If you are going to be a successful sports gambler, you either have to be incredibly good at being selective and picking the right matchups, or you can try your luck with underdogs betting, preferably you try both.
You see, it is a well-known fact that about 65% to 70% of the gamblers out there will bet on the favourite to win a game. If you were to receive an honest poll, almost half of them would not pick underdogs more often than 25% of the time. Some people never choose underdogs. This is why underdog betting is good.
You still have about a 50/50 chance of winning on either side of the football betting line. Each season, the percentages are no more than 3% one way or the other. Pro football is a game of parity. The entire National Football League’s competitive structure is based on equality and the teams being as equal as possible.
Success is punished in the NFL with low draft picks and tighter schedules. Lack of success is rewarded with high draft picks and easy plans. In pro football, the difference between the teams is incredibly minuscule, and the margin for error between victory and defeat is razor-thin. With that in mind, the first place to look when handicapping the pro football gambling card is with the team getting points.
Let’s start with the most basic of logic. When two equal teams are taking the field, doesn’t it make more sense to take the team that is getting the points? Even most losing pro football teams have enough talent to pull off an upset against the best, and certainly stay within the “number.”
Another factor to keep in mind is that the pro football gambling odds, contrary to popular belief, are set based on public perception and consumer demand rather than the actual merits of the teams.
The underdog might not even be an underdog
What this means is that a group may be an underdog despite being the better team, depending on how the NFL gambling public views the two teams involved. It may also mean that the chalk is favoured by more points than justified as the oddsmakers may have put a “tax” on the more popular “name brand” team.
An excellent example would be a matchup between the Oakland Raiders and Jacksonville Jaguars. These are two equally lousy teams, and yet the Oakland would be the lesser value because the public likes them more, transforming Jacksonville into a bargain value as they were last September when they were getting a whopping seven points as the dog at home. And that’s why underdog betting might be profitable.
Always remember in NFL underdog gambling that the babbling idiots on TV and radio discussing what “Vegas thinks” are merely displaying their colossal ignorance as that line is based on the masses and consumer demand. However, if you are new to underdog betting and are looking for a more informative underdog betting strategy, we would recommend you sign up with a tipster service. There are a lot of tipsters out there that take advantage of underdog betting and make a profit long term. Read our guides over the best horse racing tipsters or football prediction sites.