AMERICA?S PA$TIME
Ask most successful sports handicappers, especially those who post on this site, and they will tell you that baseball is the best sport to bet on. In my opinion it?s not even close. There are a myriad of reasons, but here are some off the top of my head.
1) Books fear baseball. They generally only grab about a 1.5% take in baseball compared to around 8% in football (those are 1998 figures, but they are indicitive of most years).
2) There is tons of action. With fifteen games on most days, finding games with value is a much easier proposition than the 5 or 6 games on average in basketball or hockey or the once a week cards of football.
3) You are betting moneylines. That means that your goal and the team?s goal is the same.
4) Pitching. Studying pitching cycles for both starters and relievers is unique to baseball and can lead to finding some great value.
5) Righty/Lefty Matchups. Nowhere in any other sport is there anything similar to the righty/lefty matchups that can be handicapped in baseball. Finding certain lineups or bullpens that struggle against one or the other cane lead to some easy money.
6) The long season. If you drop 30% of your bankroll in a month, you know you have five more months to gradually make it back without having to worry about make up bets. If you jump out big, it is easy to take some time off if a losing streak sets in or even shut down your season with a month or so to go.
Quite frankly, every bettor should be betting baseball and most should make it their top handicapping priority. Of course, most people are bigger fans of the NFL, college football and college hoops, so those three sports will continue to get far more action (and be far greater moneymakers to books). Like my pappy always used to say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can?t make him drink.
For those of you willing to put in the long hours over the summer in handicapping the best money making sport, there are some basics that should be learned. Most recreational gamblers are pure point spread bettors, whether it be on sides or totals. While baseball?s totals betting is similar in that most lines hover around -110, betting sides is completely different. In baseball, you are basically choosing a winner.
Sounds simple, right? You just look at the card for the day, choose the teams that will win and lay your money down. You can do that of course, but as with any method of handicapping that requires minimal work, you probably will lose money that way. Baseball, largely because of the amount of action and the moneyline nature, is a game of value. Long term profit must be the goal.
The temptation for many baseball bettors is to bet a lot of favorites. There are varying schools of thought on this. I bet essentially all underdogs and last year I made a good amount of money doing so. Guys like kcwolf and barfly emply similar tactics. RAYMOND and fletcher bet almost exclusively favorites. They are both successful at them, but most favorite bettors are not successful. Why? Because the percentage needed for profit becomes too great when betting favorites.
To illustrate this point, here is a simple listing of the percentage of plays needed to make a profit by average moneyline bet. I want to point out that last baseball season I had a record of 145-165 (46.8%) for a +$3,946 profit with wagers ranging from $300 to $500 in most cases.
-110: 52.4%
-120: 54.5%
-130: 56.5%
-140: 58.3%
-150: 60.0%
-160: 61.5%
-170: 63.0%
Keep in mind that a 100 win baseball team is winning just 61.7% of their games.
Though it is true handicappers are only picking winners rather than point spreads, hitting in the upper 50?s or lower 60?s percentage wise is a difficult feat. That is why, for the average baseball bettor, they trudge along betting favorites and at the end of the season find their bankroll slowly drained by having to overcome these percentages.
Now, like I wrote above, there are some successful favorite bettors in baseball. My only point is that the *vast majortiy* of favorite bettors will lose money over the course of the season.
There is one topic that favorite bettors and I generally agree on, and that is playing with flat bets when betting favorites. For example, that means if your standard wager is $100, you put $100 to win $59 on a -170 favorite, not $170 to win $100.
By betting ?to risk? rather than ?to win? on favorites, you are basically reducing your risk, which is a key component of betting for any schooled gambler. When a gambler hits a cold streak, losing 8 of 10 or the like games in a short period of time is not uncommon. By keeping the risk amount flat, gamblers are able to keep from going broke when these cold streaks come. From a value standpoint it also makes sense because if you play ?to win?, games with higher chalk lines need to have greater balue than low chalk lines and that is generally not the case.
Another topic frequently discussed with betting favorites is betting parlays. It is quite tempting, really. You have two or three large chalk favorites, and instead of laying all that chalk, you simply parlay them and look at a betting ticket that more closely resembles the standard -110 bet.
There are many people who stand by betting parlays, but personally, I find them unappealing. The fact is that over the long haul, the play must still have value at whatever price you are betting it at, whether you put it in a parlay or not. To make money long term, that -200 on Randy Johnson must still hit at over 66.7%. Parlay betting is betting that looks short term rather than long term, and that is why it is usually not for me.
