You can choose between a pick’em pool and a pointspread pool. The difference being that what a pick’em pool you just have to select the winners of each game without worrying about the pointspread. With a pointspread pool, you must pick the game against the spread which can be more difficult.

Usually you can make changes to your sheets up until the first game kicks off.

If there is more than one winner, the tiebreaker total is used. The tiebreaker is whoever’s guess is closest. It does not matter if your guess is over. If there is still a tie after the tiebreaker, the pot is split amongst the tied winners.

In the weekly NFL office football pools you are selecting winners for 16 games.

In the weekly NCAA college office football pool you are selecting winners for a various number of games. In the latest office football pool there were 21 games to pick winners.

If your office does not have a weekly football pool, you can still participate online with one of the best online sports books 5Dimes. They have easy deposit options and offer some of the best lines and odds on all major sports. They welcome American players.

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When you consider several forms of sports betting, you may come to know of parlay. It is one of the most popular forms of sports betting. This form of betting is quite common in the NFL and NCAA football circuits. You should remember that you have strict rules and regulations in the sportsbooks of football parlays. So, when you learn how to play NCAA college football parlay, you should know these rules and regulations and how they are applied also. You can learn these things and get good guidance from sites like Bodog and 5dimes which offer some of the best odds and reduced juice with higher payouts on parlays, teasers, and prop bets.

In a parlay form of betting, generally two or more bets are tied. You have two team parlays and three team parlays. Generally, the odds when off-the-board bets take place are 13-5 in a two team parlay and 6-1 in a three team parlay. This means that you get paid 13-5 in a two team parlay and 6-1 in a three team parlay. Bets off the board are the bets done on the large electronic board in the sports book. If you bet off the board, you enjoy larger odds than when you bet off a parlay card.

The best advantage of betting a parlay off the board bet can be derived when there is a tie in a game. This will lead to push in the spread. If such a situation arises, the tied game is not included in the parlay. This means that a three team parlay will get converted into a two team parlay automatically. But, if betting is done off a parlay card, if there is a tie in the match, the tie loses.

When you learn how to play NCAA college football parlay, you should know the general rule that in a parlay bet, there should not be more than five teams. But, occasionally, you can have a six team parlay but it is just for fun. In a four team parlay, what you get is a small 10-1 and only in some books, you may get 11-1. In a five team parlay, you get 25-1 and this is a good return. But the pay-off in a six team parlay usually depends upon the casino. There can be variations in the pay-off of a six team parlay, ranging from the meager 40-1 to a large 55-1.

You should not be aggressive from the initial stages itself. You should start slowly with two team parlays. You can slowly graduate to next levels of three team parlays and four team parlays. Even if one game is lost, the parlay comes to a close. You may hit four out of five and you may consider it as a great achievement. But you will not be paid anything. This is why many people also like to play teasers or pleasers that offer a winning ticket even if you have one loss or incorrect pick. You can find these at 5Dimes.

When you learn how to play NCAA college football parlay, you should also learn to bet parlays at the sportsbook windows also. When you are betting your parlays off the board, you should never forget to note down the betting number. You have the betting number on the right side of the team. You should make a note of all the three betting numbers of the parlay. Then only, the sportsbook ticket writer can be approached.

Technorati Tags: 5dimes, Bodog, college football parlay, college football teaser, football parlay, football parlay odds, football parlay payouts

You may see how the popularity of NCAA college football betting lines has soared in recent times. This popularity is increasing year after year. It is a well-known fact that football is the most favorite sport of almost all the Americans. This game does involve a few accidents and hurting of others in the matches while tackling the ball. But, that may be a major factor that adds more charm to this game.

With all its toughness, football enjoys the status of being considered the most fascinating sport throughout the world. Its popularity is so high that betting has sneaked even into non-professional football games such as NCAA football. That is the reason NCAA football betting lines offer a great chance to bettors to earn good extra income.

Latest NCAA College Football Betting Lines:

Many people started betting in NCAA football as a hobby. But, since the stakes have become quite heavy, they are able to earn well once they have gained enough experience. Some people earn a stable income out of such betting. Even some of the so-called bums have earned a very good income out of this.

Now, they can no more be called as bums who do not earn anything. Some of them have earned such a fabulous income that they have purchased good houses and cars. They have started their own business ventures also.

In NCAA college football betting lines, bettors and handicappers place the odds on particular teams. Because of this, the whole process has become more fun and exciting because of the unpredictable nature of the matches.

