The road to the Final Four starts Tuesday. The first day of the 2018-19 college basketball season is highlighted by a pair of top-10 matchups, including No. 1 Kansas vs. No. 10 Michigan State (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) and No. 2 Kentucky vs. No. 4 Duke (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
It’s not quite March, but you can feel the madness in the air. As you start handicapping the first games of the season, here are three college basketball Pro Systems every bettor should follow:
Each Pro System below can be found in the Think Tank and is available to active Bet Labs users.
Poor ATS vs. Good ATS Teams
Being a contrarian gambler often means going against the grain and fading recent trends. For example, teams that struggle to cover the spread are often undervalued, while teams that have a winning against-the-spread (ATS) record are overvalued.
ATS records tend to regress to the mean over time, which means teams that perform poorly will do better as the season progresses and those that are covering could struggle to continue their winning ways for bettors.
When a poor ATS team (covering 50% or less of games) plays a good ATS team (covered the spread in at least two-thirds of games ), the team that hasn’t been covering has gone 2,190-1,954-87 (53%) ATS since 2005.
There is more value following this strategy if the poor ATS team is playing on the road and the opponent is playing its first home game after a road trip because home-court advantage is overrated.
Under with Good Over Teams
When two teams that have consistently gone over the total play each other, casual bettors will expect the game to go over as well. In these games, the over often receives a disproportionate number of bets.
Oddsmakers anticipate this reaction and will artificially inflate the line, which leads to value on the under. This simple contrarian strategy works best for weekday games as these receive a larger number of bets, which can lead to more inflated lines.
Fade the Public in Big Conferences
Betting against the public in college basketball is a profitable long-term strategy. The idea is straightforward, when recreational gamblers load up on one team smart bettors will wager on the other side.
Gamblers can gain an edge by focusing on matchups featuring Power Conference teams. These tend to be the most bet with additional square action.
In conference games featuring squads from the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-12, teams getting fewer than 25% of spread tickets have gone 569-463-25 (55%) ATS since 2005.
This system becomes more profitable when focusing on games with high over/unders.
