Until just about a decade ago handicapping sports was very different. The Internet was not yet in the mainstream and information was hard to come by. If you wanted to handicap a sports event, you got your information from either the television, radio, newspaper or hanging out at the local casino or bar. The television is pretty much void of any in-depth analysis or deep information. Sure, a couple channels like ESPN were around, but the information was normally not too timely. If you had HBO, you had access to one football based program (Inside the NFL).

 

The newspaper was almost worthless, unless you were looking for the number to another sports handicapper. The information was usually stale by the time the paper came out and it was nothing more than current standings. Television opened up in the past decade with the creation of the Fox Sports network, other channels and more in-depth programming. The radio, believe it or not, was one of the best sources of information. Sports talk shows would feature callers from all over the nation talking about their local teams. It was a good way to get some information, but it was very time intensive.

 

If you were lucky enough to live in Las Vegas, you always could venture down to the local sportsbook to chat with fellow sports bettors. Sportsbooks also put out betting sheets, which usually had some basic info like streaks, pitcher’s ERAs and so on. Today these sheets seem more than outdated, but in those days, they were gold. Now they serve as just a handy reminder of what the average sports bettor should already know before placing a wager. In the early 1990s, the world started to change for the sports handicapper. It would not be until the middle of that decade until things really started heating up, but right away the sports handicapper began to get an increased edge.

 

As more websites dedicated to sports and sports betting came online, the sports bettor with Internet access became a dangerous weapon. That sports bettor was no longer limited to basic information and time consuming ways of retrieving it. With a few simple keystrokes, the sports bettor could now find more in-depth information. With each passing day, the amount of information available to sports bettors kept growing. Soon, the days of simply knowing the records of the teams and who might be playing was a thing of the past.

Fast forward today and the game is much different. Now sports bettors can find out every conceivable stat and piece of information on a team within seconds. Let’s look at baseball. It’s possible to find out the team’s performance over the whole season, recently, what each hitter’s stats are, full pitching information, history analysis, attendance records and much more. While this is great, it is far too much information for the casual sports bettor and the non-advanced sports handicapper. Those not knowing what pieces of information are important and what pieces are not important are doomed to fail.

 

This is evident in the selection of match up analysis offered around the Internet. Many of them focus on trivial points that have little if anything to do with the game. For example, does it really matter if Team X has not beaten Team Y at home in the last 28 attempts? If you answered yes, you have some learning to do. The correct answer would be, “it depends.” If each team was, by in large, the same in players and coaching all 28 times and for the current game, then the stat is something to factor in. However, if the current teams are largely different, that stat can be ignored for the most part. If that’s the case and Teams X makes it 29, their win had absolutely nothing to do with the history trend at all. There’s a lot of information out there today and knowing what is important among it all is become one of the most vital abilities to have for the sports handicapper.

Jay Bird

Writer for SportsBookie.com

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