Some people say that they believed their gut feeling for placing the bets initially because they did not understand the whole process involved in the working of the betting. They might have lost a few times but when they observed that a few other people were gaining consistently, they might have understood that this involved some sort of learning. So, these people also started learning and they are also gaining consistently now.

Right information is the key to success in NCAA college football betting lines. Luck alone will not help always. If you are more informed and know the details of the matches and teams, your chances of winning increase. You should learn more and more details about the players also. How they were able to score, their past records, statistics and so on will give you a clearer picture. You should also know the winning and losing records of the teams. Knowing all these details will only help you to place your bets on the right odds so that your chances of earning a good income are greatly improved.

NCAA football betting lines may be the first step you should master before you test the waters in professional football games. But, for mastering in this and earning a good income out of it, you must educate yourself thoroughly about the teams and the players. You should also know the records and statistics of each player.

Without such details, you should not place your bets because you may end up losing money. Placing your bets believing your instincts and emotions will prove to be disastrous. Only if you make informed decisions, you will be able to earn well and the fun in betting will increase. No one will have any fun in losing money. You should not find yourself in a losing streak because of your lack of knowledge about NCAA college football betting lines.

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It is an accepted fact that almost all Americans including you consider college football as their most favorite pastime. In your craze for the game, you will be following almost all the matches and especially those in which your favorite team is involved. Many such college football games take place throughout every season. You will have a chance to enjoy your favorite game heartily.

Check Out The Latest NCAA Football Betting Odds

In each match, you will also be picking which team is going to win and which is going to lose. Apart from enjoying the matches heartily, this gives you a chance to place your bet on the outcomes of matches so that you can make extra money out of them. Therefore, NCAA football betting odds give you more chances to earn huge money than what you get in NFL.

There are a number of college teams playing in every game. You will definitely find that their capabilities and standards will have yawning gaps. So, NCAA football betting odds offer a great potential for earning a very good income. You will definitely be able to know the teams that are over-rated and under-rated. With these details in your arsenal, you can place your bet accordingly. You should also consider the weight of the game schedule of the teams.

If the schedule weight of a particular team is quite heavy, you may not be able to see the expected performance from that team. There are chances of more number of injured players in a team with a heavy schedule. They may not win even in an easy match even against a weak opponent due to the fatigue caused by such a heavy schedule.

If you want to earn a great income out of NCAA football betting odds, you must do your home-work properly and meticulously. You should spend considerable time to do the required research. Only if you do such a detailed research, you will be able to get the best odds on the teams you zero in on.  You must place your bets on the teams that may certainly give the best performance in the matches. Only if you adopt such a learned and informed approach, you will be able to earn a huge income out of NCAA football betting odds.

You should also go through the past performances, records and statistics of the teams. Such an elaborate and meticulous exercise will help you to understand trends such as when a particular spike may occur in the match. This will also give you a fair idea of the game configurations that may surely result in the same result you expect from the match.

If you are judicious enough to choose the winning combination that comprise the right teams and right sportsbooks, you can place your bet on the outcome you expect from the match. You should also have a thorough understanding of the general and specialized strategies that are being adopted by the teams during the matches so that your experience in the NCAA football betting odds will be a highly lucrative one.

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If you are a football enthusiast, it is certainly a thrilling experience to place a bet on a football game. Simultaneously, you can earn extra money also from this. You may have many leagues like the National Football League (NFL) or the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). But, whatever may be the league, you can make money from sports betting.

There are a lot of people who are earning even 6 figure income through football betting. You can also join them but you should know a few things about football betting, especially online college football betting.

An online sportsbook is a good way to place your bet. If you decide to do online college football betting like this, you can do the betting from the cozy ambiance of your home. It can be done any time of the day on all the days of the week.

You may find that there are many people who are “lucky” and who earn well in football betting. But you should understand that it is not luck alone that plays a role in such good earnings. If you learn more about betting, you can also earn great amounts from football betting and these amounts may even run to the tune of hundreds of dollars.

When you earn such good money, you can lead a luxurious life that will be envy to others. You can even plan to quit your regular job or buy a palatial house in a fabulous and prime area or send your children to great and exclusive schools. You can also buy a luxurious car and several high-tech gadgets. Buying many luxurious cares is also possible if you earn such fabulous incomes.

If you do online college football betting and earn such money by winning every time you place a bet, living such a fabulous life is not an issue at all.

