The Final Four is almost like an entirely new tournament within the NCAA Tournament. The college basketball teams that get there are immensely talented, and they have had the ideal combination of skill, form, and luck to overcome their obstacles and win four high pressure games. For college basketball handicappers, some (more…)
Sports Betting Section
MADDUX'S WINNING PICKS
MADDUX'S LIVE ODDS
SITE FEATURES
Author: Maddux Sports
There are few things I like more in sports than sitting down in the evening of the Sunday before the NCAA Tournament to see the bracket as it is introduced. Selection Sunday is all about seeing where your college basketball team winds up, which teams get a good draw, which teams (more…)
There is nothing more fun to watch in the NCAA tournament than a Cinderella team – a squad that far exceeds the expectations based on their background and their seeding. For bettors these teams can be fun for another reason – they can be extremely profitable. Teams that make surprising tournament (more…)
In recent years we have seen the NCAA Tournament expand from 64 basketball teams to 65, and now to 68. There was talk when it went to 68 that it might go to 96, but thankfully that terrible idea was avoided. With the expansion of the tournament we are now faced (more…)
The NCAA Tournament is tough to handicap for all sorts of reasons. One of the biggest of those reasons is that college basketball teams have such different experiences in the regular season that it can be hard to really get a sense of how they stack up against each other. A team (more…)
Statistical analysis in sports is getting more and more powerful all the time. Sports handicappers who are aware of the stats that are available and how they can be helpful in the handicapping process have a clear and obvious edge over others. Baseball stats guru Bill James is one of the (more…)
Anyone who is a serious bettor of any pro sport in North America knows that at some point each year you have to make the transition from the regular season to the playoffs. In a lot of ways betting on the postseason in any sport is the same as the regular (more…)
Successful sports betting is all about handling transitions well when handicapping. You regularly have to make transitions between different sports, types of bets, or phases of the season. The preseason is different than the early part of the regular season, and the stretch drive of the season is different than the (more…)
People who are trying to become better sports bettors will hear time and again that as handicappers they have to have a long term view. There is nothing that is more true than that. Once you have a sports handicapping approach that works you can’t worry about what happens in any given (more…)
In sports betting on the NHL and NBA playoffs quirks of scheduling and series that run long means that teams can have short layoffs between one series and the next. They could endure a grueling seven game series only to have to start the next with just a day of rest. (more…)
There are many different ways for sports handicappers to bet on a game, and some will work better for you than others. The two most popular are betting on a side and betting on totals. Lots of bettors successfully play both kinds of bets, but there is almost certainly one type (more…)
Twitter, which is getting more and more popular every day, can be useful as a sports handicapping tool. It used to be that it was just a fringe website used by gossips. Now everyone is on it, and there is an incredible amount of valuable information out there. For handicappers it can (more…)
Every major professional betting sport in the country has a substantial playoff. Each sport’s playoff is obviously unique, but regardless of which sport it is there is some common factors that indicate likely success or failure for teams. Here are five bad signs that will tell sports handicappers if teams heading into (more…)
As expert sports handicappers know, there are few things as hard for teams in the NHL or NBA than winning a seven game series. The intensity of the sports increases almost exponentially once the playoff begins, and every win comes at a big cost. For fans there is nothing better than (more…)
Power ratings – a term that every sports handicapper has heard, and every successful handicapper understands. A lot of winning bettors use power ratings as the basis of their handicapping approach. Even those who don’t formally use a power rating often employ the underlying principles behind power ratings that make them effective. (more…)
When handicapping games, sports bettors need to spend a lot of time looking at the stats, the matchups, the star players, and so on. What often doesn’t get as much attention, though, is the coaching matchup. Quite often the coaches aren’t particularly relevant because they are fairly evenly matched, or they (more…)
Good sports handicappers know that getting an insight into how a game is likely to turn out requires a careful analysis of statistics that matter. Figuring out which of the statistics actually matter is a big issue, but one that we won’t deal with here. What I do want to look (more…)
If you read or talk about sports betting at all then one of the words you hear all the time is ‘edge’. People will tell you that sports betting is all about finding an edge, that they know that they have a big edge, and so on. It’s a very important (more…)
If you have spent any time at all in the sports betting world then you have inevitably heard about locks – expert sports picks that absolutely can’t lose. We’ll go into more detail, but if there is one thing every sports handicappers needs to take from this article it’s this:
There is no such (more…)
