NFL team does in the preseason isn’t necessarily a good indicator of what will happen in the regular season, but (more…)
There is no sport in North America that comes even remotely close in popularity to the NFL. Not even close. That means that there is far more relatively uninformed betting money bet on the NFL than in any other sport. The more public action there is on a football game, the more (more…)
There are teams in the NFL that the public loves more than the rest. They may have a lot of history, considerable success, or star players that draw the attention and capture the imagination of the public. Those are called public teams, and the public will blindly support them at pretty (more…)
During every NFL season we see several starting quarterbacks get hurt and miss games. Sometimes those players only miss a game or two, but it isn’t at all uncommon for a NFL starter to go down and miss the rest of the season – especially in the second half of the (more…)
Sportsbooks love the first week of the NFL season. Football bettors have been waiting for months and months for gridiron action, and they have full bankrolls to play with. That doesn’t lead them to making the best decisions – and sportsbooks love it when bettors make bad decisions. Because NFL bettors (more…)
By the middle of the summer most NFL bettors are impatient – desperate for some football action to satisfy the cravings. It can seem like it takes forever for the games to get here. You can drive yourself crazy with the waiting, or you can use the time to get ready (more…)
There is nothing that can drive an NFL football gambler crazy faster than a wildly inconsistent offense. One week they come out an pile up a pile of yards and score points almost at will. Next time out they seem to have forgotten everything they knew about football, and they are (more…)
At any time in the NFL there are just a small handful of quarterbacks who are megastars – guys who are consistently excellent and who attract a whole lot of attention from the betting public every time they hit the football field. These are the four to six players in the league (more…)
As the NFL season winds down every year there are always a few coaches that are all but certain to get fired once the football season ends. The media knows it, the fans know it, and the players definitely know it. These lame duck coaches have presided over a NFL season that (more…)
Sometimes good teams – teams expected to make it into the NFL playoffs – play truly awful opening games. Not only do they lose, but they lose badly, and they look really lousy doing it. When a team starts out that badly people can easily panic. If they had high hopes (more…)
Every year around October or November in the NFL we start to see football teams making quarterback changes. Sometimes they are forced to because of injuries. Sometimes they planned the change sooner or later because they drafted a young quarterback they were taking their time with. Sometimes they are forced into the (more…)
It can be very hard to judge how effectively a new NFL coach is going to be able to get his football team on track and playing like they are capable of – especially if the guy has never been a head coach before. Some football coaches are able to look like veterans (more…)
Every year in the NFL there are several football teams who, frustrated with their quarterbacking the year before, go a whole new way at quarterback. Whether they start a free agent, a young quarterback who has previously been warming their bench, or a rookie that they drafted they are starting over with (more…)
There are few things in the NFL that will get the football betting public more fired up than a long winning streak. In virtually every case, though, the winning streak has to eventually end. When that happens, NFL bettors face a challenge – to determine what happens next. Some teams will rebound (more…)
The top two football teams to qualify for the NFL playoffs in each conference don’t have to play in the wild card round. The question for NFL handicappers, then, is whether that bye week is a good thing for them or not. Some teams benefit greatly from the rest. They are able (more…)
Winning games in the NFL is hard. Winning a lot of football games in a row is really hard. It often doesn’t take long – just three or four games at the start of the season each year – until there are just a very small handful of unbeaten professional football teams remaining (more…)
In the 2011 NFL season, the San Francisco 49ers, in their first year under head coach Jim Harbaugh, were brilliant before Thanksgiving. They were 9-1 and had won eight football games in a row. The rest of the NFC West was beyond terrible. Seattle was next best at just 4-6, and Arizona (more…)
The week between the last preseason football game and the first regular season game of the NFL season is an exciting but challenging time for sports bettors. There is an overwhelming sense of excitement and anticipation as the season nears, and it can seem like it takes for ever for the first (more…)
It’s hard enough to handicap an NFL team that has made a big turnaround in their performance from one season to the next. That’s a breeze, though, compared to trying to handicap whether a football team that makes a big turnaround in the middle of the season is for real. I’m talking (more…)
It wasn’t that long ago that NFL season win totals were a relatively rare thing to see and bet on. They have become more and more popular with every passing year, though – both to the betting public and to astute bettors looking for long term value. As a result, some (more…)
It doesn’t necessarily happen every weekend in the NFL, but many times a year we’ll see a football team get out to a big halftime lead of at least two touchdowns and then collapse and throw it away in the second half. It’s almost as if they feel they have done their (more…)
