1.) Home-field advantage is worth 3 points. There was a time when this simplistic way of thinking was accurate and oddsmakers and handicappers almost blindly assigned 3-points to the home team in an NFL football game. Today, if you polled a group of professional bettors and oddsmakers, they’d tell you that home field advantage is worth less than three points and is different depending on the team and the stadium. When I’m handicapping a game, there are some teams (Raiders and Chargers for instance) I award zero points to for home-field advantage.
If you’re giving a team with a great home crowd like the Seahawks the same edge as you’re giving the the Rams in a game when you can hardly see blue and yellow in the stands, you’re doing something wrong.
2.) Bookmakers independently make their own numbers. While there are some brave industry leaders who set their own lines, the industry is filled with copycats.
This was never more clear than in 2021 when a Las Vegas casino mistakenly posted a WNBA All-Star game number about 50 points too high (248.5).
If the industry was filled with independent decision makers who weren’t just copy and pasting from their competitors, then this number would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Instead, casinos began to copy the bad number and caused one of the largest line movements in Las Vegas history.
3.) Pro sports bettors live lavish lifestyles – The Internet is filled with examples of “touts” who are essentially snake oil salesmen driving around in fancy cars and flashing their supposed wealth. While there are many professional bettors who live very comfortably, the truth is most professional bettors are grinding out a living like Joey Knish in the movie Rounders.
4.) Pick providers hitting at 80% – If someone is selling you picks and claims to be winning 80% of the time, you should run. In a small enough sample size, sure that success can be obtained, but it’s unsustainable long-term especially on sides and totals. Unless a bettor is only wagering on massive favorites (in which case their units won will be very low), nobody is skilled enough to hit four of five bets, so if someone claims they are, they’re either lying or stretching the truth. On bets with standard -110 juice, a 60% winner is profitable and considered extremely impressive in the industry.
5.) Pro bettors are constantly swinging for the fences. Hollywood movies paint a picture that professional bettors are making massive high-risk bets on a daily basis, but nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, most pro bettors bet around 3% of their bank roll with each wager. For more information on the benefits of this “3% rule,” click here: Utilizing The 3% Rule – Bet More Responsibly – Prediction Machine
6.) Being a professional bettor is easy – There’s nothing easy about earning a living betting on sports and most people don’t have the mental makeup for it. Even for those blessed with the mental gifts required for the lifestyle, it takes hours of work to research bets, analyze the market, and put in bets in different locations. It truly is a full-time job and one that most people are not qualified for.