Soap Making Secrets

Serious sports bettors often dismiss futures wagers as sucker bets targeted at 'squares' looking for a huge payoff. For example, a typical futures 'sucker bet' would be something like betting that Harvard will win the NCAA basketball tournament at 500/1 odds. Sure, the potential payback is huge but here's the problem--the "right odds" of Harvard winning the NCAA hoops tournament are astronomical, and certainly well in excess of 500/1. That means that from the outset this bet represents a poor wagering value.

For the more serious bettor, there's a number of obvious problems with futures wagers. They require that your wagering 'capital' be tied up for months. Furthermore, once you've positioned your bet you're at the mercy of injuries, suspensions, trades and the other numerous factors that can spell defeat for a sports team. It's no simple task keeping up with these variables on a day to day basis, and predicting them over a longer term is the province of psychics and not sports handicappers.

So why bet futures at all? More so than anything else, its essential to reckon of sports wagering not in terms of who wins or loses, but in terms of value. Properly utilized, future book wagers are often a fantastic source of value. Below are some of the ways I like to use future wagers:

The early bird gets the worm. The early bettor gets the value: Many sports books offer non-sports proposition bets, including entertainment based wagers like the College Awards. Someone who enjoys following the industry and keeping up-to-date on whats happening in Hollywood can get a chose edge over the bookmaker, who doesn't have the time to stay juiced in to industry news and gossip.

Every year some sportsbooks start to take action on the huge College Awards categories like Best Picture and Best Director well before the real nominations are released. If you can stay up-to-date on the buzz surrounding certain films you can get substantially better value than if you wait in anticipation of after the nominations are released.

The way the film industry works makes futures bets of this sort particularly appealing. Release schedules for films are set well in advance, and the cut off date for College Award consideration is the end of the calendar year. That way it's simple for a handicapper to isolate a number of serious Oscar candidates out of the hundreds of films released annually. With more work, that can be narrowed down even more and once a workable number of potential winners has been reached it's just a matter of shopping around for the best value.

Futures wagers are also effective for finding value in a sports betting paradigm. By its very nature, sports presents more variables to deal with than does the movie industry. The top teams are well known by both the linesmakers and general public, and seldom can be found at a value price. For example, you can already bet that the New England Patriots will win the 2010 Superbowl but you can be sure that you're not going to get a excellent value price on such a well known 'public' team.

The place to find value in this sort of proposition is to look at the less obvious teams. A few years ago an associate of mine took positions on several teams NHL that started slowly, including the Calgary Flames at 40/1. By the end of the regular time of year they were down to prices as low as 5/1 or 6/1.

This play wasn't based on any sort of certainty that this team would win the Stanley Cup, but rather on the value they presented. In other words, the right odds of this dark horse Cup win is more in the range of the current price so the 40/1 is a clear overlay. Once the playoffs start, this sort of positional play offers a lot of options to hedge and to lock in a profit.

Also, don't forget to consider 'the meadow'. Many futures wagers lump a number of teams or competitors together as 'the meadow' and offer a single price to bet them all. Occasionally, the quick thinking handicapper can find unique value situations. For example, after Dale Earnhardt's tragic death in 2001 some sportsbooks continued to offer a 'meadow' position on rookie of the year. A bettor who followed NASCAR closely would have quickly realized that Kevin Harvick--who replaced Earnhardt in his Richard Childress racing Chevy--qualified for the 'rookie of the year' award and could have bet the meadow at prices as high as 15/1. After he won his first race, the price for 'the meadow' dropped to 2/1 and by midseason 'the meadow' was a -250 favorite.

This is obviously a best case example, but there have been similar circumstances that were still excellent value plays but didn't work out perfectly like the Harvick situation. Several years ago it wasn't uncommon to find a meadow bet on NASCAR road races that allowed you to bet several of the road course specialists like Ron Fellows, Boris Said and Scott Pruett with one bet. You wont be able to take advantage of the meadow bet often, but if you keep your eyes open and reckon out of the box it can be very profitable when it does occur.

Of course its crucial to shop around for any futures book play to find the best price. It's a smart thing to do on any wagering proposition, but the price differential on futures wagers often vary widely from book to book. A small bit of work can produce a significantly better price which means more value.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer specializing in sports handicapping, drag racing, travel and jousting. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is in charge of providing day after day free sports picks to a number of websites and broadcast media outlets. He lives in Las Vegas with three dogs and a wombat.

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