Thursday, May 24, 2012

Five Best Baseball Betting Tips & Hints



Wagering on moneyline bets can reek havoc on your bottom-line. This article will go over 5 simple, yet efective rules to follow to help increase your MLB betting potential.

Stop Betting Huge Favorites

When I say heavy favorites, this means any line that's posted above -170. They might seem to the naked eye to be safe bets. However, these are bankroll killers. It's very rare to see a favorite like this undervalued. In fact, they are almost always overvalued. With all the games that are played each night, there are more than enough valuable betting opportunities to take advantage of. Let's use the Tampa Rays for an example, they have been favored more nights than not, and even posting a winning record of 84-78, they still where down over 9 units for the season.

Starting Pitching is Overrated

Pitching is still extremely important. However, it's only part of the game. If you look at it closely, there are only a handful of reliable starting pitchers in the league. When these few reliable starting pitchers are playing, what do you thing might happen? They get overvalued, and the line is just way off base. This is especially true for bad hitting teams. Let's use King Felix from Seattle for an example. He is one of the few top-notch pitchers in the league. However, he posted a very mediocre betting line at +2 units for the year.

Look At The Schedule

Very few people that handicap baseball games will ever look at team schedules. Sometimes when teams have large leads in the divisions, and they see a long road trip against poor opponents, they will occasionally fall into the trap of thinking it will be a cake walk. They might not practice and study opponents as hard as they would if they where playing a tough opponent. It may be another good idea to look for teams that are struggling on long road trips, those final two or three games will be tough wins for them.

Don't Bet Against Streaks

I hear tons of sports betters say things like “they are due for a loss”. This simply is not the case. Good teams win and bad teams lose, it's really that simple. It's more beneficial for you to wait for a streak to end before you try going against the grain and betting against the house. Also, make sure never to chase losing streaks. No matter how long they are, it doesn't matter.

Don't Overvalue Statistics

I will start off saying that I personally use statistics to base my betting theory. However, these numbers can sometimes steer us in the wrong direction. We need to evaluate what we see with our eyes, and then compare them to what we see on paper. For an example, let's say that a pitcher has an ERA of over 6.00. We can say that is very bad. However, he may have had two really bad performances over thirteen games played that skewed the numbers. Maybe he let up 9 runs one game, then 8 runs the next, but when you look at his other starts, he was letting up under 4 runs. It's better to look at consistency, rather than numbers. 

You can find expert picks online by searching google.com.