How to Win with Sportsbook Insider Pro

Play the Best Bet picks

These are the official picks of Sports Insights and we fully endorse betting each one. Best Bets are sent to you via text or email as soon as our team of sports betting analysts finds a profitable game that fits our model. The strategy is simple: bet every Best Bet (don’t pick and choose, they are all weighted equally) and bet them as soon as you get them. If you wait, the line could get worse. We suggest a flat betting approach: 1 unit per play, risk 3% of your bankroll per best bet. Most importantly – bet them all individually, do not parlay them.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint. There will be good days and bad days. Stay the course and think long term. The goal is to steadily increase your bankroll throughout the course of a season, not become a millionaire overnight.

Monitor Sharp Money with Bet Signals

We love following sharp action. Being  on the same side as the professional players who have a long track record of success is a smart way to play. We track the sharp action through our Bet Signals. Bet Signals are real-time alerts sent via text message and email that get triggered anytime the sharps get down hard on a game. They come in two flavors: Steam Moves and Reverse Line Movement.

A Steam Move is a sudden, drastic change in line movement across the entire marketplace, caused by an overload of sharp action. Reverse Line Movement (RLM) is triggered when the betting line moves in the opposite direction of the betting percentages. Say the Oakland Raiders are only getting 30% of spread bets, yet the line moves from Raiders +7 to Raiders +6. Even though the Raiders are only getting a small minority of bets, the line moved toward them. This is reverse line movement and a positive indicator that the sharps came in on the Raiders.

Our Bet Signals are unique because we track every single move and record each book’s performance. Some books are profitable, some are not. The key is to be selective. Typically the best books to monitor are the sharpest books: CRIS, Pinnacle, Jazz, 5Dimes, or BetOnline.  A book with a long history of beating the market is worth monitoring as a potential indicator of value. How do you determine which is a top performing book? A good bench mark is +10 units won. If a book is up +10 units or more on the season, then that’s a book worth following.

Fade the Public

We believe in a contrarian betting approach. We like to bet against the public because more often than not, the public loses. The public tends to bet on their gut instinct and ignore or even look at betting data. By going contrarian, we are able to capitalize on public bias and take advantage of artificially inflated numbers. As an added bonus we also place ourselves on the side of the sharp money. The easiest way to fade the public with Pro is by keeping track of our Contrarian plays. We select them in house and send them to you via text message or email.

To fade the public on your own, look for the most heavily bet games on your live odds page that also have the most lopsided betting percentages. A good threshold is 35%. For football and basketball you want teams with a low percentage of spread bets (SPD#). For baseball and hockey you want teams with a low percentage of moneyline bets (ML#). The higher the ticket count (TIX), the more value there is to go the other way. Example: say you have two MLB games with the same exact bet split: 80% on one side and 20% on the other. However, Game 1 only has 3,000 bets while Game 2 has 15,000 bets. You would consider fading the public more in the second game than the first.

Shop for the Best Line using Real-Time Data

One of the biggest mistakes new bettors make is only betting through one sportsbook. This is a bad idea because it forces you to play whatever number your book is offering. Instead, we suggest opening up multiple accounts at several different sportsbooks so you can shop for the best line and increase your chances of winning. Example: say you want to bet the Miami Heat plus the points. Your book is posting Heat +5, but our Live Odds page is showing a second book at Heat +5.5 and a third book at Heat +6. You would want to shop for the best line and bet the Heat at the book posting +6. By having multiple accounts and using our Live Odds page, you just got a full point for free. It may not seem like a big deal, but in the long run it can make a world of difference and turn potential losses into wins. Some good books to start out with include Bookmaker, Heritage, and 5Dimes.

Attend the Weeknight Betting Hangouts

Every weeknight we host a live sports betting hangout where we break down the live odds, answer questions and teach our members how to make smarter bets. You get exclusive access to the Hangout with your Sportsbook Insider Pro membership. Also for live updates be sure to follow us on Twitter @sportsinsights.