Pittsburgh Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger practices with reinforced shoe – Super Bowl

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger missed only a few snaps in practice despite a sprained right foot that requires him to wear a protective boot away from the playing field.
By Associated Press

Basics of Sports Betting

NFL SUPER-BOWL

Serious sports bettors often dismiss futures wagers as sucker bets targeted at ’squares’ looking for a big payoff. For example, a typical futures ’sucker bet’ would be something like betting that Harvard will win the NCAA basketball tournament at 500/1 odds. Sure, the potential payback is huge but here’s the problem–the “true odds” of Harvard winning the NCAA hoops tournament are astronomical, and certainly well in excess of 500/1. That means that from the outset this bet represents a poor wagering value.

For the more serious bettor, there’s a number of obvious problems with futures wagers. They require that your wagering ‘capital’ be tied up for months. Furthermore, once you’ve placed your bet you’re at the mercy of injuries, suspensions, trades and the other numerous factors that can spell defeat for a sports team. It’s no simple task keeping up with these variables on a day to day basis, and predicting them over a longer term is the province of psychics and not sports handicappers.

So futures plays have no relevance to a serious approach to sports handicapping? Not necessarily. It’s crucial to think of the sports betting discipline in terms of value. Used properly, futures wagers are frequently a good way of maximizing line value and finding overlay situations. Here are some ways in which future wagers can be successfully leveraged.

Futures can present an opportunity to ‘earn’ a greater value on certain bets. For example, it has become common for sports books to take action on entertainment events like the Academy Awards. By paying close attention to Hollywood gossip and entertainment news, a bettor can actually have a better take on these outcomes than the bookmaker.

Some books even take bets on the major awards like ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’ before the nominations are actually announced. In this situation, a bettor who can read the ‘buzz’ on which films will be nominated can find substantially better values before the nominations are announced.

Making the Academy Awards an even better candidate for futures wagers is the nature of the film business itself. The release schedule for films is set well in advance, and after the year end cut off date no ’surprise’ releases can sneak in to consideration. At this point, its relatively easy to narrow down the serious contenders and with some work to come up with a ’short list’ of Oscar candidates.

Taking a position for profit: Now well turn our attention to sports and how to use the futures wager there. As I noted above, sports inherently presents more variables than the film industry. Furthermore, the top teams are usually not priced for value. Currently you can get +650 on New England to eventually win the 2010 Superbowl. The Patriots are certainly capable of winning, but the value just isn’t there.

To find value on this sort of wager you need to look for ‘dark horse’ candidates. For example, at midseason you could have bet on the Carolina Hurricanes to win the 2009 Stanley Cup at prices as high as 25/1 or 30/1. Now, they’re one of four teams remaining and are priced at 5/1 to 7/1 depending on the book.

This play wasn’t based on any sort of certainty that this team would win the Stanley Cup, but rather on the value they presented. In other words, the true odds of this dark horse Cup win is more in the range of the current price so the 40/1 is a clear overlay. Once the playoffs begin, this sort of positional play offers a lot of options to hedge and to lock in a profit.

“The field” can occasionally offer wagering value as well. A good example was the NASCAR Rookie of the Year futures in 2001. Some books offered a bet on ‘the field’ at prices as high as 15/1. After Dale Earnhardt’s tragic death, his team turned to rookie Kevin Harvick to fill ‘The Intimidator’s’ place in the driver’s seat. Someone who followed NASCAR closely knew this was going to happen well before it was publicly announced, and was able to grab a great price on Harvick as part of ‘the field’. By midseason, Harvick’s success had pushed prices on ‘the field’ down to the point that it was the favorite everywhere with prices in the range of -250 to -300.

While this sort of situation is unique, there have been other situations where ‘the field’ presented good values. At one point, it wasn’t unusual to find a ‘field’ bet on NASCAR road races that included the road course specialists like Ron Fellows and Boris Said–meaning you could bet these ‘ringers’ and several others with one bet! Again, these opportunities don’t come around often but the value they present justifies paying close attention to them.

Don’t forget to shop around for the best wagering value. This is true with any sports bet, but particularly so with futures wagers as the prices you find will vary much more than a typical pointspread. A little bit of effort can easily reveal a more advantageous price, meaning greater line value.

Ross Everett is a well known writer specializing in sports handicapping, horse racing, travel and jousting. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is in charge of providing daily free sports picks to a number of websites and broadcast media outlets. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and a wombat.

Super Bowl In Home Page

Saints overcome slow start to capture first Super Bowl title in franchise history – Super Bowl

Put away those paper bags forever: Drew Brees and the Saints are NFL
champions, rallying to beat Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts 31-17
Sunday night in Super Bowl XLIV.
By Associated Press

Pittsburgh Steelers to start Dennis Dixon again; Max Starks, Casey Hampton out vs. Tennessee Titans – Super Bowl

Steelers left tackle Max Starks (ankle) and nose tackle Casey Hampton (hamstring) did not practice for a third consecutive day and have been ruled out of Sunday’s game at Tennessee.
By Associated Press

PFT: Ray Lewis questionable for Ravens vs. Bengals – Super Bowl

PFT: Ray Lewis questionable for Ravens vs. Bengals
By profootballtalk.nbcsports.com

Wait ’til next year: Colts hope loss fuels another Super Bowl run – Super Bowl

The Indianapolis Colts constantly will be reminded of blowing a 10-point lead in Super Bowl XLIV and failing to live up to expectations following a near-perfect regular season.
By Associated Press

NFL: New York Jets acted unprofessionally toward reporter – Super Bowl

The NFL will implement a training program for all 32 teams on conduct in the workplace and develop an expanded set of best practices for media relations, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Friday.
By Associated Press

PFT Week 2 picks: Who will win Pats-Jets tussle? – Super Bowl

By profootballtalk.nbcsports.com

Video: Is Sanders done with Colts? – Super Bowl

PFT Daily: The former NFL defensive player of the year can’t seem to get healthy, which makes Mike Florio wonder if he’ll ever get back on the field. (NBC Sports)

By nbcsports.msnbc.com

New Orleans Saints’ Reggie Bush says forfeiture of Heisman Trophy not admission of guilt – Super Bowl

Reggie Bush says his decision to relinquish his Heisman Trophy is not an admission of guilt.
By Associated Press

Next Page »