How To Bet NASCAR

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Like it or not, NASCAR’s popularity has continued to grow ever since FOX and NBC took over the television broadcasting rights four years ago. This exposed many new markets to stock car racing, and the Nextel Cup Series is now second only to the NFL in terms of fan popularity. This recent surge of interest has also increased the popularity of NASCAR betting.
There are two main types of NASCAR wagers, including picking the outright winner and picking the winner of head-to-head driver matchups. A money-line is used in both situations and resembles the same format used in wagers on golf and tennis.
When picking the race winner, all drivers are plus (+) money, which means a bettor can pick four or five different drivers and still profit if one of them wins. Normally the favorite is at least 5-to-1 (+500) or higher, with many competitive drivers at 12-to-1 (+1200) or higher.
NASCAR has become more competitive than ever with at least 15-20 drivers having a chance to win each week. Last year, 31 different drivers had at least one Top-5 finish during the 2004 season with 13 different winners in 36 races.
Because of the great parity in the sport, it is not uncommon for a longshot to grab an occasional victory. In 2003, Joe Nemechek was 40-to-1 when he won at Richmond and he was 40-to-1 again last year in his Kansas Speedway win. Even a competitive driver like Elliott Sadler was 25-to-1 when he won at Texas in 2004.
Another popular type of wager is head-to-head driver match-ups. This wager involves only two drivers and the bettor must predict which driver will finish higher in the race. This is the preferred method used by many professional handicappers, as it allows them to focus on or against a specific driver, without having to worry about the other 42 cars in the field.
Once again, oddsmakers use a moneyline (just like baseball) and most match-ups are on a 20-cent line (-130 / +110 for example) all the way up to -200 / +170 where a larger split takes place. Head-to-head match-ups allow great flexibility for handicappers as they can either look to play on certain drivers or against certain drivers. The best betting situation occurs when a hot driver is pitted versus a cold driver in the same match-up.
The beauty of handicapping NASCAR lies in the intricacies of each individual track. There are 36 races at 22 different tracks over the course of the 2005 Nextel Cup season. Each track varies in distance, banking, surface, etc. The longest tracks are 2 1/2 mile super-speedways like Daytona and Talladega with race speeds nearing 190 mph, while the others are 1/2-mile short tracks like Martinsville and Bristol (or road courses like Infineon and Watkins Glen) where the race speeds are under 80 mph.
Certain drivers excel at super-speedways (Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, and Michael Waltrip have won 15 of the past 18 restrictor plate races) while other drivers excel at short tracks (Kurt Busch has won four of the past seven Bristol races). Past history is an important handicapping factor as certain drivers and teams consistently do well on specific types of tracks.
NASCAR is a team sport and it takes more than one individual to win the race. The driver is the star, but he must rely on his pit crew of six to eight members and his crew chief to prepare a winning car and then make the necessary adjustments as the race progresses. Current form is important as teams go through slumps during a long nine-month season, just like athletes and teams in any other sport.
Another important handicapping factor is practice. Each driver is allowed three practice sessions on the Friday and Saturday before the race. The first practice session usually takes place on Friday morning, followed by qualifying to determine the starting order. The next two practice sessions usually take place on Saturday morning, with the final practice known as “Happy Hour.”
The oddsmakers and media put too much emphasis on qualifying times, as the practice times are more relative to the overall race results. The first practice session is usually run in “qualifying trim” meaning the teams prepare the car to run fast for just two laps. Many changes are made to the shocks, brakes, oil, etc. which would not be optimal for actual race conditions.
The second and third practice sessions are usually run in “race trim” which more accurately simulates real racing conditions. These times provide an excellent gage into how a team will perform that weekend, including race day.
With all its details and numbers, NASCAR continues to grow in popularity each year. It is a competitive and balanced sport and this parity provides excellent opportunities for the smart sports bettor as many winning drivers have odds of at least 10-to-1 (+1000) or higher.
It is extremely important to shop around at various sportsbooks to obtain the highest odds on each driver you play. Some sportsbooks will post a driver at +600 while another sportsbook has him listed at +1200. This type of discrepancy is seen every weekend and by having multiple offshore sports accounts, a bettor is guaranteed the highest possible payout on every winning wager he or she makes.
The same holds true when playing head-to-head driver matchups. One sportsbook might have a driver at -130, while another has him at -115. Money saved is money earned and this is what separates a long-term professional winner from a recreational amateur.

