College Football Betting: Choosing Advice Wisely
By Loot, NCAA Football Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
Sports betting advice is one of those areas of life where everybody wants to think they’re an authority. It’s like politics in the sense that people with very little actual knowledge will speak authoritatively about it. When it comes to college football, there is no shortage of “experts” who can’t wait to impart their “wisdom” to you. But if you want to be a force when it comes to betting college football. you must choose which advice you listen to wisely.
In fact, you should rarely let anyone make your picks for you. If you want to piggy-back a proven winner’s picks, that’s one thing. But when listening to the hordes of people commenting on college football, you should just be trying to extract useful tidbits of info, as opposed to just outright biting their picks.
There are people who are simply not informed enough to fashion educated picks. In addition, they might not even be bettors. When betting on college football, listen to people who actually have a stake in the proceedings. They backed their knowledge with a bet--which speaks louder than a guy just spouting off without taking a real stand. Not to imply that everyone who lays a bet is informed, but at least they’re willing to put something behind what they say.
TV is full of analysts who are universally hailed as experts in college football. You’ll get no argument here. They are experts. Ask them about how they think Tulsa’s secondary will be this coming year and they’ll be dropping names left and right while impressing you with their handle on things. But let’s remember--they’re not gamblers. They do not wager on games. And just because you know college football up and down doesn’t mean they can handicap. So by all means, listen to Lee Corso and Mark May, right up until the point where they start making picks.
It gets worse on the Internet, where people need no qualifications whatsoever to get air time. There are some sharp betting minds on the Internet--people on message boards and whatnot willing to share their insight with you. For every one of those guys, there’s dozens of people trying to come off as experts who couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat.
Another place where ear-muffs would do you a lot of good is at an actual sportsbook. You will overhear people talking. You might even strike up a conversation with a fellow bettor, who is dying to share his insight and picks with you. He might tell you about his selections with so much confidence that it’s a bit infectious. You might even start to second-guess your moves. Be careful with that.
First of all, take a good look at the guy you’re talking to. Some of these fine gents are hardly the picture of success. You might find a guy talking to you like he’s some kind of whiz. But then you notice he has a giant tartar sauce stain on his Members Only jacket. You have to ask yourself if his judgment can be trusted, since it appears he’s not exactly knocking them out of the park in life.
If the guy you’re talking to at the book is wearing a Landry Jones jersey and a Sooners hat and he’s telling you to take Oklahoma, take that with a grain of salt. Fervent fans of a team often times cannot handicap their games with a clear head. They obviously are prone to siding with their favorite team. And that goes for analysts on TV and radio too. Guys who played for or coached a certain team have obvious allegiances. They might even go the other way just to not appear like their shilling for their team. Listen to people who have no heartstrings tied into the equation.
In essence, listen to well-reasoned people with a moderate view on the game and in college football in general. You find a lot of extreme people out there. Everything is a “lock.” All teams are either “great” or they “suck.” You want to hear from people with a more realistic view on the unpredictable waters of college football. Listen to people who acknowledge the limitations not only in betting college football, but in their handicapping as well. Betting is an educated calculation. College football is an unpredictable sport on which to wager. Tune your ear to people who seem to realize what they’re truly up against when betting.
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