Sportsbetting Noob

I have started to dabble in sports betting............right now, I am betting in the fairly small NFL prop betting market........mostly yardage props, but some reception props and other player related stuff.

Props are more easily beatable than game lines for a few reasons

1. The limits are much lower, this creates a much less efficient market as the "smart money" (ie, the pros/syndicates) don't usually bother with these sorts of bets
2. Due to the lower limits, the books don't spend nearly the amount of time they spend handicapping a game line or a derivative of a game line (like a halftime or 1Q line).
3. Since they have a small limit and are offerred often at square books, they are usually shaded in a direction in which the public might want to bet.

A few early observations................

The prop betting market seems to do the follow in the first few weeks

1) Unders seem to be the way to go...............I have found much more value in under bets. My guess is that 75-80% of the bets I have placed have been on unders.

2) Players that the general public doesn't really know, but that the fantasy football geek might know are generally underrated. An example of this is Darren McFadden...........I have been taking over lines on him all season as the books have been offerring very favorable lines on him. Not sure how long that will last, but I am sure others will appear.

3) The books will sometimes offer very profitable under bets on players who have just had an excellent week, but don't truly project to be as good for the rest of the year. Enter, Benjamin Watson, who in week 1, scored 2 TD's in dramatic fashion in a NE victory on Monday night vs Buffalo. Before week 2, I found this bet, Benjamin Watson - Will He Score a TD? NO -155. Basically, the bookmaker priced this prop as if Benjamin Watson scores in roughly 40% of his games. I thought this had to be off, because I just hadn't seen a projection for him to score 7 TD's this year. Then I took a look at his historical numbers......it turns out that in the he hasn't scored 7 TD in a year in his last 5 seasons.

When trying to add a little +EV to your gambling portfolio, try putting a little work/analysis into player props.