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BCS Championship Predictions

Notre Dame Stadium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BCS Championship

Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Kansas St. Wildcats

Projected line: Alabama -16

Kansas St. likely controls its own destiny against a very doable remaining schedule. The Wildcats started slow this past week against Texas Tech but eventually pulled away for another lopsided win. They have a stern test this week hosting Oklahoma St. before hitting the road for two games at TCU and Baylor. Alabama had no issues with Mississippi St. as it got warmed up for its big game at LSU. The Tide are 10-point road favorites there and they are showing they can cover anywhere, so making them more than a two-touchdown favorite against the Wildcats on a neutral field is legitimate.

Fiesta Bowl

Oklahoma Sooners vs. Boise St. Broncos

Projected line: Oklahoma -7

Despite losing to Notre Dame at home, the Sooners remain in the Fiesta Bowl. Besides Alabama, there are other four SEC teams ahead of Oklahoma but those teams have to go elsewhere and the Sooners will likely be the highest at-large team left. The Broncos are very well alive here as they have to finish ahead of at least one conference champion, which comes from an AQ conference and that could easily be the Big Ten or Big East. As long as it wins out, Boise St. will eventually end up in the top 16. This is a great rematch from the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and the Sooners will be around the same sized favorite here.

Orange Bowl

Louisville Cardinals vs. Florida St. Seminoles

Projected line: Florida St. -10

The Seminoles are coming off another blowout win and they remain on pace to take the ACC Atlantic. They play next Thursday at Virginia Tech, which is no easy task and close the season against Florida, so nothing is a guarantee. Louisville takes this spot now after Rutgers fell to Kent St. and while the Scarlet Knights are still undefeated in the conference, a loss like that shows they are not very good. As mentioned last week, the Big East Conference is the lowest ranked conference and it will not get much respect from the linesmakers no matter who is here.

Rose Bowl

Oregon Ducks vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers

Projected line: Oregon -15

Oregon is playing at a high level and will likely need help to get into the BCS Championship although its schedule gets stronger the rest of the way. The Ducks face the Trojans this coming week and Nebraska moved ahead of Michigan after defeating the Wolverines on Saturday night, so it is now the frontrunner to meet Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship. The Ducks look unstoppable and should they fall into the Rose Bowl, they will be big favorites not matter who they face.

Sugar Bowl

Georgia Bulldogs vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Projected line: Notre Dame -7

The Fighting Irish made a lot of people believers after their very impressive win over Oklahoma. The problem for Notre Dame is its remaining schedule as the last true test is against USC, which lost again this past weekend. It is looking more likely that Notre Dame can go undefeated and not play for a national title. Georgia moved back into the national championship picture following their big win over Florida. Playing in the Sugar Bowl could be determined by how bad the Bulldogs lose to Alabama in the SEC Championship. Notre Dame goes from underdog to favorite.

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How to bet pro basketball

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It doesn’t matter that the NBA is the hardest sport to beat next to the NFL. Nor does it matter that NBA lines are extremely sharp, or that some of the players in the league are among the most detestable in all sports.

We’re still going to bet NBA. So let’s at least try to make some money from it. To accomplish this we need to be aware of certain harsh realities.

Basketball is an eight-month grind similar to baseball. That means riding hot streaks and dealing with cold streaks. Money management is as important as handicapping.

Bet a little more when winning, but don’t ever let yourself get too cocky. This is a sport that slaps you down to size real fast by nature of its randomness and garbage-type finishes that often decide the point spread winner. If you’re losing you need to scale down your action until you regain your rhythm.

For the NBA is a rhythm sport. The lines almost always seem accurate. So face it, you’re rarely going to get value. Sometimes you will, but it’s usually just during the first couple of weeks. If you refuse to play unless you get a great number, you’re going to be sitting out a lot.