If you want to earn such a great income, you may follow these tips apart from taking guidance from websites like Bodog. The first tip is that you should be open to take the help of someone who is a competent and professional handicapper. You can get excellent tips from this professional handicapper about all the teams, matches and sports.

But you should be smart enough to choose the most competent handicapper who is certain to make you earn such a huge income from football betting. For choosing such a handicapper, you can take the advice of those who are already earning well with the help of such handicappers.

The second advice is that you should choose an honest and reputed sportsbook if you want to do online college football betting and earn. Many frauds are taking place on the Internet. Therefore, you should be careful when you decide to place your bets online. You should choose the right sportsbook. As you do research for finding the best handicapper, you should do an in-depth research for zeroing in on the right sportsbook for you. You can also take the recommendation from those who are already using such sportsbooks for placing their bets and are earning good money.

Technorati Tags: Bodog, college football betting, football betting, Online College Football Betting, online sportsbook, professional handicapper

Not only is watching college football games thrilling, but betting on college football games with the best odds, knowing you got a good line, and the highest payouts is twice as fun.

You can make your own football betting predictions based on your analysis of the teams, how well they matchup against each other, and how they have fared against each other in the past, and who has the home field advantage and who has the most to gain by winning or losing, and who has found the right team chemistry to get the team running on all cylinders – putting up points on the scoreboard on offense and shutting down teams, being stingy with the points on defense.

You can find the latest college football betting lines at the major online sportsbooks. You can also track the trends and see where most of the money is going and if that is causing the betting line to move, offering you a more or less favorable point spread depending on which side you were thinking about taking.

NCAA college football betting odds can change at any moment due to a last minute injury or severe weather change. You want to get your bets in before the lines move and you get an unfavorable spread that has a lower chance of winning.

Two things to keep in mind when college football betting – home field advantage and weather. ESPN just put out a column about which conferences have the best home field advantage and how many points that is worth. In the NFL you can count on a 3 point start spread when the lines open. In NCAA football, sometimes that point spread should be a lot larger depending on whose home turf you are playing on. For many reasons, the SEC with their dominating performances over the past few years over the other conferences should be given a 5 point spread for having the home field for example.

And be aware of the weather when you making your picks because bad weather can play a huge role in the over and under lines you are planning to bet on.

If you are ready to start your NCAA college football betting and ready to watch some exciting matchups and make a little money to boot, check out our top online sportsbook – Bodog.

Technorati Tags: college football betting, college football lines, college football odds, college football predictions, football betting, NCAA football betting

Welcome to the first in a series of articles that will examine some of the finer points in sports betting for newcomers to the idea of trying to get the edge on the bookie. Many of the ideas will be applicable to other sports, but we’ll be focusing on college football. Much of this stuff will be old-hat to old-timers but I hope many people will get at least a few ideas from the articles.

***This series of article was written for Bettorsworld by long time contributor “Shawn”.

—————

This Week: Q & A ABOUT “THE LINE”

1. “What the Line means – and what it doesn’t.”

Suppose you have a local bookie who lets you bet the line printed in your local newspaper’s sports section. On the Wednesday before the NFL season kicks off you open the paper and under “NFL Lines” you see:

(Favorites listed first, home team in CAPS)

JETS 6.5 Patriots

OK so what does this mean? This means you can call your bookie and bet $11 on the Jets. If the Jets win by 7 points or more you get the $11 back plus $10 more. If the Jets win by 6 or less, or the Patriots win, you lose the $11. Or, if you like the Patriots, you can bet $11 on them. If they win, or lose by six or less, you cash in, getting your $11 back plus $10 more. If the Jets win by 7 or more, your money on the Patriots is gone. Of course you can bet more than $11 to win $10. You can bet $55 to win $50, $110 to win $100, or more. Generally you risk $11 for every $10 you want to profit…that’s the standard and it varies little.

A line is also called a “point spread” or “spread”.

So what does it REALLY mean? The number 6.5 is the head start in points the line-maker gives the Patriots. He thinks, and your bookie is very much hoping, that if that’s the head start given the Patriots for wagering purposes, half of the bookie’s clients’ dough will be bet on the Jets and the other half on the Patriots.