One of the many tough things to deal with when handicapping the NHL or NBA playoffs is a team that wins their seven game series in just four or five games. Teams that win that quickly are all but certain to have a long break between the end of one series (more…)
One of the things that both players and bettors learn is that you shouldn’t spend time looking ahead to games further up the schedule. The most important game is the next one you are playing, and if you forget that you can make costly mistakes. There are times, though, that it (more…)
Without question, the single most valuable part of my handicapping process – regardless of what sport I am handicapping – is when I make my own lines. Before I look at the lines that the sports books are offering I determine what I think a fair number would be. I don’t (more…)
If there is one trait shared by almost all losing sports bettors – other than the fact that they lose more bets than they win, of course – it’s that they make too many assumptions. At the heart of it all, sports betting is about looking at facts, comparing those facts, (more…)
Spring is the time when we clean our house, our yards, and our offices, so it only makes sense that we do a little spring cleaning on our handicapping as well. Spring is a good time for most bettors to do it as well – hockey and basketball are winding down, (more…)
Football season is just over the horizon. For most sports bettors that means that the serious betting action is about to get underway. There are few things on this planet better than betting on football. If you have the bankroll to do it properly and you manage that bankroll well that (more…)
It’s almost the start of the football season. Finally. That means that for most sports bettors in North America their bankroll is going to come under more strain from now until Christmas than it does at any other time in the year. When you are making more bets than at any time of (more…)
One of the biggest challenges sports bettors face when it comes to money management is determining the appropriate bet size. Some handicappers are of the opinion that there is a right answer to the question. I just don’t buy that. I think that the right bet size is determined by a lot of (more…)
This is the best time of the year to be a sports fan, but it can be a tough time for sports bettors. There is just so much going on for bettors – NFL and college football are in full swing, the baseball playoffs are underway, the NHL is about to drop (more…)
Money management is a constant struggle for a lot of sports bettors. It can be very hard for bettors to have the discipline required to manage their money effectively. It can also be very tough to determine how much you should be betting on games – especially if you don’t use a (more…)
The fall is a very exciting time for sports bettors who like to bet on many different sports. It can also be a very challenging one. Through the summer there is really just one North American sport to bet on – baseball. Baseball betting is challenging, but it also has a (more…)
Football is a unique sport to bet on in North America because there is so much time between games. In baseball the line for a game only comes out the night before the game is played, so you really only have a few hours in which to handicap the game and (more…)
Finding the right balance in sports betting can be very difficult. You have to be aggressive enough to make sure you are making the most of the opportunities that are available, but if you are too aggressive then you’ll find yourself in a big financial hole. Earlier we looked at signs (more…)
Some sports bettors I know like to watch every game that they bet on – or at least as many as they possibly can. Not me. I make a point of not watching any game on which I bet, and by extension I don’t bet on games that I plan to watch. (more…)
There are two things you can be reasonably sure of when it comes to sports bettors – most bettors are long term losers, and most of them will tell you that they are long term winners. The more you talk to bettors, the more you see that there are a few (more…)
Sports bettors spend a lot of time thinking about losing streaks – how to avoid them, how to end them as soon as you can when they happen, and how to make sure they don’t destroy your bankroll. Just as important, though, is how to handle winning streaks. Most bettors don’t (more…)
One of the hardest things to get a sense of in sports betting is is when you need to stick with what you are doing even when it isn’t working, and when you need to make a change. No matter how good you are you are inevitably going to go through (more…)
For sports bettors the summer is definitely the quiet period. There is still lots to bet on – baseball, golf, tennis, car racing, and so on – but with football, basketball and hockey all on hiatus the big sports aren’t there for a lot of bettors. Many of those bettors will (more…)
Whenever I meet another sports bettor I am always curious to ask them how much time they spend talking to other sports bettors about picks. There seems to be two different schools of thought about this. Some people like to handicap in virtual isolation and like to keep their picks and (more…)
Sports betting is pretty much the most fun, challenging and rewarding way there is to spend time. If you aren’t cut out to be a sports bettor, though, it can be a very frustrating and expensive way to watch sports. I truly believe that anyone can be a successful sports bettor (more…)
Sports betting is full of traps for the casual bettor. Sportsbooks are in the business of making money, so they have to find as many ways as they can to siphon the money out of unprotected wallets. Smart bettors – or those who aspire to be – can recognize some of (more…)
If you were to talk to most successful sports handicappers you would find that, in one form or another, they set goals, and those goals help drive them to success. They might not formally do so, but they have an idea of where they are and where they want to be. (more…)
Aggressiveness is a tough thing to balance for sports bettors. If you are too aggressive then you are going to see your bankroll disappear sooner or later. If you are too passive, though, then you are costing yourself money because you aren’t getting everything that you have earned based on the (more…)
Sooner or later every sports bettor endures a losing streak. If they say they don’t they are either lying to you or they don’t actually bet. That’s the bad news. The good news is that every bettor – unless they are hopelessly incompetent – will also eventually enjoy a winning streak. (more…)
A debate you will always hear when it comes to sports betting is what the ideal number of bets to make is. Should you look to make a large number of bets each week, or should you instead concentrate on a few games that are the highest quality and give you (more…)
Happy New Year sports bettors! With the end of the year the time has come to make your resolutions – the ways you promise to change your life in the coming year. If you are like most sports bettors then you probably thinks about sports all of the time. It only (more…)
Tell me if this sounds familiar – you make a sports bet, watch the game or check the score, celebrate a bit if you win or curse if you lose, then just forget about the bet. For most people that’s how it goes – you can’t spend much time looking at the (more…)
When the calendar turns to December each year the holiday season starts, and that means that our lives seem to get busier and more chaotic – mostly in a good way. For sports bettors December is a good time of year, with the NFL getting into the tense last weeks of (more…)
Even the most successful sports bettors in the world develop bad habits, and those bad habits have an impact on their bottom line. The difference between them and the large majority of bettors, though, is that they are aware of what those habits are, they are on the lookout for them, (more…)
Astute college basketball bettors know that they can gain a big edge over the general public by paying attention to the first couple of weeks of college basketball practice in October. Midnight Madness draws some attention in some schools, but after that most bettors are too distracted by the NFL, college (more…)
Non-conference college basketball is great for one big reason – it means we are closer to conference play and tournament season, and both of those are brilliant. Betting on the non-conference season can be fruitful for bettors. If those sports bettors aren’t careful, though, the non-conference schedule is littered with traps (more…)
At the end of every college basketball regular season each conference crowns a champion. For some teams those regular season titles are extremely important and highly motivating. For others, though, it is not a particularly significant motivating factor. Bettors who are able to tell the difference between teams that will elevate (more…)
Near the end of the college basketball regular season in hundreds of gyms across the country one of the great traditions in all of sports happens – Seniors’ Night. After a college player has played four or five years with a program and given their heart and soul to it Seniors’ (more…)
At the start of the college basketball season many teams choose to play an exhibition game or two in an attempt to get ready for their season. These are typically against hopelessly outmatched opponents – often from as low as Division III. If elite teams do play Division I-A opponents then (more…)
When the college basketball calendar shifts from non-conference play into the conference schedule successful bettors are always on the lookout for teams that could perform in a way that could surprise unprepared bettors. That means that they are looking for basketball teams that are poised to be either notably better or (more…)
The schedule for college basketball teams is typically straight forward. Teams start out by playing non-conference games and maybe throw in a preseason tournament. Around Christmas time the non-conference schedule ends and college basketball teams head into conference play right up to conference tournament time in late February or early March. Every (more…)
In a perfect world every college basketball team would quietly but steadily improve throughout the season, and would be ready to perform at their peak by the middle of March. Of course, things rarely work out that smoothly. Quite often a team will start to slide just when they could be (more…)
The profile of the Big Ten – ACC Challenge seems to grow each year. It’s an event that is purely made for TV, but with passing time there have been some college basketball rivalries built up, and teams and coaches seem to be more and more invested in winning the challenge (more…)
There are some good arguments that can be made for betting on college basketball in November – the first month of the season. There are some good arguments to be made for not betting on the sport at that time as well. So, that’s we’re going to do – we’ll make (more…)
There are good reasons to bet on college basketball in the first month of the season in November, and good reasons not to bet on it then. In another article we looked at five reasons why you would want to bet on these games. Here I want to look at the (more…)
College basketball is a great game to bet on. There are an incredible number of games to choose from, information is plentiful and easy to find, and lines – particularly early in the season – are considerably softer than in major pro sports. College basketball doesn’t get nearly as much attention (more…)
