When betting college basketball, the home court is a factor. The home court advantage is a true advantage, because the home team is on their own grounds, which is a familiar and often friendly environment. The fans are typically supportive of the home team. With the pressure of the fans, combined with the road team having to travel, it is often difficult to pick up a straight up win on the road. While it might be challenging a basketball team to win on the road, it does not mean that the visiting team cannot be bet profitably when betting college basketball. A college basketball bettor is well served avoiding the money line when betting the road team.

In college basketball odds, the home team wins outright over 70% of the time, with the favorite team taking down the game over 75% of the time straight up. However, when the point spread is brought into the equation, the away team wins over 52% of the time. If the home team wins outright over 70% of the time, yet the away team comes out on top over 52% of the time, this suggests that the away team is best bet taking points when they are the underdog. To confirm that betting theory, we notice that the away dog wins over 51% of the games played. This confirms that we are best off betting the point spread and taking points when we are betting on a road dog in college basketball.

When the away team is favored, they win over 75% of the time on enemy territory. When the spread comes into play, the away team giving points covers nearly 60% of the time. This suggests that either betting line is a profitable path to follow when betting the road team as the favorite. Considering there is a 15% difference on away favorites between straight up results and the spread, a bettor is best served checking the money line to determine the difference in payout before deciding which way to bet. If the money line sits at 115 or closer, stick with the money line for the visiting favorite. If the money line is above 115, spot the home team points and bet the road favorite via the point spread line.

When betting the away team in college basketball, the basketball bettor is best served taking points when their team is a dog, while looking at the money line to determine the more profitable route in betting them as a favorite, such as the Duke Basketball Team. If the money line exceeds 115, spot the home team points on the bet. However, if the money line is 115 or closer, betting straight up via the money line is the most profitable angle.

When talking about sports betting on football matches, we always need to think about the odds that the bookmakers like Bet at home, bet365 and William Hill offer to us. This is one of the most important parts of each successful bet. It is as important as the process of making the prediction itself.

In general, to be profitable, each player must firstly consider does the odds he is going to bet on have any value or not. It is really simple to calculate this with few very simple rules which if followed will save you lots of wrong bets which would bring you loses in the long run.

How can we calculate whether the proposed by the bookmakers odds has value or not? It is very simple. To do that it is necessary to convert our prediction in a percentage. Take for instance the upcoming semi-final of the FA Cup between Wigan and Arsenal. There is no doubt Arsenal will be the favorite in this match, but the exact question is how huge are their chances of winning this match.

Wigan just beat Manchester City as a guest and are fighting for the Championship playoffs for an entry in the Premier League. Let’s give them a 8% chance of winning this match. The draw in the regular time mustn’t be excluded too, so let’s suppose there are 18-20 percents chance this match to end with a draw. The remaining 72% are for an Arsenal’s win in the regular time. It is huge, right? Also, it correspondents with the statistics for the last 8matches between the two teams, in which Arsenal has six wins, Wigan one and one match finished in a draw.

Let’s go back to the odds offered by the bookmakers like bet365, William Hill and Bet at Home. Currently the rate for Arsenal is about 1.3. Is it justified that bet? Think about if for a minute…

The answer is no. At chances around 72%, the actual odds has to be 1.38 for even, not to mention to gain some profit. It is calculated simply with 100/72 = 1.38. The odds for a draw is 4.5 and for a Wigan’s victory 8.5. Both are not enough for a justified bet.

So, no matter how attractive seems a bet for an Arsenal’s win, the bet is not justified. In other words, if you bet 100 times for Arsenal, you will hardly be able to get some profit in the long turn.

Everton

Forget the fixture list at the moment and give Everton fans the chance to dream- if Everton win their remaining 5 games to be played this season, the side will have the chance to play in the Champions League next campaign. That was the promise made to Bill Kenwright by Roberto Martinez when he took over as manager in the summer and there is every chance that he can make good on that in the first time of asking.

Depending on the Arsenal result on Tuesday night, Everton could either still be in 4th place in the Premier League or in 5th when this game kicks off, but a win would move them back into the top four regardless of the Gunners result. The side will be confident in winning their remaining games at Goodison Park where Everton are 12-3-1 this season, scoring 32 goals and conceding 13.