So don’t be afraid to get involved. Now, I’m not saying be undisciplined. No matter how much you like a side, you have to pass if the line is too out of whack. Rare is the time when you really love a side and are able to also take a great number on the same game. You’ll get bit a few times, losing by a point or two, but in the long run you’ll make more money provided you handicap right and play the game even if the betting line isn’t entirely to your liking.

Some gamblers disagree, saying you should never play unless you’re getting the best number. That’s fine in theory, but hard to apply in the NBA since a large part of handicapping pro basketball is situations, injuries, matchups and your own subjective feel rather than power rankings, statistics and coaching.

Basketball is a hard sport to get rich on. I’ve beaten the NBA five of the past six years hitting between 54 and 58 percent. Perhaps that doesn’t sound spectacular, but it’s solid profit taking into account there are 30 teams playing 82 games followed by the postseason. I would dare call a liar anybody who claims to consistently hit better than 60 percent over the long run playing a lot of games each season.

Having the right feel in the NBA is huge. The key question, of course, is how to acquire the right feel? It’s developed through experience, watching the games, analyzing players, understanding situational aspects, reading pertinent up-to-date material and talking to sources if you’re lucky enough to have good ones. And in the end, it comes down to trusting your own instincts.

Unless your whole life has been devoted to handicapping NBA, you have to make certain concessions. For instance, I don’t spend a lot of time pouring over statistics and compiling power rankings. These are factored into the betting line anyways.

The oddsmakers at Las Vegas Sports Consultants - the company that supplies the betting numbers to most of the hotels in Nevada - use power rankings to make numbers as other linesmakers do. I do make overnight numbers and compare them. But the oddsmakers’ numbers are solid and need to be respected. There’s no reason to try to improve on their time-tested numbers.

Betting totals is something else altogether. There are individuals and betting syndicates who are extremely proficient in this area. Las Vegas bookmakers were plagued for many years by one especially sharp individual in this area.

Bookmakers adjust totals much faster than sides. It’s my experience gamblers are either very good or very bad at over/unders with most having no clue how to beat totals. Over/unders are hard to get involved with unless you thoroughly understand what you’re doing. It’s difficult for both oddsmakers and bettors, for instance, to accurately gauge a total when a fast-paced team matches up against a half-court opponent.

If a team is playing its fifth game in seven days you figure that team is at a huge disadvantage physically and mentally. That’s easy to handicap playing a side. But when betting a total, would you know if that’s an advantage (tired arms making for poor shooting percentage) or a disadvantage (too tired to play intense defense)?

For reasons like that I find sides much easier to handicap. The business aspect is what makes the NBA so much a crapshoot when handicapping. The players make so much money and have so many games that you’re not always assured of getting a top effort from them. That’s not a concern in college because players usually play hard all the time. The NBA is more a marathon with players pacing themselves, picking their spots.

It’s rare to find a team, for instance, playing well every game during a long road trip. The secret is to project when they’ll tank and when they’ll be on. Beating the NBA is difficult because you’re at the mercy of the different mood swings of various key players who can be just out of high school, have a ghetto background or have a name you can’t pronounce because they’re from somewhere halfway around the world.

Sometimes the point spread is decided in the final minute. Even though the outcome is evident, a point spread could be decided by a meaningless uncontested lay-up, an undefended jump shot or if the losing team decides to foul or not. It’s not nearly as bad as what occurs in college, when a hopelessly losing team keeps needlessly fouling, allowing the winner to cover a big spread and pushing the total over.

But often times the line is so solid that the game falls in the mix, where it could go either way from a point spread standpoint no matter how well or poorly you handicapped. I remember losing with an 8-point underdog a few years ago when the favorite had a 7-point lead with just seconds left and the ball. The underdog wasn’t going to foul, instead they started shaking hands and walking off the court.

Now when that happens, you can almost start counting your money because the winning team is just going to dribble out the last few seconds, especially when they were at half-court, as in this instance. However, in this particular case, the notoriously selfish J.R. Rider had the ball and sensing an easy way to pad his stats, made a mad dash for the open hoop dunking the ball with a second left. The announcers criticized Rider for being bush, as did other players, but the bottom line was the final score was a 9-point margin costing me a wager.

