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When you talk about sports betting with buddies, the general consensus is that most people usually bet on their favorite team and hope to earn easy and large amounts of cash. It’s the truth, in typical sportsbook betting, the vast majority of people out there usually pick their favorite team to win and that’s it. Even worse are those that pick on mascots (a tiger would beat a cardinal in a fight, so I’ll pick the Detroit Tigers over the St. Louis Cardinals) or those that pick by favorite uniform (Michigan Wolverines have a cooler uniform than the Penn State Nittany Lions so I’ll pick Michigan for the win).

The problem with the “favorite team” strategy is that a person’s favorite team is not always the winner. For example, in the NBA, let’s say your favorite team is the Miami Heat. You can’t always expect Dwyane Wade to pull out a victory for them and win every game. Plus, just betting like that is blind betting, you might as well throw darts at a board or have a monkey pick the games for you. You must understand that any team can lose any night, so betting on your favorite team isn’t really an advisable sportsbook betting strategy.

What does work in sportsbook betting, is using sportsbook systems based on numerical odds. For example, in sports like Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), there is a system that lets us see the chances of a specific fighter winning that particular match you’re thinking of betting on. Many columnists also make their own predictions of the match at sites like BetUS and Sportsbook.

Getting the Odds Right

In sports betting, there are odds - for example, in MMA, you can view these in order to know which fighter is the favorite. Bettors use these odds to determine which fighter they’ll bet on - the favorite or the underdog. Usually, the favorite is the one that ends up winning the match. If you want to become a hardcore sportsbook bettor, or if you already are one, you need to come up with a solid sportsbook betting strategy before making a bet. When reviewing your strategy options, there are lots of factors to consider.

One of the most important things you can do to get an edge in sportsbook betting is getting all the information you can get your hands on about the fight and the fighters involved or the teams. You can get this information by reading sportsbook blog posts on the internet, reading the predictions of top-rated sportsbook columnists and reading sportsbook forums on the internet. Most of the highly-regarded odds on games or MMA fights come from BetUS and Sportsbook. Once you have this information, now you have the right data to support you choosing the favorite or underdog in a particular match. Generally, uninformed gamblers tend to pick the wrong winning team or fighter - maybe they choose their fighter just due to the guy’s cool nickname or because they like his hairstyle or the team has hot cheerleaders or some other ridiculous way to bet on sportsbook matches. If you do this, this is going to cost you huge money in the long-run.

To really know your sportsbook terms, you need to know what a moneyline is. The moneyline is the term used for the odds of a match. For example, in MMA, when the moneyline of a fighter has a negative sign (example: Tito Ortiz: -145) this usually means that that fighter is the favorite or has the higher probability of winning. If the fighter has a positive sign on his moneyline (example: Rashad Evans +170) this usually means that he is the underdog.

Keep this in mind though, an underdog could still have a negative sign! The fact though, is that the underdogs will have less moneyline than the favorite.

A sportsbook betting system you’re going to want to utilize as you learn about educated sportsbook betting is to convert the moneyline to a percentage. For example, let’s take Tito Ortiz at -145. The -145 means that you would win $1.45 for every $1 you bet. Converting sportsbook moneyline odds to percentages really comes in handy when both fighters have negative signs on their moneyline.

How to convert a moneyline to a percentage for a favorite:

Amount you need to bet to win a dollar / (Amount you need to bet to win a dollar + $1) = Favorites Percentage

Let’s say the favorite has a -400 moneyline. In this case you need to bet $4 to win $1. The formula would look like this: $4 / ($4 + $1) and it is equivalent to 80%.

How to convert a moneyline to a percentage for an underdog:

1/(Amount won when wagering $1 + $1) = Underdogs Percentage

Let’s say the underdog has a +300 moneyline. In this case if you bet $1 you’ll win $3. The formula would look like this: 1/($3 +$1) and it is equivalent to 25%.

You might be asking why does 80% + 25% add up to 105% and not 100%? Sportsbooks always put “juice” on their odds - this is what the sportsbook will be winning from the betting, it’s their cut, their “commission”.

The best way to use this moneyline-to-percentage formula is by first deciding in your head what percentage chance do you think these fighters or teams have to win. Then check the odds at sportsbook betting sites like BetUS and Sportsbook and convert it to a percentage. If there is more than a 5% difference from your guess to the sportsbook odds, then you know you have a good bet on your hands.

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