Handicapping is an attempt to get an edge over a sportsbook so that you will win enough bets to be profitable.  This cannot be done with random guessing – you need to have a proven methodology.  King Yao wrote in his book Weighing The Odds In Sports Betting, "I am not convinced that you can beat the current sports betting market by feel alone."  This article discusses the several processes that can be used to develop and prove a handicapping methodology.  Detailed information on these processes is also available.

Sportsbooks are run by intelligent gamblers.  They remain well-connected to good information sources at all times.  They know how to use the information from those sources to accurately predict the outcome of sporting events.  If you are going to be able to consistently outperform the sportsbooks you will either need to have access to information the sportsbooks are not getting, or make better use of the information that is available to everyone than the sportsbooks are.

Information the Sportsbooks Don’t Have.

Getting information that the sportsbooks don’t have (or don’t yet have) is unlikely to happen consistently, but may happen from time to time.  It may possibly be something that happens local to you.  For example, if you live in Tampa and a key player for the Buccaneers gets arrested just before game time, you may get that information from a local news source first before it hits the global wires.  This would provide you an opportunity to act before the books get this information and adjusts the wagering line on the Buccaneers game.

Or you may know someone who works at the stadium or for the team in some capacity.  That person may see or hear something that could influence the outcome of the game.  As you can see, it is not likely that you'll get pertinent information that not available to everyone, but if you do, it could be very valuable.

Making Better Use of the Available Information

Long term success at sports handicapping will depend on your ability to make better use of the information that is available to everyone than the sportsbook does.  This information can be a singular event or it could be a correlation that can be used repeatedly. 

A singular event cited by Stanford Wong in his book Sharp Sports Betting was an upcoming public vote in Arizona on whether or not to fund construction of a new stadium for the Arizona Cardinals.  The Cardinals were underdogs at home the Sunday before the vote was to take place.  The upcoming vote provided the Cardinals with additional motivation to win as this would have a favorable impact on the vote for their new stadium.  The sportsbooks did not factor this information into their betting line for the Cardinals game, but sports bettors who did were rewarded when the Cardinals won.

Finding Correlations

Finding a correlation that has not been previously noted is another way to make use of available information.  For example, if you observed (and statistically proved) that MLB home teams win 60% of the time on days when the visiting team traveled more than 400 miles the previous day, you could use that information to place winning bets with a sportsbook.  Just be certain that you have proven your theory before putting substantial bets behind it.  Finding and proving correlations in sports betting is time consuming, but profitable.

The process for establishing correlation has several steps:

• Form a Hypothesis
• Test the Hypothesis
• Modify the Hypothesis
  
• Interpret the results