Always accept that a certain amount of games fall into the mix. The way to beat the NBA is to nail the games that don’t fall into the mix more often than not. Use proper money management and know how to take advantage of injury information.

Just because Chris Webber is out doesn’t necessarily mean the 76ers are a bad bet for that evening. It helps to know the players and backups so well you can correctly assess if the bookmaker made a correct line adjustment on an injury. Sometimes they over-adjust. I’ve played in Rotisserie leagues with deep rosters (12 teams composed of 15 players) for years to keep sharp on players. I’d recommend it.

Because of the long season, there will be short windows of opportunities to take advantage of inside knowledge such as a key player unexpectedly not being in the lineup either through injury, suspension or other personal reasons. The biggest NBA bet I ever won came a couple of years ago when 30 minutes before tip-off I received a call from a source saying Steve Francis wouldn’t play.

The books got that same information a few minutes before tip-off, but in that short interval before the house found out, I was able to bet against Francis’ team, which happened to be the Rockets at the time, while also betting the under. Both wagers easily won.

These kinds of dream spots don’t crop up too often, but they can prove profitable when they do. The bottom line with beating the NBA is to keep plugging; exploit hot streaks; take advantage of rare inside information when it appears; lay low during cold spells; and respect how tough it is to make a huge profit wagering on the sport. Keep things in perspective. The NBA can be beat, but not if you’re impatient and greedy.

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HOW NBA HANDICAPPING HAS CHANGED IN THE 66-GAME SCHEDULE

Normally the lines for the next day’s NBA games start trickling out by around 3 p.m. ET. But for Thursday’s three games - Nets-Pacers, Celtics-Bulls and Clippers-Trail Blazers - there wasn’t a single spread posted within 24 hours of tipoff.

Welcome to the jam-packed, 66-game NBA schedule.

Here’s how the NBA handicapping landscape has changed during the 2011-12 lockout-shortened season:

Fear of the unknown

Thursday’s trio of games was a perfect storm. Five of the six teams played the night before, making handicapping somewhat dangerous because of a potential big injury suffered Wednesday or a multiple-overtime result that would leave a team drained the next night. It's always been a danger when taking the early odds for the second half of back-to-back games, but it's even more prominent in the NBA this season.

Injury bug infestation

And speaking of injuries, there were some vital ones that would have affected the spread for Thursday’s game.

Indiana’s Danny Granger was a game-time call on Wednesday – he didn’t play vs. Cleveland – and obviously oddsmakers weren’t about to put a number on the Nets-Pacers game without knowing the status of Indiana’s top scorer.

Ditto for the Clippers-Trail Blazers spread because Portland’s LaMarcus Aldridge, the Blazers’ top scorer, sat out with an injury Wednesday. And while the Bulls didn’t play Wednesday, the status of Derrick Rose remained up in the air for the Celtics game after Rose had missed the previous three games with back spasms.

Depth is the difference

Sometimes those injuries can torpedo a team, like the Nuggets, who have struggled since leading scorer Danilo Gallinari went down. Sometimes injuries, however, can be the impetus for a surge. The Knicks’ Jeremy Lin wouldn’t be a global sensation and leading New York to seven wins in a row if the injured Carmelo Anthony was out there stealing shots.

Making sure a team has a solid second - and even third - option behind an injured starter is even more important as the season wears on and more ailments pile up.

Forest through the trees

Because there are so many games squeezed into such a tight schedule there is a lot more work to do each day for cappers to find value.

With less time in between games, inside info from local papers and beat writers is harder to come by, especially if you’re trying to take advantage of the early lines. In past seasons, you could get two days of coverage on a team in between games. But with the frantic pace of the schedule, there is less time to learn about your bets.

Three’s a crowd

Basketball bettors are getting the chance to handicap teams playing back-to-back-to-back sets this season, a situation they haven’t seen since the last lockout-shortened season.

You can find nice value in overnight lines because often there is plenty of movement from when odds are released to where they sit in the morning.

