Josh Appelbaum

According to a UNLV Center for Gaming Research study, more than $81 billion was bet on sports in Nevada from 1984 to 2018. Of that total, Nevada won $3.9 billion. Why does Vegas win so much money? Sure, it sets very accurate and hard-to-beat lines and capitalizes on the luck and randomness of betting. But it holds a built-in advantage over bettors based on the rules of the game and overlooked fine print. This advantage is popularly referred to as the “house edge.”

​If you're new to sports betting, the first thing you need to learn is the basic fundamentals. Among many things, this includes understanding the different bet types available to you, specifically the spread, moneyline and total. But if you want to take betting to the next level, you must advance to more intermediate betting concepts.

Power Ratings are numerical values assigned to each team in each sport, with the best teams at the top and worst teams at the bottom. It is a way to rank and rate all of the different teams based on their overall strength and then compare each team to one another. Power Ratings are subjective and professional bettors can have differing opinions.

Betting against the public (and not with the public) is a smart long term strategy because more often than not, the public loses. By taking the unpopular opinion, contrarian bettors can capitalize on public bias, place themselves on the side of the house (who always wins) and also get better odds by taking advantage of shaded and inflated lines.

To be a successful contrarian bettor, you must adopt the same "trust but verify" mentality. On the one hand, you can trust that the public will likely be betting a favorite, a big-name team, a home team or an over. But that's not enough. You must verify this trust with hard data so you know it's 100% true. You must also find a way to quantify the confidence level of the public so that you can gauge the level of contrarian value.

The public almost never wants to bet on an underdog. Why? Because underdogs are perceived to be the inferior team and casual bettors are psychologically programmed to want to bet on the superior team. However, while it doesn't happen often, every now and again the public will fall in love with an underdog. Maybe the team has a compelling storyline that ropes them into rooting for them. Or maybe the public overvalues the underdog and thinks they're getting too many points to pass up._x000D_