Betting guide

Following NFL football?  If so, you are one of millions of UK sports fans who have become caught up in the action of a sport which used to enjoy only a relatively narrow geographical reach.  This year, Super Bowl 50, the culminating game in the NFL season, will be broadcast in 230 countries. 

There are a number of different factors that can impact teams and players at the start of an NFL season, resulting in unpredictable performance  and predicting NFL at the start of the season challenging.  One of those factors is changes in personnel.  Staff turnover is a complex matter.  Players are traded, coaches hired or fired, and managers replaced.  When a team has major changes in its roster or management, there are a number of resulting variables that can impact a team’s performance:

If you have been following NFL football this year, you know that it is has been an exciting and very unpredictable year.  Many people were closely following the Denver Broncos from the start, being as this is almost certainly going to be quarterback Peyton Manning’s final year playing professional football.  But no one could have predicted the team’s numerous unlikely victories this season, particularly in the recent playoff game against the New England Patriots. 

We’re almost at the end of another season of NFL football.  If you have been following along through the season, you may already have a number of predictions for this year’s teams and players.  Whether that is true or you are only just now starting to handicap NFL football, it is smart to remind yourself that making solid predictions early on in the season is very difficult.  Why?

Beyer Speed Ratings are some of the most powerful statistical tools you have when handicapping horse races.  These ratings are comprehensive and take into account factors such as speed, depth, and track length.  As such, the numerical value you derive from the rating system can be applied to races across different distances and on different types of tracks.  Read more about what the Beyer Speed Figures are and why they are so powerful.

If you actually become a sports punter for a living, you will be embarking on a career which eliminates many of the sources of stress which are ubiquitous in the 9-to-5 life. You won't have to worry about pleasing the boss, clocking in on time, or dealing with difficult coworkers. You will be calling the shots in almost every respect. The only exception of course is that you will be required to follow the rules that you set for yourself. These are the rules that help you to profit time and again.

When a football tournament moves into the elimination phase, you encounter a unique challenge as a punter, because many players’ attitudes have likely changed.  Players who may not have taken round robin games seriously may now be very serious about their upcoming games.  And that means that their performance will adjust accordingly—as should your bets. 

If you are handicapping horse races, there are many different metrics out there you can use to try and evaluate the contenders and make predictions about the future.  Beyer Speed Figures are some of the most powerful and comprehensive statistics out there.  They provide you with a measure of how fast a horse can run based on its historical performance.

One of the challenges of betting online on football has to do with the attitudes that teams take toward different games.  There are a lot of games that teams take only somewhat seriously or not at all.  That attitude reverses entirely when it comes time to play an elimination game. 

Handicapping is all about making accurate, reliable sports predictions.  But part of the thrill of sports like football is that we cannot always predict what is going to happen.  Sometimes, in fact, the exact opposite of what we expect is what unfolds on the field.  A clear favourite is matched against a total underdog that nobody thinks has a snowball’s chance in hell at winning … and the underdog emerges victorious.  It’s what we call a shocking upset, and if you had your money on the favourite, it can shock you too.