Mastering Handicapping: A Guide To Assessing Teams And Players

Mastering Handicapping: A Guide To Assessing Teams And Players

If you are betting, you undoubtedly heard about handicaps in betting. Handicapping in sports betting is the most common and most commonly misunderstood concept. But don’t worry. It will cover everything you need about handicapping in sports betting.

How Handicapping Works?

Handicapping is using available information to make bets on matches and events. Bookmakers are doing a great job making lines and estimates, and often those accuracy seems out of this world. But do not give them your hard-earned money. For example, point spread on one match:

• Warriors + 13.5

• Lakers - 13.5

So here we can see the Lakers are clear favorites, but the critical question is can the Lakers win by 14 point difference? And that’s the entire purpose of handicapping, to answer questions like that.

What Information Is Used?

Everyone uses different information, but it’s all the same or comes from the same sources. And here they are:

Opening Odds

It would help with the most obvious: the bookmakers opening odds. And this is because bookmakers analyze far more than we can, and this is one thing we can believe them. But, gain additional information from moving odds from the opening to the moments before the game.

Overall Team Strength

Another critical factor here, you need to look at teams or player strength. The rule is that a team with more wins has a greater chance of winning in a match. Also, you need to look at statistics and what makes each team good or bad.

Matchup Advantages

Many teams have playstyles, love playing against someone, and hate playing against someone else. That could be for many reasons, and your job here is to find those matchups and reasons and capitalize on them.

Recent Play

Teams often have to win and lose streaks throughout the season, meaning that a good team has a few bad games or a bad team has a few good games. So you need to find the trends here and predict the outcome.

Home Advantage

This one is the most obvious, as the team playing on the home field always has an advantage. They know their lot in and out and have the fans on their side. Also, if it’s an international match, there can be a difference in weather which opposite players do not know.

How To Find Relevant Information?

Finding information can be challenging when there is a sea of useless information and we only need a small piece of information. So, here is where to start:

Line Movements

You should watch where the line move and weigh it against your research and the data you have collected. Also, don’t be embarrassed to look at and copy some of the work and analysis of professional bettors.

News and Weather Reports

Please pay attention to significant factors like weather and news, and always be up with the happenings in the area of the world where they play the match. Weather isn’t something you can take because it can impact the performance of all players on the field.

Sport-Based Media

It should be your first stop for information regarding sports betting. It will help if you go with more prominent names in this industry, like Fox Sports and ESPN, as they don’t need to write positively about anyone.

Closing Thoughts

We hope you gained new knowledge about handicapping in sports betting. We are sure that with this newly acquired knowledge, you can research properly and make money using handicaps.