With Christmas approaching real fast, online football betting enthusiast couldn’t be any happier because the festive season comes with tons of money-minting opportunities. The NCAA basketball lines will be on fire, and so will the NBA betting odds. And if basketball is not your cup of tea, then you can tap in your juice from the overflowing NCAA Football bowl betting lines, or better yet jump on NFL odds and ride all the way bank.
Pertinent Rules of Football Betting
Sounds easy, right? Not so fast, my dear friends. Without observing the pertinent chef rules detailed below, your football betting goose will be cooked to nothingness.
Research.., and then Research Again!
Contrary to popular opinion, oddsmakers and sportsbetting houses usually employ analysts and mathematicians to create and uncover odds. As a bettor, it is therefore highly advisable that you do extensive research before you purchase your betting tickets. Some of the key areas to consider in your research include: coaching matchups, injuries, home field advantage, past trends, motivation levels and weather, among other essentials. The better your research, the more likely you are to base your bets on surer odds, hence encouraging your likelihood of becoming a betting winner.
Set a Ceiling on What You Can Afford to Lose
The old betting adage of Never ever bet more than you can afford to lose comes to mind when I think of this cardinal rule. Given the highly addictive nature of football betting, the basics of safe betting advise that you should put a cap on your football betting budgeting to avoid overspending beyond your means. This way, if you win, you all you need to do is celebrate, but if you lose, you also don’t have a reason to sell your house or dig yourself out of a pit of debts. In this regard, never bet more than 10% of your bankroll on a particular pick, however good the good the so-called experts say the pick is a lock. In this business, there are no foolproof winners; EVERYONE is beatable, and sooner rather than later, most winning streaks come to an end. By having good money management, you are assured of having some money for future bets, rather than banking all your hopes on one team that could leave you in utter disarray if things don’t go your way.
Be on the Lookout for the Best Lines
To all you new football bettors, please not this point carefully; just because Las Vegas has placed a team, let’s say the Green Bay Packers as 10-point favorites over the Dallas Cowboys, doesn’t mean they believe the Packers will win by 10-or-more points. Football betting lines are merely a representation of what Oddsmakers and sportsbooks consider as public perceptions, including what betting suckers will easily believe on face value. This, essentially, is the reason why certain football teams with big fan bases are often overvalued in the betting lines even when they aren’t playing that well. This is where the rule of doing adequate research comes in very handy, as it often allows you to shop for the best lines that can crucially change your fate from being a loser to a winner.
Another fundamental note here is that online football betting lines come in a variety of forms, including:
Point spread bets for whole game and on the halftime scores.
Money-line bets on teams to win “straight up” commonly abbreviated as SU. When point spreads are involved, we talk about “against the spread” a.k.a ATS.
OVER/UNDER bets that deal with the total points scored by the two teams, including those games that have the potential of going overtime.
Parlays, Teasers, and Future Picks are also available, often combining any number of the above-mentioned lines.
Like indulging in alcohol, choose your poison carefully, preferably something you can handle well without being dizzied by the unfamiliarity into oblivion.
Bet on Teams/Leagues You Follow Closely
In close relationship to the point given above, you should ensure that you bet on football teams/divisions/conference you know. If you watch the SEC religiously and you know it better than your girlfriend’s hobbies, stick to it, rather than trying to get lucky in the Sun Belt conference, a place you don’t even know the reigning conference champion. The worst bets are those ones placed based on betting tips from bookies that convince you to place your money on some football division or league you don’t even follow. By knowing a team, like I know the Oregon Ducks, then you are able to make savvy and informed betting decisions because you are well aware about the team’s key issues like players, managers, injuries and transfers.
Bet with Your Brain, Not Your Heart
Typically, all sportsbetting aficionados have teams they love or prefer, whether it is because of past betting success with them, or for rudimentary reasons such as you grew up supporting that team, you love their uniform, or you love how their cheerleaders dance. And as is human nature, we often find ourselves (me included) favoring and betting on such teams even in cases that don’t warrant our trust on them, which many a times can be disastrous to your pockets. The Oddsmakers pry on it, sports books trap you with well-tailored free picks on such teams, and being the fishy bettors we are; we often swallow their baits hook-line-and-sinker. As a cardinal rule, therefore, train yourself to be in control of your emotions when betting. If not, refrain from betting on a team that you love altogether, and focus on the ones that you’ll bet on impartially.
