Embrace the Under: Why Betting Unders Offers Long-Term Value

Nothing beats the thrill of betting on live sport. Whether you’re at the game, feeling the energy from the players, or sat on your sofa watching Red Zone, the painful truth is the leg that kills your accumulator is almost always an Over.

Why Bettors Crave Scoring and Action

When you’re watching a game, you want to see scoring. Whether that’s points or goals, you want action. You want plays so exciting that you absolutely have to watch the replay. Most of all you want drama.

The thing is, we all want the same, and the bookies know it. We all flock to the Overs, whether that’s points total or player props in NFL, or backing goals in soccer. However, for long-term betting success, I’m telling you - Embrace the Under!

Why Value Often Sits on the Under

When you’re backing the Under, you’re often getting the value and quite often you’ll see sharp money take the Under, with professional bettors and those in the know finding the value there.

The Psychology Behind Avoiding Unders

This is partly about human psychology. We want games to be high scoring an exciting. How many times have you tuned into a Premier League game and sat there for 90 minutes hoping there weren’t many goals? You haven’t, it simply doesn’t happen.

A lot of people won’t back Unders in terms of goals, points or props because they don’t want to sit there and commit their time to watching something that could be boring. If you heard a new movie had no action you’re probably not going to want to go to the cinema on release day and watch it.

That psychology also leans into people expecting big games to be full of drama. Two great teams, facing off against each other, that’s got to mean fireworks right? Sometimes it does and those games stick in our minds for years, but quite often these matches can be tight, tense and dull.

How Public Money Pushes Overs Higher

When the bookies set their odds live they’ll often see the bulk of public money coming in and pushing the Over higher. The casual punters aren’t studying data and don’t understand the underlying numbers. They’re simply piling in their cash because they enjoy backing points, or the Over on receptions or rushing yards. They simply want action.

In betting it’s often worth zigging when others zag and taking the alternate direction on which way the public money is pointing. When people are telling you that something can’t lose and the common consensus is that it’s a near certainty, it’s often worth looking elsewhere. How often do you see ‘sure things’ lose in horse racing, or see big teams upset in the FA Cup. If the odds are moving to get more and more heavily weighted to that outcome, it’s often worth taking the alternate view, which has developed more value.

Weather and Its Impact on NFL Games

We’re going to talk in detail about how weather can impact NFL games in the coming week, but the reality is that a lot of people don’t realise just how much poor conditions can skew games. In soccer we see games postponed if the weather is truly bad, so as Brits we’re not used to factoring in inclement weather into our predictions, so we can still expect plenty of big plays that realistically are very unlikely.

Why Modern Sport Has Inflated Scoring Expectations

We’ve sene sports across the globe generally develop offensively. In basketball the three-point shot has seen scores sky rocket from the era of Michael Jordan. In soccer we’ve seen harsher refereeing on fouls, leading to more goals, and besides a brief period of Jose Mourinho inspired play, we’ve seen attacking play prioritised. In the NFL we’ve also seen rule changes that benefit the quarterbacks and offensive talent.

All of that improvement in attacking aspects of play has led to us misunderstanding just how scoring often works, with expectations for high scoring greatly being far higher than they should be. Games are often slow and boring for large periods of time, and offensive dominance varies from week-to-week.

Why Offensive Line Injuries Matter in NFL Betting

The NFL has another problem too. Thanks to prop bets and fantasy football we have great knowledge of all the skill positions. We know the best receivers and running backs and if a QB is knocked up then we’d rightfully fade their props.

Across the general public there is far less knowledge when it comes to team’s offensive lines but the reality is that if one or two starters from a O-line are missing then it’s highly likely that the offense will struggle.

They’ll give up more sacks, not be able to protect QBs for long enough to have lengthy routes, and the play calling will likely be more conservative than it usually is. These are things people often aren’t thinking of when they’re putting on their player prop bets on a Sunday.

Why It’s Time to Embrace the Under

We want to sit down and watch an exciting game on a Sunday, but so does everybody else and the odds often reflect that. It’s time to enjoy the low-scoring, revel in the plays that don’t make first down and the embrace the Unders.

Three Unders to Consider This Week

Total Points

Find a game with a very high total points line. This week it’s Lions @ Rams that tops the lot at 55 points. That’s a huge total but given that these are both great offenses it’s very easy to imagine this being a shootout. However, dig deeper and both teams rank top five in defensive DVOA. This is a hugely important game between teams that also have great defenses, it could be worth taking the Under here.

