Football Betting Tips

Year in and year out, football fans eagerly anticipate the opening of the season for many reasons. Some are excited because they’ll get to lounge around and watch games from afternoon till night every Sunday, some can’t wait to sign up for a fantasy league where they’ll try to best their buddies, and others just want to put some hardcore cash on the line.

And it is often the last mentioned group that is most excited about the upcoming NFL and college football seasons as they are hoping that their team comes through for financial reasons. What’s interesting though is that a lot of these people put money on the games without employing any sort of strategy to their methods. And that can be a huge mistake since one can lose a lot of dough this way. So with this in mind, here are some tips that can help out a great deal when placing bets.

When a person jumps from career to career throughout their life, they are never able to establish themselves in any one thing. Likewise, when a person consistently jumps from bet to bet during a week of football, they are never able to establish themselves as a winning bettor over the long haul. 

That’s why it’s best for people to focus on two or three bets throughout the week before they make any sort of decision. Avoid jumping on just any line that looks attractive and instead look to research a handful of games so that you can make quality wagers.

Pay Attention to Bet Timing

Handicappers have a job to do and that’s to equal out the betting action each week. So it’s just a fact that some lines will change and so bettors will need to be ready for this and be waiting to pounce on the line or two that may be skewed dramatically towards one side. If an early week line is available that looks extremely favorable make sure to get in on it before the handicappers start shifting the line the other way.

But be careful of doing this for two reasons. One is because of the aforementioned suggestion to not get too betting happy and the other is that a major injury or other team detriment could occur later in the week.

Find More Obscure Information

Everyone who does a little research into a football game is going to look at the most obvious stuff like injuries, starters being changed, and a team’s defensive stats. So it’s really hard to get a leg up on anyone by looking at these kinds of things (though they definitely shouldn’t be ignored).

However, if a person is truly going to gain an advantage on other bettors, they are going to have to do it by examining other things that may be overlooked by the average person. For example, try to look for something like how a certain running back is really good at exposing a defense that runs the 5-2 quite often or how a wide receiver has never caught more than three balls on a certain cornerback. Things like this might seem a little out of the way but if one does their research, this stuff could pay big dividends.

Always do Your Own Research

Now that we’re fully immersed in an age where just about anyone is capable of owning and operating a computer, the easiest route to picking winners is by paying for one of these fancy computer programs that promises to pick winners by measuring a slew of factors that go right down to the predicted speed of wind on game day.

Alright, maybe they don’t promise to do this but the point is that people believe in these things and are willing to shell out big bucks to use the services of these programs. And there’s certainly no problem with doing this except for one thing – football is not played by robots!

Football is very much a human sport where players are constantly making mistakes, coaches are making moves, and the crowd is doing their best to keep the home team fired up. That being said, it may not be the wisest move in the world to trust bets of $100, a Grand, or $10,000 to a program made by people claiming to pick winners. Make sure to do your own research into the games.

Manage a Bankroll like a Bank Account

It wouldn’t be smart to buy a million dollar home in the hills on a cashier’s salary even if one found an idiot to give them this loan. And it wouldn’t be wise to be making huge bets on games when one doesn’t have the kind of bankroll to do this as there is no such thing as a sure bet.

The best thing to do is keep wagers tight – preferably never spending anymore than 4 or 5% of one’s bankroll on a single game. And if a person happens to have a bad week and lose most of their bets, they should never try to make up for it by laying big bets on their next games as this only sets one up for failure. A good rule is that a previously lost wager should not play any sort of factor on the ensuing bet.