College Football Betting: Why Being a Super-Fan Means Little in Wagering
By Loot, NCAA Football Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
All successful college football bettors started out as merely fans. Then later, they made the transition into being a betting man. In other words, being a successful bettor of college football requires a fan to make some overhauls to his mindset. Betting well is not simply an extension of being a fan, regardless of how conscientious of a fan you might be.
Some people fail to see the Grand Canyon-sized gulf in being a fan and being good at betting. The perception on the part of many is that those who beat the bookie are just super-fans--the cream of the crop. It's not so much that they're big fans, even though they might be, it's more about how well they were able to transition into the different world of wagering.
Knowing a lot about college football is helpful in betting. Knowledge is never a bad thing. In order to start winning money consistently, however, other areas of knowledge need to be developed that aren't covered in the area of rote football awareness. Just because you can tell us about Marshall's reserve offensive tackles doesn't mean you know anything about gambling, sports-betting, or more specifically--college football wagering.
These are the areas that need to be developed before you can reasonably expect to succeed at college football wagering. Knowing how a defensive coordinator arranges his blitz packages is all good and well. But what do you know about gambling? What do you know about the specifics of college football wagering?
Any successful football bettor has a pretty advanced view of gambling. It's about knowing the numbers, the odds, and having an elevated view of the particular mathematics and theories behind gambling. Having an elevated view of college football is pretty much rendered moot when your understanding of gambling is weak.
If you know about gambling, then you're on your way. Now it's time to develop your knowledge of football betting and how college ball has a ton of different factors at play that aren't found in NFL or other forms of sports wagering. It's like a guy who has all the talent to be a quarterback. He might be able to throw terrifically and be a standout athlete. But if he never learns about the little intricacies of the game, he probably won't make it. You might know everything there is to know about college football, but if you don't learn the ins-and-outs of this very specific form of wagering--it won't matter. You won't make it.
Often times, the measure of how well a fan can wager boils down to his ability to be less of a fan than he is. College football requires a clinical approach. The word fan comes from "fanatic." When you think of successful college football bettors, the last word you would use to describe them is "fanatic." Fans bring a lot of prejudice into it. There are teams, players, and coaches they like or don't like. Letting those feelings to even minimally guide your betting is a guaranteed recipe for losing.
It might be impossible to shed all your feelings when making the transition from fan to bettor. No one is saying to stop being a fan. It's just that strong or negative feelings can get in the way of our betting. In most cases, it might be a good idea to simply not bet on teams you either love or hate.
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Another thing fans tend to do is mythologize their experiences. What they saw means everything. You judge a player off of the few times you saw him play and blow off all the other times you didn't see him. This could also apply to a team. You might have a limited scope of understanding and tend to overrate it. The advanced bettor knows the limits of what he actually witnesses. He might see a team or player do great, but he doesn't jump to the conclusion that it's always like that.
In other words, if you see a running back killing it on Saturday, don't assume that's the norm. Or if you see a team play a great game, that could be an aberration. All teams and players have games where they are out of form--either playing far better or worse than normal. Fans can have the tendency to mistake the exception as the norm, which will lead to a lot of losing bets.
It's OK to be a fan of college football. If you weren't ever a fan, you'd probably never have gotten into betting. Just remember that success in college football betting can sometimes come down to how well you remove yourself from the perceptions that fans typically possess.
