How to Make Money Betting On Football: Common Mistakes

Betting Football: Five Mistakes to Avoid

As a new football season is upon us, let's just look at some things that we'll want to avoid in order to have a winning balance come the first week of February. We'll call these "lessons" we have learned from mistakes of the past or things we have seen, traps people fall into. 

1) Forgetting about the points and just picking who you think will win:

This is one of the more common mistakes as in football, most people think they have a good angle on who they think is going to win the game. While at the NFL level, just picking who is going to win is much tougher than people give it credit for, at the college level we often see point spreads of three to four touchdowns or even more. Always remember, "killing" teams is all relative and if they haven't "killed" them enough to cover you have lost your bet and in essence have been killed. It isn't  a coincidence when we see just how many games end right around the point spread.

2) Taking too Many Favorites:

This can happen going the other way as well in taking too many underdogs but it seems that most people are enamored with favorites and I personally believe it has a lot to do with number one on this list. At the end of the season it is always pretty close to 50/50 with underdogs and favorites covering about equally. It isn't 50/50 necessarily every week but over the year, the numbers say that just about every season is level or very close to it.

3) Not paying attention to the injury report:

Almost every Running Back at just about every level of football can play and can run fast. Of course there are game changers out there but for the bulk of the NFL teams they have a backfield full of guys who can play. At the college level it's a little trickier but we see it year after year where a top back gets injured and his sub comes in and runs hog wild, how is that? Because the injuries we need to pay a lot of attention to are the Offensive Tackles, Linebackers, Defensive Tackles, and Cornerbacks. While of course replacing a start QB is a huge factor, that is more than likely to be factored into the line by the odds makers and the public than a 340 pound left tackle or 330 pound nose guard, who are pretty tough to replace. Also Corners who can cover man coverage make a huge difference as do Linebackers who can average double digit tackles.

4) Not paying attention the actual numbers:

How often do we see a team play up against an opponent that we see as far superior and come close to pulling off the upset and just miss it by  a play here or there? The reality of it is we see it all the time and while in some cases it can show us that a fumble here or fumble there cost them the game, regardless of the timing of the turnover, bad call etc., most teams always play to their stats. Teams may gather their numbers in spurts throughout a game or may have an aberration against a team who is very strong or very weak in one or more units of their team but overall, over the long haul, teams play to their numbers. Don't look too much into the missed field goal, you are always better off looking at the average rushing yards and passing yards allowed per game as well as how often their QB gets sacked.

5) Betting with your heart:

Everyone who watches sports has a team they root for and teams they don't like, it's what makes sports what they are, but we always need to remember, whether we like them or not personally has little to do with their performance or how they will perform on the field at any given time. People tend to get too excited and revved up for their favorite teams and get too wrapped up in emotion against teams they don't like. Whichever way it goes, this is usually a good opportunity to lose a lot of money. If you can't look at the game objectively, don't play it, there are plenty of other games out there.