Early in the college basketball season a lot of bettors won’t be familiar with what to expect from most teams because they haven’t seen them play or read much about them. That means that many of those sports bettors will rely heavily on the preseason and early season rankings to judge (more…)
A lot of college basketball handicappers tend to think of home court advantage as being relatively static – it will be basically be the same from game to game in the same building. That’s not always the case. There are several different circumstances in which even the most supportive and vocal (more…)
Every college basketball season we see a couple of top five teams get absolutely crushed in a game. I’m not talking about losing games they should have won, or getting beaten by a few points. I’m talking about an epic beatdown – a 20 or 30 point margin in a game (more…)
In February of 2012 in college basketball the New Mexico Lobos were red hot and were quickly becoming regarded as one of the mid-majors that could make some real noise in the NCAA tournament. They had won seven in a row capped by consecutive decisive wins over fellow Mountain West powers (more…)
For many college basketball bettors – especially the more casual ones – the big preseason tournaments mark the first time that they pay attention to the sport. Preseason tournaments like the Maui Invitational or the Old Spice Classic can offer big name showdowns early in the season when most other games (more…)
Most college basketball bettors probably know that there is good value to be had in betting on the mid-major conferences. Most bettors probably don’t spend nearly as much time betting on those conferences as they do on the big ones, though. It makes sense – there are a huge number of (more…)
It’s the start of the college football bowl season, but a lot of games will be played before the big ones – the BCS games – get underway. In a lot of ways the BCS games are just like every other bowl game. Those five games are unique in some keys (more…)
As far as I am concerned February is the most interesting time to bet on college football’s BCS futures. The lines are still fresh enough that there can be mistakes and opportunities because the public hasn’t heavily bet on them yet. On the other hand, though, enough change has happened that (more…)
The stadium isn’t even empty after the BCS Championship game each year before the future odds for the next BCS Championship are posted at many sportsbooks. There really aren’t a lot of reasons you would want to tie your money up a full year by making one of these bets when (more…)
The tail end of the college bowl season creates a strange scheduling situation. There are five BCS bowl games. The first four bowls – the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar – Are lumped together and played over a few days. The last game – the BCS National Championship game – exists (more…)
There is no bigger single factor in handicapping college bowl games than motivation. That sounds like a bold statement, but it is absolutely true. The usual suspects are important – matchups, the caliber of the coaching, the talent levels, the schemes and so on – but none are as important as (more…)
When it comes to handicapping college football bowl games conference strength can either be a big help or a very misleading factor depending on the circumstances. Later in bowl season chances are pretty good that for each team playing in a game there will be have been several other teams from (more…)
There are at least two weeks between the last significant college football games of the regular season and the first bowl games. Time to think is often the enemy of handicappers – the more time they have, the more they will think about things that could be significant, and the better (more…)
We looked earlier at overrated factors in bowl handicapping – things the public just gives too much credit to. These include things like the past record of football coaches in bowls, the team’s record in bowl games, past meetings between teams, and lingering injuries. Since we looked on that side it (more…)
We’re in a dead zone in college football – the two week gap between the conference championship games and the first bowl games. There’s an even longer gap between the conference championships and bowl games that most people care about. There is lots of other sporting action to occupy your betting (more…)
Critics of the bowl system in college football would argue that there are too many bowl games. I don’t agree – the more the merrier in my mind. There’s no doubt, though, that there are some bowl games that just aren’t embraced by the community they are played in or the (more…)
Turnover in the coaching ranks in college football is a frequent fact of life. With so many schools looking for a better answer every year it is inevitable that several coaches that are hired are in their first year as a head coach. Many of those college coaches will struggle, but (more…)
As bowl season nears college football handicappers are faced with a decision – should they bet on all of the small bowl games that come along, or should they hold out for the bigger games with the big name teams? I’m a bowl junkie, so there has never been a bowl (more…)
The day after the league championship games end in early December is a big day for college football bettors. That’s the day in which the bowl assignments are all announced and we know for sure which teams will be playing where. That’s also the first day that odds will be posted (more…)
My favorite part of the sports calendar – the college bowl season – will be underway before we know it. It’s popular these days to bash bowls and support a football playoff. I’m not entirely opposed to a playoff, but only as long as the bizarre and pleasingly awkward spectacle that (more…)
