How To Use Betting Statistics to Your Advantage – Bet Smart!

Don’t let anyone fool you – most of the popular casino games are all about luck. Whether you’re spinning slots or playing roulette, there’s little to nothing you can do to increase your chance of winning. That said, some forms of gambling involve less luck and more knowledge. Betting on various sports is one of them, and some bettors have made a fortune predicting the right results. If you’re wondering how they do it, the answer is simple: betting statistics.

What experienced wagerers do is collect and analyze various available statistics, calculating the gained information into their final betting decisions. Do you want to know how it all works? Keep on reading.

Statistics As Your Betting Ally

There are numerous reasons why people bet on sports. Some just want to showcase their infinite knowledge in the field, while others are in it for the thrill of anticipating the outcome of a game. Of course, some people enter the world of sports betting solely for financial purposes.

No matter which group you belong to, you most likely dream about winning big. To make this dream come true, though, you’d have to rely on more than mere luck. While the chances of you winning by chance do exist, they’re microscopic. Successful sports bettors understand the importance of statistics, and they’ve made it their most potent weapon when predicting the correct scores, and so should you. Whether it’s team statistics, injury rates, or even weather reports, you should use everything at your disposal to get your sports predictions right.

All the Data You Want

A few decades ago, using statistics when wagering on sports was tough. The only way bettors could gain access to sports stats was to watch the games and keep track of the statistics themselves. Fast forward to 2021, and all that data is available online. All you have to do is put your browsing skills to use, and voilà! If you know where to look, you’ll quickly access all the relevant information about teams and players you want to bet on.

Let’s say you want to place a bet on an NFL game. A simple Google search for NFL betting statistics will reveal a sea of data in a matter of seconds. Depending on the type of bet you want to place, you can then look for more specific stats. For example, you can inspect the performance of the teams that are about to face each other and make informed predictions about how likely each of them is to win the upcoming game.

Advantages of Using Statistics

The best thing about using statistics when placing sports bets is that all the sports-betting statistics are based on actual, quantifiable data. Suppose you wanted to place a prop bet on Tom Brady. If you check the 2020 NFL statistics, you’ll see that the quarterback completed 401 out of 610 passes – a single-season record. Knowing things like this could help you decide whether to bet on a player’s performance or not. Of course, what happened one season doesn’t necessarily need to happen again, but if you stick to working with facts and not just guesswork, you’ll be at an advantage in the long run.

Football-betting statistics can also help you identify an entire team’s strengths and weaknesses. Knowing which aspects of the game a team is good at and which not can be of tremendous help when assessing the overall performance. For example, if you glance through 2019 NFL team statistics, you’ll see that the Miami Dolphins allowed 30.9 points per game. Therefore, you can safely assume the Dolphins were pretty bad at stopping other teams from scoring. You have to stay up to date, though. The same Dolphins, for example, upped their defense the following year and, halfway through the season, ranked first in points allowed.

Another great thing about using statistics when betting on sports is the possibility of comparing the relative quality of the teams that are about to face each other. Estimating how good a team is in comparison to other teams in a division or league is vital for correctly predicting who will win the division or go all the way to the league playoffs. By putting statistics into service, you can compare two or more teams in all relevant aspects and assess which one will perform the best.

Odds and Statistics

Sports gambling is all about identifying the best odds and placing your bets accordingly. The only way to do this right is to, of course, make accurate assessments about the likelihood of an outcome first, and you cannot do that by simply following sports events. You can be an avid NBA fan and watch plenty of games, but that still doesn’t mean you’ll be able to make correct basketball predictions. That’s because, most of the time, you’ll make assumptions based on your intuition. On the other hand, resorting to NBA betting statistics would undoubtedly help you make more informed predictions, which will most likely be more accurate as well.

Even the oddsmakers themselves rely on statistics when coming up with odds. Let’s assume you’ve found out that Team A wins 92 percent of its home games while Team B wins only 25 percent of its away games. Betting on Team A to win at home against Team B is a no-brainer. However, bookmakers tend to complicate things by dictating the odds that make the betting either riskier or less profitable. The sports odds in this particular case wouldn’t earn you much – the sportsbook would quickly go out of business if it allowed favorable odds for widely expected outcomes. So, if you seek to win big, digging deeper into statistics and learning how to use them properly to find not-that-obvious betting possibilities is a must.

Statistical Methods

Although numerous tips and predictions are readily available online, you might want to consider following the footsteps of the most successful bettors and do the analysis yourself. Once you get a hold of it, you’ll make more accurate sports predictions as you’ll know how to sort the collected data to suit your betting needs.

To help you achieve that, we’ll stay on the topic a bit longer to discuss various forms of statistical techniques.

Regression Analysis

When employing statistics for betting purposes, figuring out the right variables to track is of utmost importance. That is where regression analysis comes into play – it lets you determine the probability of a team winning a match by identifying which aspects have the most impact on the outcome and which can be disregarded.

Let’s say that the latest college-football betting statistics show that a college football team performs better when playing at home. You can use regression analysis to see if this occurrence is frequent enough to be relevant. You’ll make a simple bar chart with one vertical column representing the percentage of the team’s away games won over a period of time and the other showing the percentage of the home games won. If the team does perform better at home, the second column will be taller. Now, the greater the difference between the two columns, the more critical it becomes where the game you want to bet on is played.

