What constitues a Top Sports Play?

By Tony George - Covers Experts

I am known for hitting the vast majority of Top Plays in my profession, and have been tabbed in many circles as the "Big Game Hunter". While it is flattering in some respects, it also is a curse if you lose one of those big games, like the other night when Oklahoma State fell to Missouri on the road as I lost my first Game of the Year in 2 1/2 years in Hoops and my first 3+ Unit play in almost 14 months tabbed as a game of the year. It brought to light a question from a client in which I thought I would base this article on.

I preach, and still preach a flat betting approach to sports wagering, with no exotics except the occasional teaser for 1/2 a normal wager. No game carries any more weight than another with this approach, but there are exceptions to this rule, especially when playing on the house's money. On those rare occasions, a Top Play with my compnay is any play over a normal 1 unit wager. 22-7 ATS in Football this season and 13-6 ATS in Hoops so far this season with any wager over 1 unit. But what constiutes a Top Play from a guy that wants clients to flat bet every play unless told otherwise?

We use overlays against the Las Vegas line. The spread is laid up against the power ratings numbers. Most are pretty close to dead on, but daily we have 3 to 5 games that have anywhere from a 3 to 5 point difference in what Oddsmakers have posted, and what we feel the "true line" should be. Most times it is public perception that the oddsmakers bank on, but other times it is much deeper than that. We'll choose one game that we feel has the best chance to win with these type of overlays based on numerous equations we implement in our approach, but that is a one unit play scenario. For a Top Play, over 2 units or more, 3 factors come into play.

First up would be a spread overlay of 6-8 points where the numbers do not add up. If we search and find than for no other reason based on the overlay that the oddsmakers have made a soft line, we move on this scenario especially if it is a home team. If it is an overlay of 9-10 poiunts we move it to 3 units and anything over 10 points is a 3+ unit play. These numbers all pertain to basketball, we have a different set of point values in football.

Secondly, is information we obtain that we deem not open to the public, that we have access to. This comes from information sources such as people we know close to programs, sportswriters, and radio people we have established relationships with our 12 years in the business, and whom I have met through my channels in the radio business as well. We consider numerous of these sources to be our "inside connection" to certain teams they follow on a daily basis for their profession. Numerous tidbits come to us on a weekly basis, and if we feel it gives us an advantage we will act upon this information if we feel it is deemed reliable information that will affect the point spread to a certain degree in our favor. Bear in mind oddsmakers also have plenty of inside sources and many times may in fact adjust the line to information they have as well.

Lastly a strong move may be made based soley on what I feel is simply a line posted, with a large overlay, that oddsmakers have posted a line based on public perception. 12 years of looking at lines and knowing how oddsmakers think helps in this scenario greatly. These lines will have large swings, so getting on them early before smart money moves in is key. There are numerous public darling teams out there, in NCAA football it is teams like Michigan, Florida State, Notre Dame, Nebraska and numerous other high profile teams, as well the NFL where you find the Super Bowl Champs always carrying a larger number than what the actual line should be, public darlings like Green Bay and Dallas in year's past. In NCAA Hoops teams like Kansas, Duke, North Carolina, Louisville and others always carry premium numbers and the same with the Lakers for example in the NBA, and if you look, they currently are one of the worst cover teams in the NBA, which proves my point. When we have a scenario where we know the line is inflated and we have a decent overlay of 5 points or greater, we have a more than standard play on this type of game.

When all three scenarios come into play, that is a Game of the Year type scenario, which we feel has the best possible scenario for a large win against the spread. Then, and only then, do we go above the 2 unit or 3+ unit grading. It is not soemthing we do often, and each sport has 1 game of the year either side or total with our firm. Still there are factors that determine the outcome of a game that cannot be handicapped and do go against anyone risking money wagering sports. These type of scenarios puts us and our clients in a postion to close the gap on some of those risks.

In closing, flat betting takes any "what ifs" out of play, if you win, you make money, if you lose you lose money. Winning more games than losing, produces profit. Pretty simple approach and one that works well if you can do better than 56% overall, but now and then, when the scenario exsists, you can make a move of more than a normal wager with sound reasoning behind it.