The most unusual three-games-in-three-nights result this year was from Feb. 12-14, when Miami won and covered easily at Atlanta, at Milwaukee and at Indiana. That’s two potential playoff teams Miami beat as well as a Bucks club that had the Heat’s number twice previously this season.

The Heat became the first NBA team in 33 years to win three road games in three nights.

Running on empty

Perhaps the top trend this season is that tired legs usually equal lousy shooting, which then leads to low-scoring games and plenty of unders - although books have certainly adjusted totals accordingly.

Shooting percentages are down more than a percentage point and around two percentage points on 3-pointers from last season. Last year, 11 teams averaged at least 100 points, led by the Denver Nuggets (107.5). This season, just three teams average 100 or more points, led by Miami’s 103.5 points per game. The Heat are just 14-14-2 over/under entering the weekend.

No team averaged less than 90 points a game a season ago but four are below that mark this year, with wretched Charlotte at the bottom at 86.5 points a night.

Paying attention to shooting slumps and how the schedule will impact a team's ability to fix them is becoming more important for NBA cappers.

How are the lines set?

While the odds makers do to try approximate the median margin of victory between two teams, they also try to reduce their exposure to risk by setting lines such that the public money will fall evenly on both sides of a game, so that they can offset the bets against each other and earn a profit on the juice (cut of winnings taken by the house, explained below) without exposing themselves to large potential losses. Thus, odds makers are often in the business of gauging public perception rather than team performance, and therefore the betting public actually sets the line. If Georgia is 4 points better than Georgia Tech according to my advanced metrics and analysis, but the aggregate public perception is that Georgia is 7 points better than Georgia Tech, then the posted point spread is likely to be closer to 6.5 or 7 points (public perception) than it will be to 4 points (the realistic difference between the teams). This makes my job as a professional handicapper much less daunting; not only can I exploit lines where the odds makers leave an edge, but I can also exploit the uniformed opinions of the general betting public.

Isn't gambling risky?

I don't believe that the term 'gambling' applies to what I do. I sell information to subscribers, with which they can take positive expectation positions in uncertain markets. With correct financial optimization and bankroll management, long term risks are nominal compared to the risks of investing in other, more conventional markets. Just as a single stock may go up or down in a day, any one team may win or lose a given game. But as long as the investor maintains a long-term perspective, understands variance, and doesn't over-extend themselves or bet more than they can easily handle, risk can be highly mitigated, and they can earn a very attractive risk adjusted return.

Juice, and the power of 56%

Even though most sports bettors are losers in their own right (as a whole, bettors actually win an average of only 48% of their bets - less than they would expect to win if they just flipped a coin for every game), their losses are compounded by the fact that the house takes a cut of winnings, also known as the 'juice' or 'vig.' Most sports books charge a 10% commission on wins, which means that a bettor must actually win 52.4% of his games just to break even. (Wagering $100 per game, a bettor loses $100 with a loss and wins $90.91 with a win, so he must go 11-10 (11/21 = 52.38%) to break even). Recently, some online books have started to offer lower juice, betting exchanges and deposit bonuses, which reduce the house edge.

In order to beat the juice and win in sports betting, a bettor must employ a disciplined approach in their analysis of each game using methods that have proven to be successful in the long run. I discuss my math models and analytical metrics in my Handicapping Methods essay, but you must realize that only the best and most knowledgeable handicappers can win 55% of their games. In their 2007 two page article about my handicapping success, the Wall Street Journal wrote, "...fewer than 100 people can sustain (win rates of 55%) over time. Most of them belong to professional betting syndicates that hire teams of statisticians, wager millions every week and keep their operations secret." Even fewer bettors can hit 56-57% over a 20 year period as I have.

Touts often claim to be able to hit 60% or higher, but as I explain in my essay on Bayesian Probability, anyone who tells you that their long term expected winning percentage is higher than 60% is deluding themselves. For a bettor to claim a greater than 60% long term expected win percentage, that would be mean that Vegas would have to consistently release lines with egregious errors, and that simply just does not happen often enough for claims of greater than 60% long term expected win percentages to be caused anything other than blind, short-term luck.

