How Can You Take Away the Advantage From the Sportsbook?

A wise man once told me, "You don't want to make the bet, you want to take the bet." The wise man was my grandfather and he provided quite a nice living for his children and grandchildren doing just that - taking action. It didn't really makesense to me at that early age, I mean one team has just as good a chance to cover as the other so where's the advantage?

But that was before I knew about the concept of 'juice' or 'vig.' I mean, when my brother and I used to bet $5 on the Cowboys vs. the Steelers or something, that was it - loser owed $5. But the older I got, I became fully aware of how powerful the concept of vigorish was and why the bookie had such advantage over the player.

Because you typically have to lay $110 to win $100, you can't just win 50% of your games and break even. You now need to hit ... 52.4% of your games to break even. Over the course of a season that makes a HUGE difference.

Now imagine you only had to lay -105 ... every day. What would that do to your necessary winning %? Well, it lowers the break even point down to 51.2%! You've just stolen 50 percent of the advantage back from the bookie! For someone like myself who makes a living doing this, that is ridiculously important!

If you can find a sportsbook with reduced juice and they never shade their lines then you’re in good shape. You can always get the 'true' number on a game, even if they're taking a huge amount of the betting action.

A competitive bonus program is another huge way to take some of the advantage back from the casino.

So if you still want to make the bet, here is a great way to take the edge away from the sportsbook. Don't continue getting taken advantage of when you don't have to.

All the best until next time,
Rich Allen – aka Sports Betting Professor