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Betting Football Middles
Betting Football Middles, or Middling Football games, can be a very profitable strategy when used as part of your overall football betting portfolio. As a matter of fact, there are very few professional sports bettors, that don't use arbitrage, which would be middling and scalping, as part of their overall plan of attack. Doing so can turn a decent year from a handicapping perspective, into a fantastic year. Likewise, it can also turn a losing year from a handicapping perspective, into a winning one, or a least a break even one.
Perhaps one of the most often asked questions in sportsbetting forums is " I bet such and such team at -8 and now it's -10, should I middle this game, or keep my original bet? " The answer to that question depends on what your intention was going in. In most cases, the person in that situation bet the game early, and the line happened to move in their favor afterwards. In that case, it's generally always best to keep the original bet, and not middle. You're in a favorable long term position that will be profitable in the long run. You'll make more keeping the bet in that scenario, than buying some or all of it back and going for a middle.
If you want to middle football games, your intention should be to set out on Sunday Night when the lines are posted, and attempt to middle every game you possibly can throughout the week. Successful middling depends on volume. The more middle attempts you have, the more middles you are going to hit. You can still handicap and bet on individual games, and can even over play those games if you feel they are going to move, then buy back a portion later, still keeping your wager for a regular unit, but your middling should be a separate profit center from your regular betting.
Again, your goal going in should be to middle the entire board. You won't be able to accomplish that, but with a little work, you should be able to get many, many middles on a weekly basis, both sides and totals. But it's not easy. It takes work, a bankroll, and more than a few sportsbooks. A live line service is a necessity as well.
Your success will depend on your ability to predict line movement, and your ability to see major line moves developing on a live odds screen. Both are an art form in and of themselves. But with some practice, anyone can do it. It's not rocket science.
In order to predict line moves, you'll have to stay on top of injuries, weather conditions and general news stories about all of the games in any give week. Is their a huge revenge game? Is their a game or two that look like stone cold public games, that the public figures to be all over? Are the remnants of a tropical storm due to affect a particular area of the country on game day, likely to cause high winds and torrential rain? Did the star QB on USC break his finger on his throwing hand last game? These are all things that will cause line movement, and your job, as a middler, is to stay on top of it all.
You'd be surprised at how slow the marketplace often is at reacting to some of these factors. There are so many sources of information these days, that most serious bettors are way ahead of the linesmakers when it comes to factors that will move lines. There are team blogs run by fans, blogs run by beat reporters, not to mention every newspaper in the country being online. Fantasy Sports sites do a great job as well getting information out to it's readers quickly.
Seeing a line move develop in front of your eyes while watching a live odds feed is one thing. You simply learn to notice these moves. When you see them develop, you start checking all your sportsbooks for the best line, and you fire away. But taking advantage of information, requires you to take leads on games. It requires you to feel confident, based on the information you have, that the lines are going to move. This doesn't come overnight. It takes practice. When you get the scoop on an injury, you have to feel confident that as a result, the line on that game will move, otherwise, you can get stuck on the game.
Often times, games will start moving on Sunday night when the lines are first posted, and will continue moving in one direction all week long. Other times, they will see saw. It's not uncommon to see college football lines move 4 points or more, especially on high point spread games with big favorites getting even bigger most of the time. You only need a couple of points, especially around key numbers, (3,7, etc.) to gain an edge middling football. Of course, the larger the middle, the bigger the edge. There are tons of opportunities, mostly in college football, both sides and totals. In the NFL, it's mostly the totals that present opportunity.
When done properly, it's almost impossible not to have success middling games. There are professional operations that do nothing but middle from Sunday Night right up until kickoff. They rarely if ever have a losing year. In most cases, it's harder work than just about any job you have ever had. But it most cases, it's also more profitable than any job you've ever had. You get out of it, what you put into it.
There are some little secrets, or tricks of the trade not included here of course. But you'll learn those on your own as time goes on. If you are serious about a career in sports betting, or are serious in at least making a nice part time income from sportsbetting, middling is a must. You need to take every edge you possibly can, and there is an edge when you middle, if done properly. All the edges add up. Just remember, when you have an edge, the more times you put that edge to work, the more money you will make. Volume is the key. Happy Middling!