I often hear amateur gamblers erroneously claim that winning 56% of games isn't even enough to beat juice. As demonstrated above, a bettor only needs to win 52.4% to break even, and a 56% bettor will be profitable in the long run if they pursue an optimal money management strategy.

Of course, as in any game of chance, there is variability in the actual results and just because you have won 56% in the past and expect to win 56% in the future doesn't mean that you're going to win 56% this upcoming season. There is variance in sports betting, as there is in most investments, and I calculate the standard deviation to figure out how much of my bankroll I can safely wager on each game during the season to accommodate potential negative swings while having very little chance of exhausting my bankroll. I have extensively quantified the variance that exists in sports betting, and use mathematical formulas to dictate the exact optimal amount to invest so as to maximize the ratio of profits to variance.

A football season with 56% winners (my long term percentage) on 400 units or 'stars' would on average yield +30.04 stars ( (400*.56) - (400*.44)*1.1 ). Even using a very conservative 1.5% per star (in the past, I have recommended 2%), that's an expected return of 45.06%.

A basketball season with 54% winners (my long term percentage) on 1,050 units or 'stars' would on average yield +35.7 stars ( (1050*.54) - (1050*.46)*1.1 ). Using a conservative 1.1% per star (in the past, I have recommended 1.5%), that's an expected return of 39.27%. So, despite a lower overall winning percentage, I expect a season's worth of basketball wagers to be almost as profitable as a season of football in the future. Over the last ten years, my basketball wagers have actually been more profitable than football, but I have done a lot of analysis this summer and I expect my football wagers to be even better next year than they have been in the past.

Units Won vs. Winning Percentage

Units Won vs. Winning Percentage

While both “Units Won” and winning percentage can be telling when evaluating a group of plays, the sample size (number of plays) is also an important piece of information to look at. Some bettors use a strategy that is referred to as the Wal-Mart approach. With this strategy, bettors are hoping to grind out a profit through a higher quantity of plays, which allows bettors to spread around their risk in the sports betting marketplace.


In the table above, Pinnacle has a lower winning percentage than Phoenix, but it also has a higher profit for the season due to triggering more than double the number of plays. Spreading risk around allows bettors to ride the highs and lows of the season and still turn a profit. This approach requires bettors to be steadfast with their betting amounts. At Sports Insights, we recommend using 2% of your starting bankroll for each wager. Fluctuations in your standard bet will most likely cause more damage during the lows than it will help during the highs.

Spreading the risk around in the sports betting marketplace is similar to building a diverse portfolio in the stock market. It lessens the damage done by a rough stretch in the market. If a bettor is starting out with a $100 bankroll, and decides to use $25 wagers, there is a good chance the bankroll would be decimated by an early cold streak. However, if that same bettor makes $2 wagers, he can withstand any early cold streaks to remain in the market and realize positive gains. For example, Sports Insights betting strategies will produce 5-10 plays on an average day with an expected 54-55% win percentage. Instead of betting two games at $50 each, we suggest you bet 2% of your bankroll on 10 plays.

Moneyline Sports vs. Spread Sports

Many bettors like to stay away from moneyline-based sports, such as baseball and hockey, due to the extremes in winning percentages, but they can be very profitable. Betting on the underdog in moneyline sports will likely give you a losing record, but the payouts for winners will be so much higher that your profits will increase. Below is a section of a results page for MLB Smart Money plays. Notice that five out the six books have losing records for the triggered plays, but that all six have significant units won due to underdog payouts.


The other side of the coin is betting on favorites, which will give you a strong winning percentage, but can still produce a loss in money. Betting on teams like the Yankees or Red Wings will consistently put your odds in the -200s or higher. If you average odds of -200, you would need that team to win 67% of the time to break even. If your average odds go any higher, you’ll need to win 70% or more to not lose money.

For example, if you wager on the Yankees every game of the season (162 games) and they average -200 odds for the season, you would need them to win 109 games just to break even. To turn any substantial profit you would need them to break the single-season win record (116).