Streaks & Trends: The Good and the Bad

Picking winners is not easy! The majority of professional handicappers have a variety of different systems in place to help them reach their final decision on a game. The more sports information that points towards a particular team in a game, the more confident a handicapper will feel about that pick.

Using streaks and trends can be helpful to a professional capper provided that the sports information given is legitimate. Determining whether or not a certain streak or trend is valuable to a match-up may be the difference between a winning play and a losing play. For the average gambler this becomes even more important, because they do not have a structured system in place to cross-check the streak or trend with. Here are some examples of what to look for.

Streaks (against the spread) are usually a product of the over or under value of a team in the eyes of the odds-makers. The most important aspect of deciding whether or not to use a streak statistic to help pick a team, is how long the streak has been going on. As a general rule, the longer a streak has occurred for, the more likely it is that it will come to an end. The key to utilizing a streak properly is to, “get in” at the right time. This means not waiting until every news paper, magazine and televisions show around is talking about how good or bad a team is performing. Odds-makers are too good, and they will eventually compensate the point-spread to adjust for the team’s success or failure. When this happens, you may find a great deal of value going against the “streaking” team.

Trends can be equally as important in helping to identify potentially winning picks. Finding a trend source that is reputable may be as important as the trend itself. There is so much information available on sporting events now, that a trend can be found for just about anything. Don’t get caught up in checking off multiple variables in order to see if a trend works. An example of this would be a trend that says, “Team X is 12-1 ATS on Thursday night as a road dog following back to back losses of more than 10 points”. Listen, you can find positive and negative betting trends for both sides in any given game, the hard part is determining which trends are worth using and which one’s aren’t. Knowing which sports information is credible, and having the ability to apply it, will make you a successful and profitable bettor.

Related posts:

1. Sports Handicapping 101: Don’t bet on Bad Teams

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