The BCS bowls get more attention from the media and the betting public every year than the other bowls combined, even though there are only five BCS bowls and almost 30 other bowls. The betting public is understandably drawn to these games far more than the rest, as well. Whenever there (more…)
In a lot of ways college basketball and the NBA are the same thing – they are both basketball, the basic rules are the same, and most of the players in the NBA come form college. From a betting perspective, though, the difference between the two types of basketball are massive. (more…)
Casual sports bettors will often make the mistake of thinking that betting on basketball is betting on basketball – regardless of whether it is college basketball or the NBA. After all, in both sports you have to put a ball through a net after dribbling it on some hardwood. Those with (more…)
A lot of basketball bettors are attracted to NBA player props – the ability to bet on the individual statistics of key players in games, or how they will match up against other stars. Those bets aren’t always a good idea, but if you are selective in the spots you pick (more…)
I’m not a hardcore stats geek. I find Sabermetrics and the like interesting, but I don’t devote my life to it. That being said, there is one statistic that absolutely drives me out of my mind – rebound margin. That’s one of the stats that is very frequently talked about when (more…)
Betting basketball games at halftime is an intriguing and increasingly popular way to get some action. If you aren’t familiar with halftime betting the name pretty much tells you everything you need to know – sportsbooks set a new line and total for the second half of games at halftime. The (more…)
When you are handicapping football – whether college or the NBA – key numbers are an important concept to understand. A quick refresher if the details are murky: In football games there are some numbers that are a more frequent gap between the points the winner scores in a game and (more…)
Each year it seems like sportsbooks offer more and more opportunities for bettors to bet on year-end awards in different sports before the seasons start. It used to be that you could just bet on the high profile ones like the NFL MVP, the Cy Young, and the Heisman. Now the (more…)
Future bets – a bet on whether a team is going to win a league or event that is usually going to be held well in the future – are something that books absolutely love to post and take action on. There’s a pretty simple reason for that – they are (more…)
A lot of bettors – most, I would even say – don’t like betting heavy underdogs on the moneyline. They equate the large potential payouts with a high amount of risk and a low chance of paying off, and they look elsewhere – often with the heavy favorites. In many cases (more…)
Late January and February is all-star season. Over the course of three weeks three of the four major league have their all-star festivities. in 2011 the NHL and NFL even chose to have their games on the same day. When each league has their all-star game there are no other games (more…)
One of the so-called laws of sports betting that I hear all of the time is that you shouldn’t bet on teams that you are emotionally invested in. If you care then you can’t be objective, and if you aren’t objective then you are making bad decisions – or at least (more…)
When you first start out in sports betting you might get the idea that the spread for a football game is fixed – it’s set at the beginning of the week and that’s where it stays. That’s certainly how the mainstream media talks about it on the rare occasions they acknowledge (more…)
Correlated parlays are a dream concept for sports bettors – in some cases they have a positive long term expectation. In other words, if you bet these bets time and time and time again then you would make a guaranteed profit. they are like a guaranteed cash machine. Of course, virtually (more…)
We are currently in the early days of the NHL season, and in just a couple of weeks the NBA season will be underway. College basketball starts up in a while, too. It’s always exciting when a sport you love to bet on gets underway again after a long break. The (more…)
Betting games at halftime is one of the most under-appreciated and under-bet options available to sports bettors. Just think about it – before you have to make a bet on a team you get to watch them play half of the game. What happens in the first half isn’t necessarily an (more…)
Sports betting is one of the most popular sorts of gambling throughout the world because of all the different sports that can be bet on. There are different types of bets that can be made and it can seem very overwhelming for the first time sports bettor. However, I will outline (more…)
Angles are a big part of betting. Some people use angles a whole lot, and others don’t use them at all. Like most things in sports betting they can be very useful and profitable – but only if you use them profitably and responsibly.
The obvious starting point is to look at (more…)
Bettors who are interested in betting systems need to become effective at back testing. Simply, back testing is looking back to see how your system or angle would have performed against past games. By looking back at how it would have performed you can get a sense of whether it is (more…)
A lot of bettors like to use angles in their betting. An angle is simply a trend that has occurred in the past with enough frequency to be profitable that you use as a guide to find bets in the future. Angles can be found in every sport you can bet (more…)
