Betting against the public, also known as going contrarian, is a smart long-te🍸rm strategy for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the public usually loses. Casual bettors wager based on gut instinct and bias and largely ignore analytics and hard data.
Average Joes bet with their hearts, not their heads, and focus almost exclusively on favorites, home teams, teams with better records than t🔯heir opponents and teams with star players. The oddsmakers know this and will set lines with public bias in mind, shading numbers further toward the popular side. As a result, savvy contrari༒an bettors brave enough to back the unpopular side can extract additional value by taking advantage of artificially inflated or mispriced lines.
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just figuring out where the public is and going the other way. Contrarian betting is a solid foundation, ♛but you also need to do your homework and ensure you’re on the sharp side, as well. This means siding with the professional bettors who have a track record of success, bet large amounts, have decades of experience and have the respect of the sportsbooks.
Contrarian value skyrockets♊ at certain times of year. The first is March Madness. The second is bowl season.
Bowl games are a fantastic time to bet against the pu🥃blic because every single game is extremely heavily bet and flooded🔯 with recreational money. Many Average Joes might not bet college football all season but will place a wager or two just to join in on the bowl game fun. As a result, the market is softer than usual and easier to exploit.
Another factor is the schedule itself. Bowl game lines are released weeks in advance, which provides extra time for the bets to build and build. Plus, many of these games are one-offs, with only one or two per day. Each is nationally televised and most are in prime time, ensu🐬ring a massive public audience.
The stats don’t lie.
According to Bet Labs Sports, bowl teams receiving less than half of the betting tickets have gone 263-224 ATS (54 percent) since 2005. Teams receiving 40 percent or less of the tickets have gone 158-107 A🐭TS (59.6 percent).
The sweet spot is bowl game underdogs with spreads of +3¹/₂ to +10. These teams have gone 153-122 ATS (55.🌃6 percent). You have to remember, the public is biased toward betting favorites. And all of these games will be played at neutral sites, which levels the playing field toward the ’dogs. If bowl game ’dogs +3¹/₂ to +10 are getting 40 percent or less of tickets, they improve to 97-51 ATS (65.5 percent).
Bowl season is also a great time to 𒊎take advantage of inflated lines. This means the public hammers a🐠 favorite and moves the number further toward the favorite, providing extra points for the underdog.
For example, all bowl game ’dogs regardless of the spread have gone 262-234 ATS (52.8 percent) since 2005. If the line stays the same or moves towa🌞rd the ’dog (think +7 to +6¹/₂), ’dogs are 125-136 ATS (47.9 percent). However, if the line stays the same or moves away from the ’dog, giving the ’dog extra points (think +7 to +7¹/₂ or +7 to +8), dogs are 161-132 ATS (54.9 percent).
This bowl season is especially i📖nteresting because there now are 20 states with legalized sports betting. As a result, casual bettors are entering the market more than ever, with many betting bowl games for the f꧑irst time.
If you identify a strong edge on a bowl ’dog, it’s also not a bad idea to consider betting the team to win straight up on the money line instead of the spread. Since 2005, bowl ’dogs on the money line have gone 189-313 (only a 37.6 percent win rate) but have won +43.38 units due to the plus money payouts. On the flip side, bowl favorites have lost -23.81 units due to laying the minus favorite number. The sweet spot ♐is money-lining bowl dogs between +4 and +7 on the spread. They have gone 62-93 (40 percent), winning +30.17 units.
Experie🍷nce, or lack thereof, can also be a big factor in bowl games. If a ’dog is going up against a team that failed to qualif🐠y for a bowl game the previous year, the dog has gone 74-53 ATS (58.3 percent).
One important note to remember during bowl season: The books keep the limits low for the first couple of weeks. Their goal is to allow sharps to come in at low limits and help them shape the line to its strongest point. As a result, it’s important to wait until game day, when limits are raised, to make a final determination on a game. The big wise guys, known as whales, don’t🐷 get down until game day, so make sure to keep your eye on the VSiN live odds page to follow late moves before kickoff.