Holiday Betting Tips

This is always a very challenging part of the year for sports bettors. The NFL season is reaching a crescendo. The exciting college bowl season is about to unfold. The NBA is in full flower. And the nascent college basketball season continues to grow. There is "action" all over the place.

Unfortunately, for many people, there are also distractions all over the place – shopping, traveling, parties, relatives, and more than one occasion to quaff a few. These are good times for you, but also for the sportsbooks.

It is doubly important at this time of the year for sports bettors to keep their discipline when wagering – if they want to make money, that is. If you just want to have action and sit back and enjoy a few games, this is going to be the best piece of advice you'll get: If you're not properly focused and you haven't fully handicapped the games, cut down the size of your normal wagers to a "beer money" level (maybe one-fourth or one-fifth of your normal wager). You might win a few bucks – but you won't get "killed," and that's the main thing.

Here are a few other tips:

When it comes to the bowl games, always put fundamentals first. Team strength, balance, matchups, coaching, and discipline are going to have much more to do with both the straight-up and pointspread result of the game than any technical trend or perceived psychological factor.

Remember, it's who a team beats that counts the most, not how much it wins by. Season averages and scoring margins of previous games are not as important as how a team matches up against its bowl opponent. All teams that make it to the bowls probably looked great when they blew out weak opponents in the regular season, and most probably looked only good or average when they faced tough opponents.

Coaching becomes quite important in the bowls, because teams get two weeks of extra practice to prepare, but usually after a considerable layoff from the regular season. Good coaches keep their teams disciplined and focused, even at the game site, during all the revelry. Weak coaches often see their players succumb to the distractions and temptations.

When it comes to bowl games, bet early, if possible, and "avoid the rush." As the number of football games diminishes, the total betting action on the remaining games tends to "telescope." If either the "public" or the "wise guys" – or both – gang up on one side of a game or total, the bookmakers are going to move the pointspread or total quickly and substantially. For example, last year, Boise State opened as a 6-point favorite over UTEP in the Humanitarian Bowl, and closed as a 9.5-point favorite. (Boise covered anyway, 38-23.) The total in the Florida-Miami game in the Sugar Bowl opened at 54 and closed at 60.5. The final score was Miami 37-20. If you wanted to play the "over" (as the majority of the bettors did) and waited, you probably lost your bet. If you had bet early, you not only would have won, you also could have "middled" the total due to the big move.

When it comes to holiday basketball action, be very selective. This is a very dicey time of the year for betting basketball, especially for the inexperienced handicapper. In the first place, most college basketball coaches are just starting to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of their new teams, and the players are just learning how to play with each other. Teams change faster than ever these days due to transfers, suspensions, ineligibilities, foreign imports, and defections to the NBA. Moreover, there are more teams on the regular Las Vegas line this season, more holiday tournaments than ever, and more lines on unusual intersectional matchups.

Keep these facts in mind, as well: During a stretch of several weeks, most college players will be taking finals and going home at some point to visit their families and friends. The student body will not be attending on-campus games en masse as they will be doing for the conference games starting in early January. Most crowds will be smaller. In fact, you might be more focused on a game than the players themselves are!

Lastly, there are more TV games than ever, as the competing cable networks scramble to fill their schedules. And, with so many competing sportsbooks and TV tournaments these days, there are more lines on consolation games, more totals, more halftime spreads, more "added games," and more propositions than ever available for wagering.

Be smart about this. Bookmakers love to distract, confuse, and overwhelm the naive bettor. The more choices, the better, because that means the nonselective bettor is likely to play more games, divide his action, make uninformed wagers, and "chase" his money when he loses. Sportsbooks love this.

Here's how you counter them: Stay with college teams you know, coaches you know, and leagues you know. Research the new players on the teams. Then, read the sports page carefully (or hit the web) and find out whether the newcomers are living up to expectations (not many do), and which teams have marvelous new players who "have come out of nowhere." Also, avoid overreacting to big victories over weak teams.

Finally, let's review the usual holiday litany: Avoid impulse betting. Don't chase your money. Don't bet money you can't afford to lose. Don't bet if you're upset or under unusual stress. And don't bet heavily if you've been drinking – truly, that is the right time for a "beer money" bet.

Chuck Sippl is the senior editor of The Gold Sheet, the "bible" for sports bettors since 1957. To get more handicapping advice, forecasts, angles, power ratings, and emerging-player information, subscribe to The Gold Sheet or pick one up at your local newsstand. If you haven't seen The Gold Sheet, and would like to review a complimentary copy, call (800) 798-GOLD (4653) and say you read about The Gold Sheet in Card Player. You can check the web at www.goldsheet.com.