Now, most gamblers will bet parlays, especially baseball parlays. For those people, I offer the following advice: bet the games straight in addition to the parlays. If you have $200 to wager one night and you are looking at putting four teams into two $100 parlays, the better option is to make a straight $40 wager on each team and go ahead with smaller $20 parlays in addition. Your profit will be smaller if you happen to have a big night and hit all four, but over the long term you will find this strategy kind to your bankroll.
In addition to the mathematical reasons to bet parlayed teams straight, there is the psychological aspect. You know how frustrating it is to hit two out of three in a parlay and lose all the money you bet that day? Of course you do. Every gambler does. At least if you place straight bets on each team in the parlays you will have the satisfaction of cashing winning tickets on the games that do hit. The biggest pitfall facing most gamblers is dealing with the losing streaks that inevitiably come and betting straight generally softens that blow.
The importance of tracking your wagers with a spreadsheet comes into play in even greater effect in baseball. Because there are so many games and because you will probably have a higher number of baseball wagers compared to other sports, it is imperitive that you meticulously record your progress. This will allow you to look back at which teams your wins and losses come from as well as tracking your own cycles so you can better determine when to raise your stakes on a hot streak and lower them on a cold streak.
With all of that covered, it is time to look at the actual handicapping of games themselves. Because of the amount of action involved, handicapping cam become quite draining. On weekends or weekdays when there are afternoon games, handicappers may have action from 10 a.m. PST until 10 p.m. PST on the same 30 teams over and over again. Fatigue definitely can come into play with a schedule like that. To combat fatigue, I suggest setting a limit on the amount of time you spend handicapping each day. Everyone should feel out their own limits, but as an example, I find that two hours per day is usually a good number from a pure research standpoint. Then I generally try to catch as much as I can of the games that air from 4 to 10 at night on the west coast.
What do I do in those two hours? Well, it varies. I generally try to avoid looking at lines until I have at least handicapped each game on the surface. I find that looking at lines in advance of handicapping often results in finding false value and falling into bookmaker traps. I start by checking out the results of the last two outings for the starting pitchers and the work for the bullpen over the last three days. From there I look at the offensive production over the past ten games. That is basically it. I may check out a local news story or two to try to find some possible motivation for one team or another, but recent pitching and hitting production is what I take most seriously when handicapping games.
I hope that every handicapper that visits Mad Jack?s decides to give baseball betting a try. It really is the best sport to turn a profit at year after year. If you have any questions, email me or post questions in the message forum because there are plenty of solid baseball handicappers that are willing to help out novice handicappers.
Ask most successful sports handicappers, especially those who post on this site, and they will tell you that baseball is the best sport to bet on. In my opinion it?s not even close. There are a myriad of reasons, but here are some off the top of my head.
1) Books fear baseball. They generally only grab about a 1.5% take in baseball compared to around 8% in football (those are 1998 figures, but they are indicitive of most years).
2) There is tons of action. With fifteen games on most days, finding games with value is a much easier proposition than the 5 or 6 games on average in basketball or hockey or the once a week cards of football.
3) You are betting moneylines. That means that your goal and the team?s goal is the same.
4) Pitching. Studying pitching cycles for both starters and relievers is unique to baseball and can lead to finding some great value.
5) Righty/Lefty Matchups. Nowhere in any other sport is there anything similar to the righty/lefty matchups that can be handicapped in baseball. Finding certain lineups or bullpens that struggle against one or the other cane lead to some easy money.
6) The long season. If you drop 30% of your bankroll in a month, you know you have five more months to gradually make it back without having to worry about make up bets. If you jump out big, it is easy to take some time off if a losing streak sets in or even shut down your season with a month or so to go.
Quite frankly, every bettor should be betting baseball and most should make it their top handicapping priority. Of course, most people are bigger fans of the NFL, college football and college hoops, so those three sports will continue to get far more action (and be far greater moneymakers to books). Like my pappy always used to say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can?t make him drink.
For those of you willing to put in the long hours over the summer in handicapping the best money making sport, there are some basics that should be learned. Most recreational gamblers are pure point spread bettors, whether it be on sides or totals. While baseball?s totals betting is similar in that most lines hover around -110, betting sides is completely different. In baseball, you are basically choosing a winner.
Sounds simple, right? You just look at the card for the day, choose the teams that will win and lay your money down. You can do that of course, but as with any method of handicapping that requires minimal work, you probably will lose money that way. Baseball, largely because of the amount of action and the moneyline nature, is a game of value. Long term profit must be the goal.
The temptation for many baseball bettors is to bet a lot of favorites. There are varying schools of thought on this. I bet essentially all underdogs and last year I made a good amount of money doing so. Guys like kcwolf and barfly emply similar tactics. RAYMOND and fletcher bet almost exclusively favorites. They are both successful at them, but most favorite bettors are not successful. Why? Because the percentage needed for profit becomes too great when betting favorites.