Everton beat Sunderland 0-1 at the Stadium of Light on Saturday to extend their run to 7 wins in a row in the Premier League which has seen them drag Arsenal back and then overtake them. They have been more impressive at home where Everton have won their last 9 games in all competitions, including 7 in a row in the Premier League which culminated in the 3-0 hammering of Arsenal ten days ago.

Phil Jagielka and Steven Pienaar are not ready to return to the squad just yet, although the former could be back in time for the weekend game against Manchester United.

Crystal Palace

The football played by Tony Pulis sides may not be to the liking of every football fan around the country, but there is no denying the effectiveness of it. Pulis should also be greatly respected for the motivation he has found in a Crystal Palace team that looked certain to be relegated when he took over from Ian Holloway. Right now, Pulis looks set to extend his proud record of never being relegated after Crystal Palace beat Aston Villa 1-0 at home over the weekend.

That win pushed Crystal Palace up to the heady heights of 12th in the Premier League and they are also 7 points clear of Fulham in the relegation zone as well as just 3 points short of the 40 points that teams aim for when looking to avoid the drop. Their success has come on a very solid home record, but Palace have made life difficult away from Selhurst Park despite a 3-2-11 record where they have scored 9 goals and conceded 21.

Crystal Palace have won their last 3 Premier League games, including a surprise 1-0 win over Chelsea, which has kept them clear of the relegation troubles below them. That run of wins also saw them snap a streak of 6 away Premier League games without a win as they beat Cardiff City 0-3 in Wales.

Kagisho Dikgacoi and Yannick Bolasie will both need to pass fitness tests to take their place in the squad for this game.

Head to Head

These sides played out a goalless draw at Selhurst Park earlier this season.

Everton beat Crystal Palace 4-0 at Goodison Park when they last met here in the 2005 Premier League season, but they had failed to win 2 previous home games against them.

Prediction

In all honesty, it doesn’t matter what happens in the Arsenal game against West Ham United on Tuesday as Roberto Martinez will know anything less than three points in this game will make it very difficult for Everton to make the top four.

The game against Crystal Palace at Goodison Park, with all due respect to the Eagles, is the easiest of their home games left and Everton can’t expect to beat Manchester United and Manchester City so dropping points in this one would be a huge body blow to the mental state of the squad.

Everton have put in a lot of work to claw back and overtake Arsenal and have been playing very well at home all season, but Tony Pulis has made Crystal Palace very difficult to beat. I expect he will set out a stall to do the same to Everton having pushed Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal to dig deep to beat them.

However, Palace have some problems when it comes to scoring goals away from Selhurst Park and that may prove to be their downfall in this game. Prior to the three goals scored at Cardiff City, Palace had scored just 1 in 6 away games in the League and that could be a problem for them at Everton on Wednesday night.

I don’t think Everton will blow away Crystal Palace just with the way the away side set up, but there is creativity and confidence in the home team that suggests they will find a way to win this game. I believe they will too, but it may be down to the clean sheet and a solitary strike to earn those vital three points in the chase for a Champions League place.

Several days ago, I started to bet with a new betting strategy related to betting on Asian handicap on matches where is detected dropping of odds for one of the teams. The idea behind this betting strategy is simple. Many bets made by the punters worldwide for one of the teams force the bookies (even the biggest like bet365, William Hill and Bet at home) to change the rates for both teams. Once the odds are changes they no longer correspond with the main prediction for the match made by the bookmakers, which is generally much more accurate than the prediction an ordinary bettor can do. Thus, it is possible to bet on a higher odds than the real relative strength of the both teams.

The time will tell whether this system is profitable or not, but here’s what happened after the first week. It has to be noted that I bet mainly with bet365 and sometimes with other bookmakers like William Hill and bet-at-home. Additional clarification is that I bet on matches where the movement of odds is higher than 10%.

To find such matches I use the odds movement section of the website betexplorer, where by their filters I can easily follow the changes in the coefficients of 7 sports including football, basketball, tennis and hockey.

Unfortunately, it can be said that the first few bets on this system didn’t go as expected. Although I have not lost much money, it seems to be very difficult to make some profit as the success rate is about 40%.

Of course, the final conclusion must be made after larger selection of matches, because in football for example the odds movement usually don’t change the Asian handicap rate given by the bookies, but only the odds itself. This means that the impact will be seen over time and it won’t be seen in the percentage of the success rate.

Anyway, this betting system is interesting and will be a source of many interesting conclusions that will surely lead to new betting ideas which can be successful some day.