Almost all the serious sports bettors have one thing in common: they make percentage estimations to the match. When your average Joe makes a bet he usually bets the team he wants to without caring too much about the odds the bookmaker gives and what are the chances that the event actually ends in the way that he is betting. When a professional sports bettors makes a bet he at first calculates the percentage estimations for the game and after that compares the percentages to the odds the bookmakers gives and only if he finds valuable bet he bets. (value bet = odds * estimation > 100, for an example if the estimation is 50% you need to get odds of 2.0 (decimal odds) or better for the bet to be a value bet)
Some of the serious sports bettors even think that the only way to win money in long run from sports betting is to either calculate the odds or have access to valuable insider knowledge (preferably both).
In this article we will look into the factors and things the sports bettors think when they are creating their own sports betting estimations for team sports such as football, ice-hockey and basketball.
1) Comparing the team’s basic strength.
You might be a huge Blackburn fan but still when you estimate the probabilities you have to be ready to admit that Manchester United is on paper much stronger team.
2) Missing players including injuries, bookings, resting etc
The next thing you need to look at is which players are missing the game for an example due to bookings and injuries. Especially you should note if player that played in the last game is missing this game, if a key player has been out for a longer period of time it wont have as huge impact on the team as if a key player that played in the last match now misses this match.
Some of the teams also have a tendency to rest their key players in the less important matches. You should always stay aware of such a situation by checking the line up information.
3) The form
As a rule of thumb the bettors overestimate the effect of the form, especially when talking about the results form and not about how the team has actually played. And quite often you will find good bets against teams that have won 3 or so games in a row but have either played against weak teams or haven’t in actuality played all that well. Still regardless you should note the form of the team and include it in your probability estimations.
4) Home advantage
It is very rare to find a major sports team that over long period of time does better in away games than at home. To get an idea of the team’s home advantage go through the results from last couple years and also look at how the opponent team has played in away game. Also you should note when there is a long distance between the home and away teams locations (=means long travel for the away team and possibly worse perforamce) as well as you should note if the game is so called derby such as Liverpool – Everton (in derby games the home advantage is usually smaller than usually)
5) Motivation
Motivation can really make or break team. Especially during the last rounds of the leagues you can often find games in which the other team has lot of motivation (for an example because they are trying to stay in the league) and the other team has no real motivation for winning the game (and in some cases even have the theoretical motivation for losing!). In such a games the probabilities differ quite a bit from the games in which both of those teams would have equal motivation.
I hope you find these tips helpful the next time you are estimating the chances of each result in the game.