Why is this important? The smart bookie doesn’t want to gamble-he wants a sure thing: a guaranteed profit from his customers. Consider the simplest case where a bookie has just two bettors, you and me, and this number of 6.5 does its job. You bet $11 on the Jets and I bet $11 on the Patriots. One of us wins. Let’s say it’s me…I hate the Jets. I get my $11 back, plus $10 of your money. The extra $1 you put in stays in the bookmaker’s pocket as his small, guaranteed profit (it’s called “vig” or “juice”).

What does the Line NOT mean? It does not mean, under any circumstances, that oddsmakers think the Jets will win by about 6 or 7 points. It’s your job to predict who will win and by how much…the line-maker doesn’t want to do your job for you. He works for the bookies. He and the bookies don’t care who wins or loses or by how much-they just want the same amount of cash on each side so the bookies can get juice. The line-maker tries to come up with the handicap of points that will put half the public’s money on the Jets, and half on the Patriots. As long as the money is split evenly, the bookie “wins” in his own way, and the result of the game is of no importance to him.

2. “Whoa. The Line is different today from yesterday. What’s with that?”

So the next day in the paper, it’s now

Jets 7 Patriots

instead. Now if you like the Jets they’ve got to win by 8 or more for you to cash in. If you like the Patriots, they can win or lose by 6 or less and you’ll win. (If the game lands on a Jet win by exactly 7, anybody who bet while the line was 7 just has their money refunded…you get the line at the time you bet, even if it changes later.)

The Line moved because the line-maker consulted with some big sports books and the money wasn’t balanced when the number was 6.5-there was more coming in on the Jets than the Patriots. So the line-maker and bookies changed the number to try to encourage more bets on the Patriots to even things up and get that juice.

(Line movement is complicated and these are only the basics. Detailing line movements and other things a bookie can do to “even up” the betting would take pages. One thing that the bookie could do instead of moving the line is to say “It’s still 6.5 but Jets bettors have to lay $11.50 to win $10 and Patriots backers can lay only $10.50 to win $10.” This is called “moving the money instead of the line”. Think about this one. It’s especially common when the line is exactly 3 points, a football winning margin that actually occurs a lot.)

3. “Why do different places have different Lines on the same game?”

Suppose you have access to several bookies (this is a good idea and we’ll talk about it in a later article) and you find they have different lines, like:

Bookie A: Jets by 6.5 (from the Newspaper)

Bookie B: Jets by 6

Bookie C: Jets by 7

Canbet: Jets by 6.5

Victor Chandler: Jets by 7

Bowmans: Jets by 6.5

Everybody but the bookie who blindly follows the paper is trying to balance the Jets bets with the Patriots bets. Maybe Bookie B is in Boston so he is a little lopsided on people betting for the Patriots — so he’s trying to entice Jets bettors to step up. Maybe Bookie C is in the Bronx (so he has too much money on the Jets at 6.5), and maybe Victor Chandler’s clients bet favorite teams a lot instead of underdog teams, so they’re looking for more money on the Patriots right now.

In the above example if you like the Jets you’ll take your business to Bookie B because if the Jets win by exactly 7 you’re a winner, and if the Jets win by exactly 6, it’s the only shop at which you don’t lose. If you like the Patriots, in this example Bookie C or Victor Chandler are the places to play because the Patriots get more points as a head-start there. More on line-shopping in a few weeks. Now you know some about NFL and college football betting.

http://www.bettorsworld.com

Technorati Tags: betting, betting on NFL, college football betting, football betting, football lines, football odds, football point spreads, sportsbooks

You want to learn how to win betting football this year? Tired of always coming out at the wrong end of the figure column? Tired of combing the net for free nfl picks Well, sit back, read this article, and by the time you are finished, I guarantee you that you will be a tough player for the sportsbooks to beat.

Don’t expect miracles. It can take many years to become a seasoned pro. However, by following some simple guidelines, you can drastically improve your play and be well on your way to becoming a “sharp” and certainly will do better than randomly playing the free picks you’ll find on the net.

There are three keys to being successful betting sports.

1) handicapping/picking winners

2) money management

3) line value

With all three, you need DISCIPLINE

All three are equally important. I’ve seen plenty of very good handicappers go broke because they weren’t able to manage their money and weren’t able to understand line value. Of the three, handicapping is probably the LEAST important. Those that are able to spot value and know how to manage their bankroll, can win without the slightest clue how to handicap a game.

But let’s start with handicapping. Of course there’s allot more to handicapping than I am going to be able to talk about here. But what I will do, is give you some key pointers to point you in the right direction and instantly improve your chances of winning.

