Sports Betting: Everything you need to know to get started

1. Have 2-3 accounts with a sportsbook 

General rule of thumb is to have quick access to three online sportsbooks, one for sharp, one for betting against the public or contrarian betting, and one for value or reduced juice.

The square sportsbooks refer to oddsmakers that cater to the casual bettor, which is the recreational bettor. These sportsbooks typically have fairly low stakes and, because novice bettors are prone to betting on the NFL favorites and overs (totals), these sportsbooks typically offer really good lines for underdogs and the unders on the Total.

For example, Bovada (primarily because they’re going for a cool male lifestyle brand, BetOnline, Sportsbook.com and Pinnacle.

These sportsbooks are often times offer 1/2 point or more off the market average.

Sharp sportsbooks typically take the highest limits on NFL games, and books like CRIS will often take 6-figure bets during the NFL season. These books usually have the best lines on favorites and overs. For more on Sharps and wagering strategies, I recommend you look at the articles 2 tips Sharp NFL bettors don’t want you to know, and 3 big mistakes NFL Sharps make.

It’s often found that online sportsbooks will typically charge a -110 vig on each side, reduced juice books are far superior for everyday bettors since they typically have lines of -105 or -106. While bettors need to win only 52.4% of their bets to break even with standard (-110) juice, that percentage drops to 51.22% when the juice is -105.

Having multiple online sportsbooks does give you a large advantage by being able to shop for the best line to get value, which can make or break a profitable season.

2. How to select a sportsbooks?

We try not to make recommendations even though we support the community to stay online through affiliate programs, so while it does look bias, we work our hardest to not promote sportsbooks that get negative reviews by the sports betting community. We advise to look at industry sportsbook review sites as SportsbookReview.com for community feedback and expert analysis on every offshore book.

3. Size does matter

And we’re talking unit size you pervert. You should think about the type of sports bettor you strive to become – are you aggressive or conservative?  Are you experienced or a novice?  The answers to these questions will help you to determine the size of your typical bet, which is called betting unit size.

We often find a common pattern with losing sportsbettors, and its they simply don’t manage their bankroll. SImilar to managing your personal money or investments, a sportsbettor needs bankroll management. So when you decide to wager on a game, your unit size could be simply a consistent value, or abide to a percentage of bankroll strategy with each wager. The conservative sportsbettor should play 1%-2%, but we often find the sweet spot range between 1% and 3% of your bankroll, where 1% is on the side of most professional sports investors, and 3% on the side of aggressive sports investors.

Consistency is key on your unit size. Do not overreact to a win streak, or try to make up for loses over a bad performing weekend.

Great NFL betting systems will win the long haul, and to maintaining a a consistent unit size when betting is crucial.

4. Buy when the pubic is running

Similar to the equity markets, there are big advantages making confident investments when bad news hits, and selling when good news drives profit.

Take advantage of artificially shaded lines based on recent trends and patterns. Ignore small sample size statistics like Atlanta Falcons is 7-1 in their past 8 night games. Like many reputable handicappers and professional sports investors will tell you, always go the opposite of the grain, including betting against the public, taking teams following a loss or even a major blowout, and avoid betting systems in must-win games.

5. Be aware of non-reputable Handicappers

It’s a general opinion in the community, but unfortunately the sports community has become accustom to untrustworthy NFL handicappers that are here today, and gone tomorrow. Why? They typically inflate their win rate numbers, or make blanket claims on guaranteed locks…which honestly does not exist. See There are obviously come exceptions to this rule as the industry has a small handful or professional and reputable handicappers or sports investment brands as IntelligentBettingTips.com who’s done a great job at evolving a strong customer-centric brand in this market, shed transparency on performance and manage market expectations. But these are far and few between. .

Why the dark cloud on NFL handicappers? Most will promote unrealistic winning percentages without any proof about past performance. They may also skew their results by showing the highest win rates for ‘premium’ picks only, where its selective to just one type of pick, and not overall portfolio performance. Others promote free nfl picks with car salesman-type language, which should be an immediate red flag.

Another common issue with handicappers is that they don’t consider the cost of their picks relative to bet size. If you’re betting $50/game, can you still make money after paying off the pay-per-pick cost? Our research showed that by purchasing a short and long-term membership at IntelligentBettingTips.com, users would only need to bet dollars a game to justify the cost of the subscription. Why? They don’t promote a pay-per-pick model, and instead provide open access to all computer-generated NFL picks, expert handicapper premium picks and the global public opinion picks.

Other handicappers have been caught with sending half their customers a pick on one side of the game, while the other half of customers get the opposing half. This guarantees a win (and loss), but will promote the win in their results and to customers.

Lastly, most NFL handicappers do not give insights into their prediction model or betting system. While one could argue its proprietary to sell their NFL picks, there should be some insights into how they generated the selection or play vs. flipping a coin and betting on a 50/50 outcome.

6. Covering your local team or popular team

Your investments into the NFL sports betting market should…no…must be, based on solid data and analysis. No gut feels, or following the NFL talking heads (although the top 5% do perform well) or following the local fan favorites (because your local media will bombard with only the positive news, thus influencing your views and opinion.

Sure, you don’t have time to do deep analysis. I get it, neither do I most times unless its a passion. That’s why I leave my 401K and stock market investing to a managed funds, and subscribe to a stock pick service. Why? for a fractional cost I buy into their time spent researching and crunching the numbers to tell me the stock pick. Similar to wagering on sports, if you take an investment approach you could do the same and buy the time of sports services as IntelligentBettingTips.com, where you leave each game analysis and numbers crunching to them. Time is money and I’m not one for trading my precious time where I don’t have a passion to make money.

In summary, if you are just starting to bet on NFL or sports, just remember once cardinal piece of knowledge that applies to everything in life…including sports. Information is power, and power is $$$.

This is a driving force behind SSBP to give the community a transparent global platform to showcase users like yourself accuracy at picking the NFL winners and showcasing the performance of your own betting systems. Visit the NFL leaderboard to see who’s the top dog hitting the big NFL profits, check their latest NFL picks or get the consolidated opinion of over 140 expert NFL picks across the media – from ESPN to FOX Sports, CBS Sports and more. Browse, compare and choose wisely.