MLB BASEBALL WAGERING
Bet On Baseball
The odds on baseball games are based on several factors, including the relative strength of the two teams, the starting pitchers and their track records, the ballpark the game is being played in, recent performances, place in the standings, injuries, and others. Much of this information is easily available.
But to be a smart bettor, one needs a good dose of basic baseball knowledge, including some of the following.
Bettors should know at least a couple of general baseball tendencies when handicapping individual games. A Major League Baseball season is 162 games long. What is generally accepted by baseball handicappers is the idea that almost every team in the majors will win at least 60 of those games, and lose at least 60 games.
The best teams will win between 90 and 100 games in a season, which means that they'll lose between 60 and 70. And the better teams are favored in most of their games. That's why wagering on those teams every day, even though they may win most of the time, doesn't necessarily produce a profit, because of the odds they'll have to give.
Conversely, the worst teams will lose 90-100 games. But those teams are usually underdogs, so that when they do win, backers receive more than they risked. So losing 90 of 162 wagers won't necessarily produce a losing season.
Another rule of thumb bettors should consider when handicapping baseball games is that during the season, a decent percentage of games will be part of either a winning streak or a losing streak on the part of at least one of the teams involved. Three-game winning streaks often become runs of four, five, six and more, and the same goes for losing streaks. Some bettors prefer to wager that streaks will come to an end, but they can only win that bet once. Laying bets on a hot team, after they've three games in a row, or continually against a cold team, can be profitable.
Totals are also posted on every MLB game. Baseball over/unders are not just based on the teams and the pitchers, but also the ballparks, the weather, the home-plate umpires and other things. Umpire stats and rotations is a relatively newly available piece of information that can be found on an increasing number of Internet sites.
Teams also run in streaks on the totals; hot hitting and poor pitching can be contagious, and often go together, as does good pitching and untimely hitting. Sharp handicappers catch these tendencies early, and play them often.