We’ll start with power ratings. You need a number to beat a number. Nebraska is playing Florida ST and Fla St is -6. Is that the correct number? Or is that a number put up in an attempt to get even action on the game? Sometimes, it’s both. But the games you’re looking to bet are the games where the number/pointspread is NOT the actual difference between the two teams, and there are plenty of opportunities to find these games. That’s where our power ratings come in.

I keep my own power ratings. Allot goes into them and I couldn’t possibly teach you here in the space I have. But you don’t need to keep your own power ratings. There are some ratings available for free, or for a few bucks, and all do a decent job. The Gold Sheet is one such publication. They have been keeping power ratings for decades and do just about as good of a job as anyone. Teamrankings.com is another source of power ratings. Just do a Google search for football powerratings and you’ll find plenty, and some of those are kept by some very sharp mathematical minds.

Once you have your ratings, you can assign a line to each game on the card for the coming week, and then compare it to the actual betting lines. You’re looking for significant differences between the power rating and the betting line. Those are the games you want to zero in on.

But you can’t just use a power rating. That’s just a starting point. From there you need to take a look at other factors that could influence the game. Weather, injuries, revenge, etc.etc. For example, you may find a significant difference between the power rating and the line, but further research may tell you that the reason for the big gap is a key injury in the game.

I mentioned revenge above. In my opinion, psychological factors in games are often overlooked but can be absolutely HUGE in determining the result. Particularly in college football. Maybe it’s revenge for a blow out at the hands of their opponent the year before. Maybe one coach said negative things about a player on the other team. The list goes on and on but any bulletin board material is worth looking in to. Coaches routinely use these motivational factors when they prep their teams for upcoming games, and these motivational factors work!

I once played on a hockey team that lost 19-2. Three weeks later we played the same team again and beat them 6-0. Why? Because for one thing, our coach had us wanting blood/revenge for the 19-2 drubbing we took 3 weeks earlier. He had us in a frenzy. Another key factor was Bobby Orr was going to be at the game that night. Our team knew about it. The other team didn’t. What kid doesn’t want to play well in front of Bobby Orr?

Now had you been able to bet on this game, and had been able to find out Bobby Orr was going to be there, and added in the HUGE revenge motive we had, you could have cashed a nice bet on our team who would have been a fairly good sized underdog going in. All things being equal, the other team was probably better than us. They may have beaten us 9 out of 10 times. But there was no way they were going to win that particular night.

Situations like this arise each and every week in college football. Take note.

Trends are another misunderstood area. To me, trends are 90% useless. There may be one or two trends worth their weight, but the majority of the trends you’ll find printed on the net or elsewhere are trends that are discovered AFTER the fact. It’s easy to go back over a large sampling of games and find trends that WOULD have won had you played them from the starting point. You may read a trend that says some college football team is 10-0 against the spread after losing by more than 20 points the week before. Well that’s just great. But who knew that when they were 1-0 after losing by 20? Further more, you could start playing that trend now and go 0-5. But guess what, you’ll still see that trend hyped next year. It will say that the team is 10-5 after losing by more than 20 the week before. Hey, 10-5 still looks good doesn’t it?

You get the point. Forget trends. 90% are garbage and the ones that are meaningful, everyone knows about them, INCLUDING the oddsmakers, so this is already reflected in the betting line.

One last tip in the handicapping department. A method you can use to isolate solid selections each weeks is the yards per point method. It’s a very simple, yet very effective way to come up with your own number on a football game. I’ve written a separate article about YPP.

If doing the above work doesn’t appeal to you, there is one other thing you can do. Hire a handicapper. Now granted, 90% of the so called professional sports services are complete jokes. But there are a select few. Contrary to what you may think, using someone else’s selections isn’t taboo. Some of the most successful sports bettors in the world aren’t handicappers themselves. They have professional handicappers which they hire to work for them. Now these handicappers aren’t the commercial handicappers you see in magazine ads or on TV on Saturday mornings. They are generally professional bettors and players themselves, and look to fatten their own bankrolls by going to work for one of the big money players that are out there, generally receiving a percentage of the win or a free roll on their plays for a certain amount per play.

While you won’t find one of those guys, you may be able to find a handicapper who can consistently win. In which case, you would then need to focus on the other two key factors involved with winning. Money Management and Line Value.

For more information on betting on sports, please visit Bettorsworld.com

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