Football Betting....thoughts from a football handicapper....

Football betting is not about which team is better. Well, at least not entirely. The primary factor in the line (aka pointspread) on a football game, or any sport, is perception of the two teams. The goal of the line is to generate betting on both sides of the game. The sportsbooks goal is to have equal money on both sides and they make their money on the juice (aka vig or vigorish) and are very happy. That's why lines move, if they're getting too much money on one side, they'll move the line to encourage more betting on the other side and in turn less on the side that is getting the action. So the oddsmakers are not deciding who is 3 or 7 points better than who they are working to get balance on the action.
That's why public perception of teams must be factored into setting the line, and for football handicappers we must consider where this gives us an edge. An example of this in the NFL that was the San Francisco 49ers, also the Dallas Cowboys. These are very popular national teams and have a tendcy to have more "fans" and they will generally have the possibility of getting more action on their side. So the oddsmakers may round a line just a bit to account for this extra action. There are many examples in college football as well, most notably Notre Dame. Perhaps one of the most overrated teams in the history sports almost every year. And with a ridiculously large legion of fans the Irish will almost always have a public adjusted line in their games because they get so much action from fans - many betting with their hearts and not their heads. But as any good handicapper knows, your heart is a long way from your wallet.
So how does this help a professional football handicapper? A top handicapper will always have an eye on pointspreads of so called fan favorite teams as mentioned above. Especially as these teams have some early success this "tweaked" line will become even more pronounced and a good handicapper will play against that to his and his clients advantage.

We welcome your comments on this article...