Wednesday, October 29, 2014

College Basketball Odds & Lines

Even though most people are probably still happily progressing with their NFL betting, I've decided to get a jump on this season of College Basketball. The success of my annual CasinoDave.com March Madness contest (and related pages) means that I would like to get ahead of the curve with betting on the NCAA.

The first games are a little more than two weeks from now and usually nothing exciting happens (save a few season opening tournaments) for another week or two; but it's nice not to try and get prepared for the NCAA tournament until the last minute. Because there is very little of substance to report, instead I will give you a quick tutorial on betting on these upcoming college basketball games.

College Basketball Betting

When most people think of college basketball lines they think of 'March Madness'--otherwise known as the NCAA Basketball Tournament—and filling out office pool brackets. That's unfortunate since professional sports bettors have long considered college basketball one of the most 'beatable' sports for a variety of reasons. There are so many teams on the board that the NCAA basketball betting enthusiast can become a 'specialist' and focus on teams from a specific region or conference. This allows them to find value against the college basketball lines or pointspread since bookmakers have to 'generalize' and set numbers on the entire board.

With so many good sports books available to players all over the world there's no reason to bet into unfavorable NCAA college basketball odds. Always shopping for and betting into the most favorable college basketball lines is essential for long term success at sports betting. Whether you're betting on NBA or college hoops, NFL or college football or any other sport there's no getting around the fact that long term winners do the work necessary to make sure that they're betting at the right college basketball pointspread.

The specific nature of college basketball betting makes pointspread shopping all the more important. With so many teams on the board and so many games being played every week you'll find more disparity from sports book to sports book in NCAA basketball lines than in any other sport. Just by doing some shopping and finding college basketball odds that are a point or two more favorable and doing it on a consistent basis can turn a losing season into a highly profitable winning season.

Since it is such a huge event in the college basketball betting world let's talk a little bit about the NCAA tournament aka 'March Madness'. 'March Madness' is one of the biggest mainstream sporting events of the year and a huge cash cow for the NCAA itself. The CBS TV network pays the NCAA over a half billion dollars per year and this amount makes up over 90% of its operating budget. It's also one of the biggest sports betting events of the year—some suggest that it's an even bigger deal than the Super Bowl since it's spread out over multiple days. In addition to college basketball pointspread betting on the game with sports books, NCAA tournament office pools are common in businesses large and small.

Whether you're betting on the finals of 'March Madness' or an early season non-conference game it's important to always get the best of it. This means shopping for the most favorable college basketball odds offered at more than one sports book. The extra work you do before the game will translate into more money in your pocket at the end of the season.

No comments: