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Sports betting - the hidden value

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Square sports betting is a negative long term EV deal. Without positive EV though, no bankroll management skills will ever get you anywhere in sports betting. In order for the whole thing to work, you must find EV+ and you must exploit it on a consistent basis. Most beginners believe that good old square handicapping will be enough for them to secure value, but most of the time, that is just not the case. Knowing how a team stacks up against the other is only half the picture one needs to see clearly in order to find the EV+. In order to be able to secure EV+ one needs to know all about the bookie's lines and the factors that shape them, and that is no easy task. Called reverse handicapping, analyzing the bookie's moves is something few squares will ever get to do properly. Maybe learning a thing or two about how the bookmaker operates will make reverse handicapping easier for you.

Under normal circumstances, the bookie's goal is to balance each of the match-ups he offers. Balancing a game means that the bookie will try to manipulate the betting public through his lines to get about the same number of bettors on both sides of the proposition. Here's why this is important: on a well-balanced game, the bookie will collect the money dropped by the losers, he will retain his vig and he will pay out the winners from it. This way, on a perfectly balanced bet, the bookmaker is basically earning risk-free money. The world is not a perfect place though, not even for bookmakers, so such perfectly balanced games are rather rare. The public sometimes prefers one side of the match-up or the other, regardless of the value the bookie induces into his lines. In such cases, the bookmaker can do one of two things: he can stop tampering with the lines and he can leave things as they are. In this case though, he has to be prepared to cover the bets of those who win (if they are indeed the majority) from his own pockets. While this approach carries extreme risks, the bookmaker will sometimes go down this road, especially if the odds involved encourage him to do so, because the potential rewards are huge too.

The other thing he can do, is to induce undue value into one side of the proposition (the opposite side to where the squares are flocking). By doing that, he may entice more money to come in on that side, thus re-establishing the balance. This is where the hidden value appears. Like rakeback deals in poker or cashback promotions in online casino gambling, the hidden value will give the EV+ a huge boost. Preferably, a sports bettor should always aim to get his money in on such hidden value bets. If the bookie is successful in re-balancing the match-up, the hidden value may be short-lived, which means that in order to take advantage of it, the bettor must keep a keen eye on the movement of the lines.

As you can see, taking advantage of the EV+ is not a simple matter at all. It takes expertise and maybe even a little bit of inside knowledge to get things going. As a general clue, you should look for EV+ in games in which a road favorite takes on a home underdog (the square crowds seem to love the road favorite way too much), in games to which the bookies doesn't really have reasons to pay a lot of attention (unpopular match-ups) and just about anywhere, where square money seems to be flowing to one side in a disproportionate manner.

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