Over/Under and Totals Strategy

 

 

We want to present to you all the possibilities that sports betting offers. From dozens of strategy articles to links to well-established sharps to insights on what it takes to be a successful punter at any major sport, we want to give you the tools to succeed. The most important tool you can have, as a sharp yourself, is watching a sports game in a different way than the typical fan or hooligan. While your friends and family cheer their team on, happy when they win, sad when they lose, praising the referee for partisan decisions one way, and decrying him for partisan decisions the other way, you’ll be able to see the game more impartially. That objectivity will enable you to bet on sports more profitably, which will then let you watch sports with more of an eye towards these details, which will let you bet even more profitably, and so on. We at betting-strategy.org can let you get this cycle off the ground, when soon enough you’ll be independently wealthy and self-sufficient! When casual fans watch sports, they’re cheering for one side to win. When casual bettors bet on sports, on Pinnacle, Betfair, WilliamHill, or Sportsbook, they’re usually betting on sides. Sometimes they’ll bet on sides with a fixed-odds bet, and sometimes they’ll bet on sides with a spread or handicap or line bet. Either way, these markets are among the most popular for a bookmaker, and therefore the most profitable for that bookmaker. They can be profitable for a sharp bettor, too, since the bookmaker is trying to maximize his edge over the betting public, and (as in poker) the bettor can exploit the betting public’s biases to make a profit. Sports betting is like poker, in that the house will always have an edge, but you can have an edge, too — simply by being smarter than the average bettor, over the course of thousands and thousands of bets! But the same forces that make betting on sides attractive and profitable in some cases can make it unattractive and unprofitable in other cases. Sometimes, there’s a greater arbitrage opportunity to be had on betting the over / under, or totals. Betting the over / under is when you bet not on a team to win, or on a team to win by a line, but on the combined score of both teams. Every major bookmaker on the Internet offers totals betting (or over / under betting) on most every major sport. In football, betting the over / under is when you bet not on a team to win, or on a team to win by a line or handicap, but on the combined score of both teams. (Every major bookmaker on the Internet offers totals betting (or over / under betting) on most every major sport, too!) The over / under will usually be set at a fractional goal amount (say, 2.5), to eliminate the possibility of pushes. If you bet the under, you win if a total of 0-2 goals are scored by both teams. If you bet the over, you win if the two teams combine for 3 or more goals. In more high-scoring sports, the over-under will typically be set at a total where you’ll get equal odds betting the over or under. However, because football is so low-scoring, bookmakers will have to adjust the odds for each individual game. A football or soccer total goals bet will look like this: 0-1 / 2.88 2-3 / 1.82 4-6 / 3.75 7+ / 24.00 (If you wager 1€ on 2-3, in other words, you’ll get 2.88€ back if you win. The low-scoring nature of football means that bookies will have to offer four different spreads, to generate action, as well as slightly adjusted odds on these spreads.)