Sports betting is a very popular practice, and quite a huge number of people have made a living off of betting on sports. Even if you never get involved in betting yourself, you can still get in on the excitement of sports betting by making a few picks of your own. However, it’s important to understand the different types of bets, the odds, and the payouts of each bet before you can hope to make a profit. In this how-to guide, you’ll learn how to bet on baseball, basketball, football, and baseball totals.
Basketball Totals: Realize that the totals you see are maximums, meaning the most possible points that can be scored in the game. These are usually 24 points per side, but some sportsbooks will letter them 24 per side. For instance, the NBA has a regular season NBA total of 41.5 points per side, and the first game of the NBA Finals is typically 48 points. The first official play of the game is the halfcourt line of 6 points. The halfcourt line is the number of points the spread is structured to be. For instance, the line may read “Atlanta Trades vary – 6 ½ points to Cleveland”. This means that the Cavs are the favorites, and the Hawks are the underdogs.
Basketball Totals is a bet on the money line, ½ for the favorite and 2 ½ points for the underdog. The favorite normally has a lower money line, assuming they have the stronger team. Let’s say the Boston Celtics are favored to win the NBA champions’ championship and the New York Knicks are the best underdog. On the money line, the Celtics are the favored night and day. Quarterback Celtics are the favorite 13 to 5 over the Knicks, a considerable underestimate. The money line will tell you how much you have to bet to win $100 on the Celtics. Conversely, the Knicks are the favorite the least. Pennypickel, on the other hand, is the underdog. The underdog is the favorite by 12 points. Big Ben is the favorite 12 1/2 points over the Los Angeles Lakers while Isiah Thomas is the favorite 6 to 1.
- Football: -110, -200, -300, -500, -750, -1000
- Basketball: +150, +300, +500, +750, +1000
- Baseball: -120, -200, -300, -500, -750, -1000
- Baseball Totals: -150, +200, +300, +500, +750, +1000
- Football: +100, +150, +300, +500, +750, +1000
- NFL: -13, +14, +14, +14, +14, +14, +14
- MLB: +66, +100, +150, +200, +300, +500, +1000
Handicapping the NCAA Tourney: Beware of Inexperienced HandicappersStevie Wonderboy and The Shooting Quarter. Wonderboy has been known to have an uncanny knack for picking the winners, but in the last couple years he’s seemed to have lost a step. Meanwhile, The Shooting Quarter has beendeadly accurate.
Superficial Assessing:
Sandy Monitor and The Hammer were both very successful in picking the winners in the NCAA tournament as well as insiders point several of the more successful handicappers to be in the mold of Mike Lee or John Kelly.
John Kelly spent several years as a math and statistics teacher at the University of Oregon, and someAUDIANTImtiologists believe he has an even stronger ability for reading the game than most authorities credit.
Stevie Wonderboy has produced a series of YouTube Videos on Baseball Betting strategies, and they’re both extremely popular among baseball bettors looking to analyze how he keeps winning so often. You’ll actually see Wonderboy admit that he’s not entirely certain what his system is, but he’s quite clear that he thinks it works.
ANDREWS ULIERI is another big baseball handicapper who is prominent in the Las Vegas area. He declined to participate in our interview, so we actually approached him through email rather than the phone. We wanted to ask him about his origins, but he said he didn’t want to discuss ” Arbor Day / Seen and Heard” betting, a topic for another article.
He’s very much into bank building, however. According to someone who knows him well, he says this about playing the lottery: “If you’re serious about winning, you should do the research and spend a lot of time making a plan for success.”
One more point about ULIERI: he’s very much into customer service, according to the email exchange we had with him, and in the afapoker world, that usually means servers come and go.