Rushing Yards

The lines aren’t out at the time of writing but Jonathan Taylor is the NFL’s rushing yard leader. This week he will have a new quarterback with Daniel Jones injured, has seen his team lose three straight games and faces a Seahawks team who have given up the fourth fewest rushing yards per game (91.2), it’s worth considering the Under when lines are released.

Passing Touchdowns

Are there any pass heavy quarterbacks playing great defenses this week? The Texans have allowed just 12 passing touchdowns in 13 games and face Jacoby Brissett who has thrown multiple touchdowns in seven of his past eight games. If any defense can buck that trend it’s the Texans and their great pass rushers. Another Under that’ll be worth looking at when odds are released.

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The importance of tracking your bets I’ve been working in the sports betting industry for a long time now. I’ve worked for an operator, an affiliate and now as a freelancer. I’ve worked both as a marketeer creating campaigns based around US sports and tennis, been involved with social media, helped build websites from the ground up, commissioned content, and now, create the content myself. With my experience in the industry I often get messaged on LinkedIn, via email or in my DMs on Twitter, to discuss roles or promote various new products. Filtering the Signal from the Noise There’s a lot of charlatans in this business but I refuse to promote anything that I don’t think is a good product, and isn’t something that I’d use myself. Which is why, in my first call with the Stacked guys, I was instantly interested in taking it for a spin. I’ve learned a lot in betting but the number one most important thing that I’ve realised is how essential bet tracking is. I don’t mean that as an analyst, who gives out tips. I mean that as a punter. The Reality of Wins vs. Losses Winning bets is a great feeling, whether that’s putting a single on something you’re certain will happen in the game, or whacking on an acca across multiple matches, we all remember the big wins. What we don’t often remember are the losses, the narrow defeats, or the times we fail to win a single leg of a Bet Builder. The Analytics Revolution in Sports If you’re reading this then I know you’re a huge sports fan, so let’s put this in that context. What is the single biggest driver in improved sporting performance over the past fifty years, across every single sport? An understanding of nutrition has really helped, as have leaps forward in technology, but the area which has improved performance most has been the advancement of analytics. By having evidence about areas of strengths and weaknesses, it’s allowed athletes to work upon them, and best use their attributes to succeed. Applying Data Science to Your Betting Strategy Sports betting is no different. What bets are you winning on? Do you have a better hit rate when you back player props or bet against the spread? When you’re betting player props are you more efficient at betting on receiving lines or rushing lines? When you bet on your own team does your knowledge help you win more than you lose, or does your passion cause you to be too optimistic and lose bets? You simply can’t be successful in the long term as a bettor without understanding what you’re good at, and what you’re bad at. Likewise, if you follow a tipster, or just copy your mate’s bets, then it’s good to know which areas they excel in too. The Old Way: The Spreadsheet Grind Years ago I found an excel spreadsheet online. I customised it to include every bet type I ever bet on, every sportsbook I bet with, every major sport and every league I ever bet on. I have spent countless hours adding various bets into this spreadsheet, so many that it takes an absolute age to load. The knowledge of my strengths and my weaknesses has been hugely informative. I know I’m profitable on League One, Anytime Touchdown bets in the 5/1 or above range but poor at both teams to score four-folds, and betting on tennis. Smarter, Safer Betting with Stacked So imagine how impressed I was when I was on that call with the Stacked team and I realised how easily the app can help me track bets. We also spoke of how importantly we value responsible gambling, something that I’ve really focused on in my career. Betting on the NFL or on football is great fun, but it’s imperative that you are aware of the dangers. Upon trying Stacked in beta form, I knew the app could help with that. You can easily view all your bets, across multiple bookies, and realise what you’re best at betting on. More importantly, you can work out what you’re not good at betting on. It’s one of the few innovations in the sports betting space in recent years that I genuinely think encourages smart sports betting. Innovation That Actually Works There are other things that impressed me of course, tracking bets in-play is useful, especially if you’re on with multiple books and don’t want to switch app every two minutes to check. I was also genuinely shocked at how well the AI on the Stacked app read my screenshots and uploaded them, which will save hours of manually typing stuff in if you’re a spreadsheet user like myself. I fundamentally believe that tracking bets is the best thing you can do as a regular punter. Whether that’s because you are a frequent bettor who wants to win in the long term, or a more casual player who just wants to see how you do every weekend. The Future of Smart Tracking As you might have realised already, I’m going to be working with Stacked going forward. I was hugely impressed by their mission statement and most importantly, the app itself, especially given the improvements and extra features that I know are coming in the future. Over the next weeks and months I’m going to be guiding you through ways to be smarter with your betting, particularly through the lens of the NFL, a sport I fell in love with when I was at uni, but more on that another day.

Embrace The Under | Sports Betting

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