26 Feb 10 Basic Concepts Of Sports Betting Futures
Serious sports bettors often dismiss futures wagers as sucker bets targeted at \’squares\’ looking for a big payoff. For example, a typical futures \’sucker bet\’ would be something like betting that Harvard will win the NCAA basketball tournament at 500/1 odds. Sure, the potential payback is huge but here\’s the problem–the \”true odds\” of Harvard winning the NCAA hoops tournament are astronomical, and certainly well in excess of 500/1. That means that from the outset this bet represents a poor wagering value.
Even for the more pragmatic bettor, the inherent problems with futures wagers are readily apparent. You have to tie up your wagering capital for a long time. More significantly, once your bet is down you\’re at the mercy of the countless interceding events that can influence the fortunes of a sports team. Its hard enough trying to weigh the significance of scheduling, injuries, personnel movement and so forth on a day to day basis. Controlling for all of these variables over an entire season is impossible.
So futures plays have no relevance to a serious approach to sports handicapping? Not necessarily. It\’s crucial to think of the sports betting discipline in terms of value. Used properly, futures wagers are frequently a good way of maximizing line value and finding overlay situations. Here are some ways in which future wagers can be successfully leveraged.
Futures can present an opportunity to \’earn\’ a greater value on certain bets. For example, it has become common for sports books to take action on entertainment events like the Academy Awards. By paying close attention to Hollywood gossip and entertainment news, a bettor can actually have a better take on these outcomes than the bookmaker.
Every year some sportsbooks start to take action on the big Academy Awards categories like Best Picture and Best Director well before the actual nominations are released. If you can stay up-to-date on the buzz surrounding certain films you can get substantially better value than if you wait until after the nominations are released.
Making the Academy Awards an even better candidate for futures wagers is the nature of the film business itself. The release schedule for films is set well in advance, and after the year end cut off date no \’surprise\’ releases can sneak in to consideration. At this point, its relatively easy to narrow down the serious contenders and with some work to come up with a \’short list\’ of Oscar candidates.
Taking a position for profit: Now well turn our attention to sports and how to use the futures wager there. As I noted above, sports inherently presents more variables than the film industry. Furthermore, the top teams are usually not priced for value. Currently you can get +650 on New England to eventually win the 2010 Superbowl. The Patriots are certainly capable of winning, but the value just isn\’t there.
To find value on this sort of wager you need to look for \’dark horse\’ candidates. For example, at midseason you could have bet on the Carolina Hurricanes to win the 2009 Stanley Cup at prices as high as 25/1 or 30/1. Now, they\’re one of four teams remaining and are priced at 5/1 to 7/1 depending on the book.
This play didn\’t necessitate a crystal ball or a Canadien genie with a profound interest in hockey–instead, it was a simple matter of determining teams that offered true odds of championship success that were lower than the price offered in the future bet. At prices like 25/1 or 40/1 its possible to back several dark horse \’candidates\’ and if one or more enjoy postseason success it presents a number of opportunities to hedge and guarantee a profit.
Don\’t forget the field. Many bettors dismiss plays on the field in a futures wager out of hand, thinking that the wager represents all of the entrants not good enough to justify an individual price. If you pay attention, however, you can frequently use a field wager to your advantage. Shortly after Dale Earnhardt\’s tragic death at the 2001 Daytona 500 I found a sportsbook that was offering a field wager on the NASCAR rookie of the year award at 15/1. Richard Childress Racing hadn\’t officially announced Harvick as the fulltime replacement for Earnhardt, but the word on the streets strongly suggested that would be the case. I knew that Harvick was a talented young driver (he was the 2000 Busch Series rookie of the year), but the unique situation with a rookie driving for one of the best financed and most experienced teams in the sport was too good to pass up. I made the bet on Harvick at just the right time, since after he was announced as the replacement for Earnhardt the line dropped to 5/1. After he won his first race (in his third race) the line dropped to 2/1 and by mid season the field was a -250 chalk.
This is obviously a best case example, but there have been similar circumstances that were still good value plays but didn\’t work out perfectly like the Harvick situation. Several years ago it wasn\’t uncommon to find a field bet on NASCAR road races that allowed you to bet several of the road course specialists like Ron Fellows, Boris Said and Scott Pruett with one bet. You wont be able to take advantage of the field bet often, but if you keep your eyes open and think out of the box it can be very profitable when it does occur.
Of course its crucial to shop around for any futures book play to find the best price. It\’s a smart thing to do on any wagering proposition, but the price differential on futures wagers often vary widely from book to book. A little bit of work can produce a significantly better price which means more value.
Ross Everett is a freelance writer specializing in sports handicapping, horse racing, travel and falconry. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is in charge of providing daily free sports picks to a number of websites and broadcast media outlets. He lives in Southern Nevada with three Jack Russell Terriers and a wombat.
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