All In One Guide To Betting on College Football

This is a strategy that was developed by a 27-year-old MIT Finance Student by the name of Mike Wohl. It takes extreme patience and a decent bankroll to start, but if you have those things, it's a very lucrative investment. Think of this strategy more as investing in the stock market rather than sports gambling.

The strategy is to identify games in which the favorite is favored by 20-25 points and bet those games money-line. Last season 4.5 games per week fit this description. Now obviously, betting a heavy favorite on the money-line is not going to produce much on any individual bet. Of the 376 games that fit these criteria, the favored team won 357 times and only lost 19 games. This is a winning percentage of almost 95%.

Over the course of the season, the investor would stand to make a 12.24% profit on their investments. Researching seasons in the past, this method would produce a profit for the last 6 seasons in a row. In Wohl's model he began with $100,000 and placed a $10,000 bet on each money-line favorite; however, you could scale this down to fit your spending abilities. You won't get rich quick, but an investment that can return 12.24% a year is a pretty great deal.

The "active underdog theory" is a common thought process used in handicapping college football. What we are looking for are teams that were recently upset, are playing a rival, or coming off a bad loss in which they should have won.

College players are more susceptible to emotions and external motivations than their professional counterparts. They tend to over perform in emotional rivalry games and underperform in let-down games after a big win. There is also a tendency to underperform when looking past an opponent the week before a more important game.

When utilizing this strategy, we want to find an underdog team that has something to prove. Either they are bouncing back from a hard loss or playing one of their historical rivals. Assuming the underdog will be looking for revenge and to get things back on track with their program, we are wagering that they will outperform the total number of points they are predicted to score. The emotional boost may not be enough to win the upset, but we are only counting on them covering the Over.

Similar to the "active underdog theory," this tip concerns the psyche of the college athlete and how it affects performance. Teams coming off a huge, emotional win have a tendency to follow those performances with a flat, less inspired performance. Especially if they don't have more to play for that season and the week before was essentially their "championship." This can happen with big rivalry upsets especially.

This same phenomenon will appear when a team is looking past an opponent to a bigger, more important game on the horizon. If a team has a nonconference opponent or an unranked opponent one week before a big rivalry or meaningful contest, athletes have a tendency to underperform the week prior. While the best coaches will be more proficient at handling the ebbs and flows of the season, no college team is completely immune to let-down games.

The last two tips highlight the need to focus on the overall situation under which the game is taking place, not just the teams themselves. The timing and circumstances of a contest are nearly as important as the talent on the field for the thorough handicapper.

Correlating your parlays is a strategy of betting that just involves predicting the most reasonable outcome of a game. If you are betting on a team with a high powered offense, it makes sense to pair that bet with an "over" totals bet. Similarly, if you identify a defensive juggernaut it stands to reason that if they win, the game will be going "under." There are exceptions to this rule, but it's a good concept to keep in mind when organizing your wagers.

When picking a winner, you will forecast the outcome of the game in your mind or by using models. You'll know the most likely circumstances that will need to take place in order for your team to win. Correlating your parlays is just a way of doubling down on your prediction and staying consistent with the most likely outcome.

Once you've found solid 4-5 games that you feel confident in betting on any given weekend, it may be tempting to put them all on one parlay card for a large payout. While this is one option, casting a wider net and giving yourself a better chance of winning at least some of your bets is a smarter option.

So for example, let's say you've handicapped four games and feel confident that they are all winners. To diversify your parlays, you will then place several three team parlay bets with different combinations of those four teams. Now if only one team loses, they won't be on all of your cards, and you may still turn a profit.

One betting strategy that has worked across all sports parlays is to identify a heavy favorite that is strongly suspected to win, and then play them on two separate parlay tickets, paired with two different underdogs. With this strategy, you only need one underdog to pull through to win money, and you get a better return than just betting the favorite straight up.

For these bets, you'd typically want a favorite in the -200 range, and underdogs at around +150 or more. If you pick too heavy a favorite, you may not get enough of a return if you only win one card to still turn a profit. You won't lose quite as much, but we are trying to win money, not just mitigate losses.

The general public loves betting on the Power Five conferences (ACC, Big 10, SEC, Big 12, and Pac 12). As a result, the odds makers tend to focus most of their energy on the big televised games and major conference match-ups. Furthermore, the influx of public betting and sharp money will affect the line being offered.

Betting smaller conference teams allows for more opportunities to identify and exploit weaknesses in the lines. Because the sharp money doesn't come in as heavily on these games, the lines stay relatively "soft." This means the book makers won't need to change the line and give you less favorable lines. If you have a local team that you are more familiar with than the general public, that's an excellent team to begin handicapping games for.

This is the ultimate trap for new sports gamblers. You see a powerhouse team heading out on the road, and it seems like an opportune time to get the stronger team at slightly more favorable odds due to them being the away team. Don't fall for it.

As we've addressed previously, college players are more influenced by external factors like the crowd or emotions. Thus, home field advantage plays a major role in how a team performs. These are 18 to 22-year-old college students that are away from home and in unfamiliar environments.

Home underdogs outperform the point spread given to them with a frequency that makes chasing road favorites a losing wager. You are much better served hammering home underdogs getting points.

Every single team in the country has at least one unit or aspect of the game that they are weakest at. When looking to handicap games, it is worth your time to research and determine a team's flaws. Once you have identified the two team's flaws, it's time to determine how they match up and which is more likely to be exploited.

Whichever team has the most glaring vulnerability at the most important position, bet against them. Units like the offensive line can have enormous impacts on the performance of every other position on offense. If the quarterback doesn't get time, they can't perform. If they don't have the time to make reads and get rid of the ball, the wide receivers cannot affect the game. It's a chain reaction.

Something to always keep in mind when betting on sports is that the odds the bookmaker provides are not based on the likelihood of a team winning or losing, rather they are set at numbers designed to get an equal amount of money bet on each side. Because of this, heavy favorites receiving these enormous point spreads are usually influenced by public perception.

Well, over the last decade if you chose to go against the grain and bet against public favorites, favored by 30 points or more, you would have won over 65% of your wagers. A win rate of 65% will net some serious returns, so make sure you bet the underdog and take the points when you see this situation occurring.

Every handicapper takes things like rain and wind into account when trying to determine whether to bet over or under a total, but often people don't factor in the wind. In reality, no weather condition has a stronger correlation to totals betting wins and losses more than the wind. The research suggests that if winds are going to be 13 mph or higher, you should bet the under.

With the high-powered air-it-out offenses so commonly used in college football today, the wind is as important as ever. If you are handicapping a game and feel like it's going to go over, make sure to check the forecast and reconsider as necessary.

Similarly to the tip, we mentioned earlier, about betting smaller programs, you are best served developing an expertise in a particular conference or set of teams rather than trying to handicap for 128 teams. If you have a local university or alma mater that you know the ins and outs for, seek to focus on wagering on their games.

You will have more information than the casual bettors, and most likely the sports books as well since they spend most of their focus on the broadly watched games and traditionally successful programs. Handicapping is all about finding weaknesses in the line, so having small niche areas and programs that you focus on can give you a significant advantage, safe from sharp money disturbing the odds.