Betting Strategies:

In the years I’ve followed tennis and tennis wagering I’ve seen just about every type of tennis betting strategy tried in one form or another. In all honesty there is no holy grail of tennis betting, or any betting for that manner.

A few tips that we have picked up on that are worth passing along:

Knowledge is King. There are so many professional tennis matches every year, and an unfathomable number of factors to consider. As a result, there are sometimes “soft” lines in tennis. If you do our homework, it is possible to have a slight edge in some scenarios, I really believe that. But if you’re blindly picking players, especially big favorites, you’ll likely learn a painful lesson.

Don’t just bet favorites, especially at ridiculous odds. It may be fun to bet on your favorite players in every match, but not likely to be profitable. I’m not claiming that just betting on underdogs at long odds will be a winning strategy either. But I can tell you that I’ve seen some profitable bettors picking and choosing their spots and have some pretty good runs on occasion. But upsets are common in tennis and laying huge odds on big name players can get expensive.

Line movements: steam vs favorite/public money While we’re covering betting strategies, two you’ll hear people talking about are betting steam, and fading the public. There’s a time and a place to make these types of bets but I blindly following them would probably not be prudent.

Steam is what bettors often refer to quick and hard line movement. In other words, if a line opens at at even money (both players at 1.90) and starts moving quickly towards one player (down to 1.80 or 1.75) this is known as steam. The assumption is that insiders have information that one player should have a bigger advantage than the bookmakers originally knew, and all the money is coming in on only one side. Sometimes this is due to a last minute injury report, or other limited information. But other times, it can be a self fulfilling prophecy, where so called steam bettors pile onto a moving line blindly. Resulting in worse odds. So proceed with caution when betting steam.

Another so called strategy is fading the public. This refers to betting against the popular favorite. The assumption here is that many people will blindly bet their favorite players or “popular” picks, and the bookmakers will shade the line slightly towards the known favorite. Many professional bettors like to fade the public. But again, following any strategy blindly is never a good move.

Trap

This isn’t a betting strategy, but if you spend enough time around sports betting you’ll hear the term trap lines. This concept refers to the idea that some bookmakers put out lines that seem too good to be true, because they know something the general public doesn’t and want more action on one side than the other.

For instance, if you see a line on a big name player against one you’ve never heard of and it’s around even money, there are obviously factors to take into account that you don’t know. But most people’s instinct is to take the “easy money” betting on a popular or well known player at good odds.

Continue to the next section.

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