The Basics of Betting on Football
The first news of legalized sports betting broke in May but the fact that the first day of the meaningful football season is upon us means that it’s finally real. It’s great to be here with you at RotoGrinders at this glorious time in sports history!
My name is Corey March and I’m a contributor from Sports Info Solutions, the main football data provider for all our hard-working friends at RG. We collect the most detailed football data in the world with a charting process that’s been perfected over the last two decades.
But less about us and more about you – this year, in addition to the data you’ll find in the tools here at RG and our DFS Projections (NFL-IQ), we’re going to be providing content to make you a more knowledgeable football fan.
Learn more about the SIS Bonus Pack here. Trust me it’s going to be good!
Now I’m going to talk about some betting principles to get the season started on the right foot (not to be confused with the left).
Reverse Line Movement
This is when the spread moves against the team that is receiving the majority of public backing.
For example, Marshall begins the season at Miami (OH) on Saturday and the spread opened at M-OH -1.5. Despite a higher percentage of the bets placed on M-OH, 87% of the total dollars are in support of Marshall, causing Vegas to move the Thundering Herd into the driver’s seat as -2.5 favorites.
If you look close enough at the right resources, you can sometimes tell where the professional bettors (aka “sharps”) are placing their money.
Crossing over key numbers
Due to the point increments of scoring plays in football, certain margins are more common than others. Almost 25% of NFL games are decided by three or seven points, which is a good cause for spreads in Vegas to hover around these numbers.
When you see a spread cross over one of these key numbers, that’s a good indication that there are some strong forces at play.
Be wary of the public
Everyone starts out with a public bettor’s mentality. It’s a tough habit to break but one that’s key to success. The fact is that sportsbooks stay in business thanks to the public being consistently bad at betting. If the public is heavily backing a team, it’s a good idea to be skeptical (especially is the line hasn’t moved or there’s reverse line movement)
Rule #1 – if the line looks too good to be true then it almost certainly is.
Focus on actionable data points
As long as sports fans overanalyze every matchup, you can count on Geico saving folks money. That’s where Sports Info Solutions comes in!
With 22 players moving around the field on every play, how do we know what data is predictive? SIS has every missed block, route run, broken tackle and coverage scheme accounted for in our database to help us determine these things as objectively as possible.
Sign up for the SIS Bonus Pack in the RotoGrinders Marketplace for data-driven picks seen through the lens of experienced bettors.
If you subscribe to the full season of NFL-IQ and the SIS Bonus Pack, you’ll also get a free one-month subscription to the SIS NFL DataHub which will allow you to dig into our data first-hand ($99 value).
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