June was a very good month for our members as they racked up 20.83 units of profit. We strive for 17.5 units each month so we exceeded our goal this month by 3.33 units.

• NBA was 3-1 for +1.90 Units….
• NHL was 1-0 for +1.00 units….
• Baseball was 71-54 for +17.93 units.

This gives us5 winning months in 2010 and brings us to within 8.8 units of our pace to our "210 in 2010" new years resolution. We had one bad month that would have brought us up to pace for our 210 units. In February we dropped -13.35 units. Our quest for 210 in 2010 is currently at +96.20 units.

Our Complimentary Newsletter Best Bets were 20-10 for the month..and our Play of the Day was 14-8.

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The conference tournaments are usually all played at one venue and so one team will have the advantage of the home court, otherwise all games must be considered the same as road games. The conference tourny’s will sometimes be the deciding factor for teams getting into the big dance. Although many conferences have automatic bids that go to the winner of the tourny, some will still be vying for an “at-large” bid or a higher seeding, so it is important to take these situations into consideration when handicapping…

Home Sweet Home…The NCAA tourny is set up in regions and although no teams (rarely) will be playing on their home court, you will find that some teams will have a geographical edge as they will draw more hometown fans for their games the closer to the location of the tourny venue to their school location. Otherwise, all games are to be considered road games.

This being said, when handicapping the tourny, you will want to put more weight on teams that have shown good road records both SU and ATS during the regular season.

Been There, Done That….Watch for matchups between the teams that have players and coaches that have prior NCAA tourny experience going against teams with players that are making their first appearance. The experience of handling the hype of the tourny is a big factor when handicapping these games.

Were Just Glad To Be Here…. There will always be entries in the tourny that are surprised that they are even playing in the tourny. These teams many times will be satisfied for just being there and consider the entry as the highlight of the season and really don’t have their sites set on going past the first round. These are teams that should be avoided when handicapping..

Playing With The Big Boys….Schedule strength and conference strength must always be considered. Although the linesmakers usually make their lines taking this factor into consideration, many times you can catch a bad line based on one team playing in a much weaker conference or a much easier schedule than their opponents..Many power ratings on based on the overall season performance and don’t make the proper compensation. (more to come in upcoming posts)

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If you’re a regular sport bettor, I am sure you have experienced the frustration of watching what you thought to be a winning ticket go into the trash because of a one or two point loss to the spread. Getting the edge on the bookmaker and racking up the win many times can mean finding that 1 or 2 point advantage. Astute handicappers and sport bettors are constantly “shopping the line” on a game they have an interest in betting, looking for that ½ point that could swing a loser into a winner. One way to find that “edge” is knowing what the “real” home field/court advantage is for a given game matchup. Bookmakers will arbitrarily assign a 3 point line advantage to the home team in the NFL and NBA and 4 points to the home team in college matchups.

Taking the time to track the home and away point differential can mean the difference between a winning and a losing season. The 3 and 4 points the books assign to the home teams will usually average out to be fairly close at the end of a season, but these averages are made up of teams that have much less or much higher “real” home advantage. A few years ago a college team actually had a 8.0 point real home advantage in football and we ended up cashing at least 3 tickets on that team during the season that we would most likely have not even have had considered a play.

Figuring the “real” home advantage may take a little extra time in your handicapping process, but is not that difficult. Using the linesmakers opening line on a game as our common denominator, we want to determine by the results of the game, how much better against the point differential the bookmakers feel they should win or lose. We track this separately for home and away games.

Example: If the linesmaker determines the home team should win by say 10 points by posting a 10 point spread and that team actually wins the game say by 17 points, then that team played 7 points better in their home game than what was expected. By dividing the difference (7 points) by 10, we have an adjustment to the home field advantage of 0.07 points. If this team had a 4.0 home advantage going into the game, their adjusted real home field advantage would now be 4.07 points per game. Taking the road teams performance, they played 7 points below expectation and therefore we assume they would have played better at home so they also would get the .07 added to their home field advantage, so if their home field advantage going into the game was 4.0, they would now also have a 4.07 advantage when playing at home.

The opposite of course holds true when a team plays below expectations. Let’s say the team mentioned above only won the game by 3 points. They played 7 points below expectation and therefore the .07 must be deducted from their home advantage. So their home advantage would now be 3.93. The road team actually played better on the road than anticipated which would diminish their home field advantage number and they would be deducted the .07 from their existing home field advantage.

Anytime a home team plays better than expected (against the spread) they gain points, when the result is less than expected they are deducted points. When the road teams plays better than expected, they are deducted points from their home field advantage when they play below expectations, points are added to their home field advantage.

By the middle of the season you could find a matchup that would give you a 3 or 4 point advantage over the bookmaker. Some teams consistently play as good on the road as they do at home and therefore have very little home field advantage. On the other hand, some teams perform week after week better at home than on the road and have a much better home field advantage…Getting a matchup with a road team that plays as good on the road as they do at home, versus a team with a poor home field advantage, takes away the 4 points home advantage the books add to the spread. This is a huge advantage when handicapping this game. 

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Taking the time to track the home and away point differential can mean the difference between a winning and a losing season. The 3 and 4 points the books assign to the home teams in football, will usually average out to be fairly close at the end of a season, but these averages are made up of teams that have much less or much higher “real” home advantage. A few years ago a college team actually had a 8.0 point real home advantage and we ended up cashing at least 3 tickets on that team during the season that we would most likely have not even have had considered a play.
Figuring the “real” home field advantage may take a little extra time in your handicapping process, but is not that difficult. Using the linesmakers opening line on a game as our common denominator, we want to determine by the results of the game, how much better against the point differential the bookmakers feel they should win or lose. We track this separately for home and away games.
Example: If the linesmaker determines the home team should win by say 10 points by posting a 10 point spread and that team actually wins the game say by 17 points, then that team played 7 points better in their home game than what was expected. By dividing the difference (7 points) by 10, we have an adjustment to the home field advantage of 0.07 points. If this team had a 4.0 home advantage going into the game, their adjusted real home field advantage would now be 4.07 points per game. Taking the road teams performance, they played 7 points below expectation and therefore we assume they would have played better at home so they also would get the .07 added to their home field advantage, so if their home field advantage going into the game was 4.0, they would now have a 4.07 advantage when playing at home.
The opposite of course holds true when a team plays below expectations. Let’s say the team mentioned above only won the game by 3 points. They played 7 points below expectation and therefore the .07 must be deducted from their home advantage. So their home advantage would now be 3.93. The road team actually played better on the road than anticipated which would diminish their home field advantage number and they would be deducted the .07 from their existing home field advantage.
Anytime a home team plays better than expected (against the spread) they gain points, when the result is less than expected they are deducted points. When the road teams plays better than expected, they are deducted points from their home field advantage when they play below expectations, points are added to their home field advantage.
By the middle of the season you could find a matchup that would give you a 3 or 4 point advantage over the bookmaker. Some teams consistently play as good on the road as they do at home and therefore have very little home field advantage. On the other hand, some teams perform week after week better at home than on the road and have a much better home field advantage…Getting a matchup with a road team that plays as good on the road as they do at home, versus a team with a poor home field advantage, takes away the 4 points home advantage the books add to the spread. This is a huge advantage when handicapping this game.