College Basketball Betting: Expanding Your Areas of Knowledge
By Loot, College Basketball Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
We should generally wager on only the areas where our knowledge is strong. In college basketball wagering, that means sticking to the stuff you know most about. For a lot of us, there is one conference that we have tended to focus on since we were kids. It can depend on where you live, what team you liked as a kid, or any connection you might have to a certain team and its conference.
When betting on only one conference, it's easy to jump to certain conclusions about its worth to you as a bettor. We can get carried away looking at all the positive aspects of it, while neglecting the potential pitfalls. When focused on one conference, the knowledge level is going to be high. You know the teams, not only from this year, but in the past. You know their history and what you can generally expect on the floor.
Knowledge is always good. When omni-focused on one conference, you are abreast of all the changing details that can have an impact on your wagering--injuries, coaching changes, player development, their schedules, and so on. There is a flip side, however, to focusing solely on one conference.
Bias is a possible issue. If you've spent your childhood and adult years focused on one conference, that meant your favorite team was probably in that conference. The flip side of that coin is that there are teams you probably dislike that are also in that conference. So you may have strong feelings for about half of the teams in that given conference. That could give way to some contaminated handicapping, if you allow your feelings to creep into the equation. A lot of it can occur on an unconscious level.
It may be difficult to maintain a clean slate when handicapping games involving teams you feel strongly about--whether good or bad. While you would think your familiarity would give you a leg up, we might not benefit from our increased knowledge as much as we can hurt ourselves by betting on things when strong feelings are present.
When focusing on only one conference, we're leaving a lot on the table. There could be some exceptional value that lies outside our area of expertise, but we won't be able to benefit because we're not paying attention to it. It's too much to ask for any college hoops bettor to gain the appropriate knowledge to bet on all available games, but we want to at least have some different possibilities and not put all our eggs in one basket.
We all have issues of time in our lives. If you somehow managed to construct a life for yourself where you have a lot of free time, that's great. A lot of us can't say that, however, and getting familiar with other conferences to the point where we know enough to place bets is simply not doable. We just don't have the time.
It presents a challenge to the betting man. How should he handle this? If a bettor doesn't have the time, he can't put in the hours--simple as that. But you don't necessarily have to go hog-wild. Start looking into a few other teams. Pick another conference where you aren't totally in the dark to start off and then build on that.
If you have always focused on one conference and managed to build a bankroll, keep it up. Don't change a winning strategy for the sake of adding variety to your wagering profile. Don't ever upset a winning program. Others, however, find that betting on one conference grows stale. You can get bored with it. That could lead to a lack of focus, which is sure to spell out trouble for your bets.
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We should at least try to broaden our perspective. Even if we are just concentrating on teams from a certain conference, we will see a lot of non-conference games that will force us to understand teams from other parts of the country. We limit ourselves by confining our wagering action to one area.
Don't force it. We need to maintain our high standards. Don't start betting on other stuff until your knowledge is up to par. And if you simply don't have the time for it--what can you do? Its just not feasible for some bettors. But if you can find the time, broadening your range of knowledge can't be bad thing.