To illustrate this point, here is a simple listing of the percentage of plays needed to make a profit by average moneyline bet. I want to point out that last baseball season I had a record of 145-165 (46.8%) for a +$3,946 profit with wagers ranging from $300 to $500 in most cases.
-110: 52.4%
-120: 54.5%
-130: 56.5%
-140: 58.3%
-150: 60.0%
-160: 61.5%
-170: 63.0%
Keep in mind that a 100 win baseball team is winning just 61.7% of their games.
Though it is true handicappers are only picking winners rather than point spreads, hitting in the upper 50?s or lower 60?s percentage wise is a difficult feat. That is why, for the average baseball bettor, they trudge along betting favorites and at the end of the season find their bankroll slowly drained by having to overcome these percentages.
Now, like I wrote above, there are some successful favorite bettors in baseball. My only point is that the *vast majortiy* of favorite bettors will lose money over the course of the season.
There is one topic that favorite bettors and I generally agree on, and that is playing with flat bets when betting favorites. For example, that means if your standard wager is $100, you put $100 to win $59 on a -170 favorite, not $170 to win $100.
By betting ?to risk? rather than ?to win? on favorites, you are basically reducing your risk, which is a key component of betting for any schooled gambler. When a gambler hits a cold streak, losing 8 of 10 or the like games in a short period of time is not uncommon. By keeping the risk amount flat, gamblers are able to keep from going broke when these cold streaks come. From a value standpoint it also makes sense because if you play ?to win?, games with higher chalk lines need to have greater balue than low chalk lines and that is generally not the case.
Another topic frequently discussed with betting favorites is betting parlays. It is quite tempting, really. You have two or three large chalk favorites, and instead of laying all that chalk, you simply parlay them and look at a betting ticket that more closely resembles the standard -110 bet.
There are many people who stand by betting parlays, but personally, I find them unappealing. The fact is that over the long haul, the play must still have value at whatever price you are betting it at, whether you put it in a parlay or not. To make money long term, that -200 on Randy Johnson must still hit at over 66.7%. Parlay betting is betting that looks short term rather than long term, and that is why it is usually not for me.
Now, most gamblers will bet parlays, especially baseball parlays. For those people, I offer the following advice: bet the games straight in addition to the parlays. If you have $200 to wager one night and you are looking at putting four teams into two $100 parlays, the better option is to make a straight $40 wager on each team and go ahead with smaller $20 parlays in addition. Your profit will be smaller if you happen to have a big night and hit all four, but over the long term you will find this strategy kind to your bankroll.
In addition to the mathematical reasons to bet parlayed teams straight, there is the psychological aspect. You know how frustrating it is to hit two out of three in a parlay and lose all the money you bet that day? Of course you do. Every gambler does. At least if you place straight bets on each team in the parlays you will have the satisfaction of cashing winning tickets on the games that do hit. The biggest pitfall facing most gamblers is dealing with the losing streaks that inevitiably come and betting straight generally softens that blow.
The importance of tracking your wagers with a spreadsheet comes into play in even greater effect in baseball. Because there are so many games and because you will probably have a higher number of baseball wagers compared to other sports, it is imperitive that you meticulously record your progress. This will allow you to look back at which teams your wins and losses come from as well as tracking your own cycles so you can better determine when to raise your stakes on a hot streak and lower them on a cold streak.
With all of that covered, it is time to look at the actual handicapping of games themselves. Because of the amount of action involved, handicapping cam become quite draining. On weekends or weekdays when there are afternoon games, handicappers may have action from 10 a.m. PST until 10 p.m. PST on the same 30 teams over and over again. Fatigue definitely can come into play with a schedule like that. To combat fatigue, I suggest setting a limit on the amount of time you spend handicapping each day. Everyone should feel out their own limits, but as an example, I find that two hours per day is usually a good number from a pure research standpoint. Then I generally try to catch as much as I can of the games that air from 4 to 10 at night on the west coast.
What do I do in those two hours? Well, it varies. I generally try to avoid looking at lines until I have at least handicapped each game on the surface. I find that looking at lines in advance of handicapping often results in finding false value and falling into bookmaker traps. I start by checking out the results of the last two outings for the starting pitchers and the work for the bullpen over the last three days. From there I look at the offensive production over the past ten games. That is basically it. I may check out a local news story or two to try to find some possible motivation for one team or another, but recent pitching and hitting production is what I take most seriously when handicapping games.
I hope that every handicapper that visits Mad Jack?s decides to give baseball betting a try. It really is the best sport to turn a profit at year after year. If you have any questions, email me or post questions in the message forum because there are plenty of solid baseball handicappers that are willing to help out novice handicappers.
