[h=3]Mistake No. 1: Flawed money management[/h]Arguably the most common mistake made by recreational bettors is failing to follow solid money management principles. At SportsInsights.com, we recommend that inexperienced bettors employ a flat-betting system, with each wager representing 2 to 3 percent of the total bankroll. While these wagers may seem small, they help protect against the inevitable ups and downs bettors experience over the course of an entire season.
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Risking too much in a single bet and making drastic variations to wager sizes is one of the main reasons inexperienced bettors go broke. However, with more experience, bettors can then start adjusting unit sizes to best fit their personal strategies and styles.
[h=3]Mistake No. 2: Blindly following line moves[/h]
Having access to real-time odds updates and betting market data is important, but it can often steer bettors in the wrong direction. While monitoring line moves is certainly important, understanding why lines are moving is even more crucial.
Lines can move for many reasons, like breaking injury updates to key players, professional bettors and syndicates placing large wagers or public money consistently hammering one side of a game. While all of these line moves may appear equal on an odds screen, how bettors react to them should be very different. For example, a line move based solely on overwhelming public money shouldn't be followed and may, in fact, be creating value by betting against (or fading) the move.
[h=3]Mistake No. 3: Using top-25 rankings to evaluate teams[/h]
Many recreational bettors don't follow college basketball closely until the NFL season ends and attempt to catch up by using the standard rankings to evaluate teams. The major flaw with these polls is that they don't actually evaluate how good teams are, but instead focus mostly on wins and losses. Bettors looking for solid baselines to evaluate teams should check out ratings from ESPN's BPI, Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin.
While these ratings are good places to start, know that this information is also available to oddsmakers who consider them when setting point spreads.
[h=3]Mistake No. 4: Overvaluing home-court advantage[/h]
Raucous crowds undoubtedly provide an edge for college basketball teams playing at home, but our analysis indicates that home-court advantage, in general, is overrated in terms of ATS performance.
Since 2005, home teams are 14,145-14,776 (48.9 percent) ATS in regular season games, which indicates that visitors have an advantage in terms of ATS performance. This does not mean that visitors play better overall or straight up, but that lines are potentially shaded further than needed, based on mainstream media and recreational bettors overvaluing home-court advantage.
[h=3]Mistake No. 5: Betting with the crowd[/h]
One of the main factors we consider when looking for value is betting against public money. Since recreational bettors consistently bet on popular teams, we're often fading their action and taking the other side of those matchups.
For example, we've found that visitors playing conference opponents as double-digit underdogs cover the spread 52.7 percent of the time, resulting in a 2.7 percent return on investment (ROI) due to the large sample size that college basketball affords us.
However, by simply re-creating this system with our Bet Labs data analysis software and adding in the spread percent filter, we can drastically improve ROI by focusing on only teams that receive 25 percent or less of spread bets. The table below summarizes the results:
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Visiting underdogs of 10+ points vs. conference opponents since 2005[/h]
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[h=1]Five biggest CBB betting mistakes[/h][h=3]Analyzing the common errors made by most bettors and how to avoid them[/h]By PJ Walsh | Sports Insights
ESPN INSIDER
With the 2013 NFL season now in the rearview mirror, the majority of sports bettors have turned their attention to college basketball. As a result, more money (especially public) is hitting the college basketball betting market, a trend that will continue through the NCAA tournament as Bracketology begins to dominate the national sports media.
With this in mind, I compiled a list of the five most common mistakes made by bettors. I found a system with a 56.4 percent against-the-spread (ATS) win rate to help bettors successfully navigate the college basketball season.
We encourage bettors to be wary of the mistakes we've listed and check in at ESPN Insider's CBB PickCenter to track odds and public betting percentages this season.
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Risking too much in a single bet and making drastic variations to wager sizes is one of the main reasons inexperienced bettors go broke. However, with more experience, bettors can then start adjusting unit sizes to best fit their personal strategies and styles.
[h=3]Mistake No. 2: Blindly following line moves[/h]
Having access to real-time odds updates and betting market data is important, but it can often steer bettors in the wrong direction. While monitoring line moves is certainly important, understanding why lines are moving is even more crucial.
Lines can move for many reasons, like breaking injury updates to key players, professional bettors and syndicates placing large wagers or public money consistently hammering one side of a game. While all of these line moves may appear equal on an odds screen, how bettors react to them should be very different. For example, a line move based solely on overwhelming public money shouldn't be followed and may, in fact, be creating value by betting against (or fading) the move.
[h=3]Mistake No. 3: Using top-25 rankings to evaluate teams[/h]
Many recreational bettors don't follow college basketball closely until the NFL season ends and attempt to catch up by using the standard rankings to evaluate teams. The major flaw with these polls is that they don't actually evaluate how good teams are, but instead focus mostly on wins and losses. Bettors looking for solid baselines to evaluate teams should check out ratings from ESPN's BPI, Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin.
While these ratings are good places to start, know that this information is also available to oddsmakers who consider them when setting point spreads.
[h=3]Mistake No. 4: Overvaluing home-court advantage[/h]
Raucous crowds undoubtedly provide an edge for college basketball teams playing at home, but our analysis indicates that home-court advantage, in general, is overrated in terms of ATS performance.
Since 2005, home teams are 14,145-14,776 (48.9 percent) ATS in regular season games, which indicates that visitors have an advantage in terms of ATS performance. This does not mean that visitors play better overall or straight up, but that lines are potentially shaded further than needed, based on mainstream media and recreational bettors overvaluing home-court advantage.
[h=3]Mistake No. 5: Betting with the crowd[/h]
One of the main factors we consider when looking for value is betting against public money. Since recreational bettors consistently bet on popular teams, we're often fading their action and taking the other side of those matchups.
For example, we've found that visitors playing conference opponents as double-digit underdogs cover the spread 52.7 percent of the time, resulting in a 2.7 percent return on investment (ROI) due to the large sample size that college basketball affords us.
However, by simply re-creating this system with our Bet Labs data analysis software and adding in the spread percent filter, we can drastically improve ROI by focusing on only teams that receive 25 percent or less of spread bets. The table below summarizes the results:
<!-- begin inline 1 -->[h=4]Visiting underdogs of 10+ points vs. conference opponents since 2005[/h]
| Spread Betting % | ATS Record* | Units Won** | ROI*** |
|---|---|---|---|
| * Closing lines from Pinnacle were used to determine ATS records ** Units Won is the amount of money a betting system won or lost after factoring in juice. In the example above, a $100 bettor would have won $5,442 ($100 x 54.42 units) following the system *** To calculate ROI, the return of an investment (or in this case, the profit earned from the sports betting system) is divided by the cost of the investment | |||
| 25% and less | 303-234 (56.4%) | +54.42 units | +10.1% |
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[h=1]Five biggest CBB betting mistakes[/h][h=3]Analyzing the common errors made by most bettors and how to avoid them[/h]By PJ Walsh | Sports Insights
ESPN INSIDER
With the 2013 NFL season now in the rearview mirror, the majority of sports bettors have turned their attention to college basketball. As a result, more money (especially public) is hitting the college basketball betting market, a trend that will continue through the NCAA tournament as Bracketology begins to dominate the national sports media.
With this in mind, I compiled a list of the five most common mistakes made by bettors. I found a system with a 56.4 percent against-the-spread (ATS) win rate to help bettors successfully navigate the college basketball season.