The shootout has become an important part of regular season NHL hockey, yet a lot of bettors give shootout performance almost no consideration when they are handicapping a hockey game. Because a significant number of games wind up in the shootout, being able to effectively handicap teams in the shootout could (more…)
Suspensions are a common thing in the NHL, and they seem to be occurring more and more regularly as the league attempts to crack down on every questionable element of the game. For bettors suspensions can be challenging to deal with, and it can be very easy to make mistakes in (more…)
When an NHL team that came into the season with high hopes struggles out of the gate the sports betting public can quickly turn negative. The media will write about why the team isn’t winning like they should, and the public will often assume that the team is doomed. It makes (more…)
Every year sports bettors who focus on the NHL see a couple of teams that are widely expected to be really bad that start out the season on a hot streak. Not only does it seem like they can’t lose, but they are playing with far more skill and polish then they (more…)
The Stanley Cup playoffs, as avid sports bettors understand, are the most brutal postseason tournament in sports. It is incredibly difficult to come out on top. The highest ranked teams heading into the playoffs win their share of Cups. Every few years, though, there is a low seeded team that shocks the (more…)
As a sports bettor, you need to be aware that weather is a factor in the NHL playoffs. That seems like a ridiculous statement, but it’s true. Bettors who are aware of the potential for weather issues in a game, and who can adjust accordingly, can give themselves a much needed (more…)
Hockey handicappers know that win streaks are very common in the NHL. A team that gets on a roll can string together six or eight wins in a row without a problem. When a team gets hot it doesn’t take long for the public to take notice – especially if it is (more…)
The NHL season goes through some subtle but significant changes from a sports betting perspective once the all star break happens. The season changes after the break, and the most successful bettors are the ones that can recognize those changes and figure out how to best exploit them for profit. For (more…)
I love betting on hockey. More significantly, I love betting on the puckline in hockey. Hockey doesn’t get nearly as much betting attention as other sports, and the lines aren’t set by most books until the morning of the game, so it is not at all uncommon to find a line (more…)
If you are drawn to betting championship futures in major sports then you should really be looking at the NHL. Stanley Cup futures are as attractive as any other – and more attractive than most – when you are looking for profitable ways to invest your money. The reason for that (more…)
Sports bettors need to understand that the NHL playoffs are the most grueling postseason test in sports. For two months players play brutally intense games. The team that wins the Stanley Cup has unquestionably earned it. For bettors the Stanley Cup playoffs aren’t as grueling, but they can be intense, and (more…)
Experienced sports bettors understand that injuries are an unfortunate but inevitable part of the NHL. As the game gets faster, players get stronger, and teams get more cautious with their assets we are seeing more and more players – especially really valuable players -miss long periods of time. Whenever a NHL superstar (more…)
The NHL season is just days away. For sports bettors that means that this is as good a time as any to be thinking about which season long NHL futures bets we want to place. Who is going to win the Stanley Cup? Which teams will win their conferences or their (more…)
It can be very difficult for handicappers to determine how a NHL team is going to perform down the stretch in the regular season once they have their playoff spot sewn up. Some hockey teams never take their feet off the accelerator, looking to build as much momentum as they possibly can (more…)
There is one big reason why betting on the NHL preseason is a good thing – almost no one else is doing it. Because it isn’t popular the betting lines are very soft, and you can find very nice value if you know where to look for it. Most people are (more…)
Every year in the NHL around January or February sports bettors see the same thing – a serious playoff contender that started strong slipping into a midseason slump. Actually, it typically happens a few times most years. Sometimes they shake things off and get right back into form after the losses. Other (more…)
Several times each season in the NHL a team will start a goalie out of the minor leagues that is making his first NHL appearance – or at least one of his first. For bettors this provides a real challenge. The assumption is often that these goalies are going to struggle. (more…)
As veteran hockey handicappers know, job security is become more and more of a luxury for coaches in the NHL every year as the pressure to win increases and the patience of management and ownership declines. It used to be that a coach would be given a few years, and that (more…)
For sports bettors, January 1 used to be all about bowl games. A few years ago, though, the NHL made the bold decision to stake a claim on the day. The league isn’t the most successful or popular, but this big gamble has paid off handsomely. The Winter Classic, played each (more…)
In the first round of the 2011 NHL playoffs there were a couple of very interesting lessons to be learned by NHL handicappers who are committed to long term success. Washington faced the Rangers and they were dominant. They cruised through in five games and looked like they were settling in (more…)