College basketball season provides punters with the best betting opportunities. However, how do you manage to follow up 350 NCAA Division I teams spread across over 30 conferences?
Well, let’s help. We have come up with the ultimate betting strategy guide, with opinions collected from expert punters. So, observe the following to profit from college basketball betting consistently:
I. Betting on Your Terms
There’s one definitive difference between pro bettors and amateurs, preparation. If you want to make money on college basketball, you need to lay your foundation. But if you are a casual gambler, don’t bother, because you won’t care if you win or lose anyway. Here is how to make your foundation:
Plan
There are so many betting styles, straight bets, parlays, money line, spread, or totals (or half totals). It is how you want to bet that will influence how you do your research.
Keep Records
Records help you monitor trends and track your betting habits and identify mistakes. With a good record, it is easy to stay disciplined within your style of betting and prevent your bets from going off the rails.
II. Information is power
With sufficient information, you can easily make money in college basketball. Staying informed save you money in sports betting. So, do the following:
Gathering Information
Watch games, especially re-airs, because there are so many games, you can’t afford to watch all of them.
· Use Trusted Resources – College basketball trusted sources include KenPom and TeamRankings. They both have independent algorithms, but each has its flaws. So using both of them complement one another.
· Filter and Organize Your Data
· Make your parlays based on your research data
· Exploit the trends
III. College Basketball Betting Strategies
The factors as mentioned earlier, apply to any sports betting, but here now we look at what’s specific to college basketball. Here is what you should do if you need consistent results:
Specialize in a Conference or Region – Well, we have over 350 conferences, and it’s not going to be easy to keep us with each. Find a region and dedicate yourself to it.
Ignore big sports sites, go for local for information – The latter seem to have in-depth insights about teams and conferences.
Avoid betting for your favorite team – You want to keep your emotions out of betting, yet when you bet for your college team, there will be bias and emotional indiscipline.
Small Conference Specialization is lucrative – With few experts pay attention to small conferences, bookmakers like Comeon Online Casino give these leagues huge edges. Of course, this is not the case with major conferences that are followed by experts around the world. To take advantage of this edge, specialize on one or two regions and gather information on them.
The bottom line is more lines do not translate to better lines. Instead, find the biggest edges and go in small.
Find Value Betting Against the Public
Public perception influence betting habits. As a pro punter, go against the wave, there’s a lot of money against it in the right spots, especially when you think the Most popular team has been overvalued, which is mostly the case.
Ignore the big name, look into team composition – Some small teams have lots of senior players while their big-time school opponents may have overall young. In such a case, avoid the season hype and follow the stats.
Here is what can help you judge:
Home Court Advantage
As the season begins, home advantage is a crucial factor to consider as teams are more potent at home. But as the season proceed, there will be changing homecourt-advantage, so your best bet would be to observe to get a feel for why a particular school’s numbers.
The Road Team Matters Too – While considering the home factor, also factor in the away team. The team might be good at home, but what about their on-the-road opponents. It is
How to Decide Rivalry Games
It is best to avoid rivalry games, but if you want a piece of the cake, our general advice is to keep your emotions at bay to prevent overplaying a line.
Key factors to consider in such matches:
· Who has home court?
· How heated is the rivalry?
· But for more reliable betting value, you need to dig in and find out, who hates who, and why?
· What’s at stake, bragging rights or both teams being in the same conference and performing well?
For bragging rights, the home team carries the day far more often.
Reading Schedules for Value
Looking at a team’s schedule can help you make a candid decision about their match outcomes, especially at the beginning of the season.
Pay attention to these favorite schedule trends:
Travel Fatigue – Teams are worked up, especially when they have a daunting schedule ahead of them. Look for value bet if you think the favourite is harboring travel fatigue.
Trap Games- These are games that come mid-week ahead of a club hosting a rival or big-time ranked opponent. The trap game confuses the prominent game fixture as the coach tries to balance his team. Because of this confusing, the underdog can upset the favorite, which gives you an opportunity for a value bet.
Letdowns & Bounce-back Games – If a team lets you down in a previous match, you have a better chance of recovery in the next game. Similarly, you risk losing if you bank on a team’s last massive win in their next match. For one, winning a big game is emotionally draining for underdogs, so don’t follow it up with win expectation. But bookmakers exploit this and give a team too much credit for the win to mislead. Instead, back the letdown.
Conclusion
We can’t cover everything in this single piece as there lots of things to consider when betting on college basketball. We expect this guide helps you get to a flying start. No matter the outcome, fun comes first and gamble responsibly.