To calculate sports-betting odds more accurately, you’ll need to assess more than one outcome-determining factor, though. Multiple regression analysis comes in handy in these situations, taking into account several variables to predict an outcome. The math for assessing statistics this way is simple, but things can get more complicated when it comes to notation. The technique to lean on in this case is called linear least-squares analysis. It helps you not get lost in all the data points by determining the line of best fit.

Let’s say you’ve assessed several baseball betting statistics before placing a bet on a Braves vs. Marlins game. You can use this technique to figure out which of the factors you’ve evaluated will play a bigger role in determining the winner. The least-squares method will ignore all the non-relevant markers in the line graph, making the line less curved and, therefore, easier to read.

Bayesian Network

As you can see, regression analysis can serve as a powerful tool for predicting results. That’s why it’s also the technique used by sports bookies to calculate betting odds. To outsmart your oddsmaker, you might have to recourse to additional means of predicting results, such as a Bayesian network. It aims to recognize causation by modeling conditional dependence within a set of variables.

Imagine you want to place a bet on an NFL game between Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons. As before, you’ll use the previously collected data to determine each team’s primary strengths. This time, though, you’ll also factor in possible injuries the players might be dealing with or the complete absence of a player. Every betting expert will tell you that betting on a team that’s missing their starting running back might not be a good idea. By applying Bayesian network analysis, you’ll be able to predict better how aspects like these might affect the outcome.

Poisson Distribution

If the above methods don’t appeal to you, Poisson distribution may be what you’re looking for. This count distribution helps you translate averages into reliable probabilities. That way, you’ll have more information to base your decisions on before heading over to a sports bookie.

To illustrate a bit, let’s assume again you’ve found a game you want to bet on. It’s an MLS match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and the San Jose Earthquakes. Going through statistics you found online, you’ve learned that the Los Angeles Galaxy scores an average of 2.1 goals per game. Using Poisson distribution, you can turn this number into a probability and predict how many goals they’ll score against the Earthquakes. After you’ve learned more about their goal distribution and included the data in your soccer statistics spreadsheet, this analytical tool will show you how many times a goal is likely to occur within a specified time interval.

That said, keep an eye open when choosing the data to use for this kind of assessment. The Los Angeles Galaxy could’ve scored 42 goals in one game and then go scoreless for the next nineteen games, and they would still achieve 2.1 goals per game.

Correlation and Causation

It goes without saying that correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate causation. Nonetheless, in statistical betting, analyzing possible dependencies is often the best way to determine which teams to bet on.

Let’s presume you want to come up with your own NCAA bowl predictions. Looking at the stats from the previous years, you may come to the conclusion that some teams perform better under certain weather conditions. With this in mind, you might use one of the analytics tools you’ve become acquainted with to guess which teams will perform the best in the playoffs this season.

Of course, you won’t get it right every single time, but you shouldn’t let that stop you from placing your bets based on statistical information and feeling confident about your bowl game projections. Even though the methods for examining statistical data can only establish the correlation between two or more variables, that is still way more than any lucky charm could bring you.

At the end of the day, neither life nor betting would be as thrilling if we knew exactly what the future had in store for us.

Other Ways To Increase Chances of Winning

Employing the techniques covered in this article is a great way to increase your chances of winning sports bets, and finding betting statistics and additional tools to help you speed up the process shouldn’t be hard. However, maybe you don’t have time to browse the web for football betting data and perform detailed analysis each time they want to place a bet. Still, this doesn’t mean you should just give up or make uninformed betting decisions – there’s still a lot you can do to ensure a winning bet.

While it may not be as effective as using statistics, keeping up with betting trends can help decide what sports bets to make. Nowadays, there are plenty of ways to connect with other bettors. You can join various social media groups and follow or take part in the discussions. Of course, having a chat with wagerers you meet at your bookie can also prove fruitful, just as long as you keep in mind that relying solely on other people’s advice isn’t nearly as effective as using statistics. If you want to come out a winner more often, crunching the numbers is necessary.

Online, you’ll also find sports betting tips you might find useful. As the popularity of betting continues to rise, more and more people online offer their advice to sports bettors in need. Not all of them are experts in the field, though, so it’s essential to know where to look when trying to get some betting advice. Most of the time, it’s safer to turn to experienced wagerers who offer their services in exchange for a paid subscription to their site or sports-betting blog.

While this still isn’t a guarantee you’ll get correct sports picks all the time, these expert predictions will be accurate in most cases. How do we know that? The people offering betting advice rely on – you guessed it – statistics. They use the same techniques presented here to come up with their picks. While other alternatives to using statistics when betting may come in handy, the chances of them resulting in accurate predictions are slim. So, if you’re not ready to dive into the world of statistics yet, we’d advise letting the pros do it for you.

Make Yourself a Betting Expert

People offering betting advice rely on statistics to come up with their predictions, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t try to do the same. Analyzing the relevant data isn’t easy, and it might take you some time to get good at it. But If you dedicate yourself enough to mastering a couple of analytical methods, you may end up not only profiting from your bets but advising other people as well.

If you’re willing to entertain the idea of making money from sports betting advice, also consider focusing on a specific sport. For instance, college football has never been more popular, and NCAA football bowl predictions are sought after. That also means finding all the information you’d need to create your statistical charts will be a breeze.

Additionally, the internet offers various kinds of software solutions that will collect, sort, or quantify the gathered data for you. Including these tools in your arsenal can do wonders for your statistical analyses.

Until you become a pro yourself, you can fall back on other experts’ betting picks. However, we would strongly recommend doing at least some research before deciding whose opinion to trust.