Six ways to be a sharper sports bettor

Football scoring — three points for field goals, six points for touchdowns, seven for touchdowns with the extra point — causes final margins to clump around the key numbers of 3 and 7 first and foremost, followed by 6, 14 and 10.

Use this to your advantage. However, you need to know how much a half-point is worth when a point spread goes from, say, -3 to -2½, turning a potential push into a win for a three-point favorite. Ditto when it goes from +3 to +3½, turning a potential push into a win for a three-point underdog. The value of that half-point, confusingly, isn’t the same as the half-point difference between -7 and -6½, or +7 and +7½, which could turn pushes into wins in a seven-point game.

I will spare you the math, but if the consensus line is -3 at -110 — bet $110 to win $100 — and you can find -2½ at a price of -125 or better, you just gained an edge on the house. The math is the same if the line is +3 at -110 on the underdog and you can find +3½ at -125 or better. If the line is -7 at -110 on the favorite and you can find -6½ at -120 or better, that, too, is value. If the underdog is +7 at -110, then you need +7½ at -120 or better for an edge.

At the same time, beware of point spreads of -4 and -5. Scoring margins that cover these spreads simply don’t occur often enough to find value moving a half-point in either direction. Instead, if looking to back the favorite, consider moving all the way from -4 to -6½ if you can find a price of +120 or better, or from -5 to -6½ if the price is +110 or better.

Employing this strategy isn’t as hard as you might think. Stale lines are common in states where there are multiple books to choose from, and you also can monitor sharp, quick-reacting books such as Pinnacle or Circa for line movement, jumping on a bookmaker that isn’t as quick to update its lines. This is known as “chasing steam.”

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