College Football Betting: Wagering as an Investment
By Loot, NCAA Football Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
The term "college football gambling" may not bring up that great of an image. You go into a sportsbook and come across a bunch of ranting maniacs or you see a guy in his drawers all day at home betting online and it doesn't conjure up images of success. When done thoughtfully, however, betting on football can be more like an investment. If done well, there is money to made.
Try looking at it like the stock market. The teams are like stocks. They have a price and just like a stock-player, you look for bets (investments) where you're getting the best price. Look at what makes a good stock guy successful. He gets good value on his investments and he doesn't follow the masses blindly. Being able to do that in football gambling already gives you a leg up on the competition.
By in large, most who gamble on college football do not succeed. The reasons are numerous, but among the main causes is a lack of thoughtfulness, control, or the ability to stand on your own. Some betting men also do other things that would plague any investor, like asking for too much too fast and paying too little attention to the component of value.
A company like Coca-Cola is a famous one. People figure it's a good stock to have. Sort of like how people will bet on good teams in the college ranks, like, say, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. If you were to buy Coca-Cola stock, you would have a proven winner, but the price needs to be right. The Irish certainly win bets, but there are plenty of times where they're not a good value.
Those who really thrive at investing are the ones who are able to identify good value in more off-the-grid investments. They don't blindly follow the masses. In football gambling, that translates to looking beyond the marquee teams and trying to locate bets where the price a team is receiving is better than the actual probabilities. If something is more likely to happen than what the oddsmaker is forecasting, then we place the bet.
In college football gambling, there are naturally odds. Sometimes they're favorable and other times they are not. An astute NCAA football bettor looks for odds that offer good value instead of teams that have a winning reputation and might no longer be getting the best value. When everybody is betting on a team, there is less value there. Like in the stock market, for example, the real money-makers find things that are further down the list in terms of popularity. Finding diamonds-in-the-rough is what it's really all about.
In any form of investing, patience is key. This is where a lot of football bettors go awry. They picture themselves betting on NFL for a few months and then it's going to be all about limo rides and caviar. Those who make it big in this business fashion themselves as trains slowly chugging up a hill, not a Ferrari blazing down the freeway.
When your hopes are too high, all that means is you're going to take losing a lot harder. In football betting, that's usually step one on the road to disaster. When absorbing setbacks, the ill-equipped bettor will usually unravel. The bet amounts go up, as he tries to recoup losses instantly. Before long, he's watching football as a fan and not as a bettor. The money is gone.
STOP WASTING YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY! STOP LAYING -110 ODDS! START LAYING ONLY -105 TODAY AT THE WEB'S BEST SPORTSBOOK: 5DIMES
Looking at college football gambling more like an investor does a few things. First of all, when you picture a successful investor, you envision a person who is calculating, unruffled, and steady. He is not ruled by emotion. He accepts winning and losing with a certain unflappability. When he wins, he doesn't start making crazy moves on the basis of "playing with the house's money." And when he loses, he is able to chalk it up as merely an unfortunate byproduct of the business he is in. He is confident and even-tempered enough to internalize the fact that success in college football gambling occurs over a long period of time, not on a random weekend or two.
The difference in normal investing and NCAA football betting is that way more people are able to succeed at investing. The percentage of successful football bettors over the long-haul is alarmingly-low. That should awaken in all of us a need to do the right things in football gambling. That means getting the best price off our wagering dollar, both in terms of the picks we make and which books offer the best rate. We need to be selective and not be ruled by bias or worse yet--our need for action. Approaching football gambling with more of an investor's mindset will enhance your bottom line.
