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When it comes to picking successfully, there’s no magic set of commandments that can guarantee a win. However, over the years the best sports handicappers and masterful picking patterns have shown there are things you can do to improve your chances.

While most people play the averages, there are strategies you can adopt to ensure greater chances of winning. We have compiled our top eight football picking secrets from the best sports handicappers.

Let’s get into it.

1. Be Prepared To Lose

The single most important aspect of winning is being prepared to lose money. This is the standard that every major handicapper knows and goes with. 

One of the great benefits of sports handicappers is that you have a chance to turn your money into a positive return. Even the best sports handicappers lose roughly half of the time. Common wisdom stresses that the money you choose to handicapper with should be allocated as entertainment money. 

Nobody likes to lose. That’s why handicappers should be treated as a form of entertainment. Accepting losses can make you a better handicapper. The top sports handicappers plan for their losses. Doing the same will help you retain clarity and keep you calm throughout your losses and droughts.

Losing runs will happen. However, a streak of losses can be a good opportunity for you to reanalyze your strategies. Either way, you want to make sure you don’t try to win back. The risk does not always result in the reward.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to try to win your losses all in one bet. Be strict with your bankroll, and don’t be afraid to get back to the basics. 

Losing is inevitable. Eventually you’re going to go through a rough patch. Preparing yourself for losses will decrease your chances of digging yourself into a financial hole.

2. Understand Picks Psychology

Books are known to leverage picking psychology to take advantage of square pickers. This is why it’s important to develop a strategy based on established picking psychology. Sports handicappers is a roller coaster of emotions. 

The best professional handicappers preach several techniques, beginning with the assertion that if you picks you should only play to win.

Only log into your book account after you have done your homework. Be sure to do your research before placing any picks.

You should only play to win; don’t picks to pass time. Next, you need to erase the losses from your mind. Chasing losses is one of the worst ways to try to correct your losing picks. Anger and disappointment is the worst advisor you can have. Handicapping is an investment of not only your money but also your time. 

You should also dodge your desired biases. Always remember to separate your fandom from being a picker. When making clear decisions it’s best to keep your emotions under wraps.

It’s difficult to be objective when you handicapper on your favorite teams. It can also be a disadvantage if you know one team better than the other. It causes you to overlook the opponent they might be facing. 

It’s a more sound picking choice to picks on teams you know the same about. In short, you can be blinded by your bias. A smart picker reduces clouded judgment by avoiding biases.

3. Learn Financial Management

There are too many stories of poor financial management ruining people’s financial standing, even their lives. Money is the basis for picking and that alone makes it important for you to study proper money management. Start by determining what your unit size is. 

A unit is the size of a picks and a portion of your bankroll. For example, if you picks $30 every time you bet, that $30 becomes your unit. Everybody’s bankroll is different — typically it’s anywhere between 1-3% of your bankroll.

It’s important that you consider what type of picker you are.

You can be either aggressive or lean conservative. Most professional pickers will use 1% of their bankroll as their unit size. If you are characterized as a conservative handicapper you should consider this unit size. If you’re aggressive you might want to consider picking a 3% bankroll as your unit size. 

Try to avoid anything higher, as you might risk losing half or potentially your bankroll. Another strategy is called flat picking. Simply put, a flat picks is when you place a wager that is the exact same amount every time. When consistently picking the same amount it will help you overcome your losses. 

Remember that experts say hitting 53-54% of your picks is a great achievement. Pick an accepted unit size that is appropriate for your finances and be sure to stick close to that number.

4. Pick Football Picks Carefully

There are hundreds of games on both the national and collegiate level that you can picks on every year. The best handicappers are very selective about their spots, so much so that they only pick a few every season. When picking your spots you first need to look for value.

Not all picks are the same. If you always select heavy favorites you might not be making big money. However, if you continue to only pick the underdogs you’ll probably lose more often than win.

The key to big winning in sports picking is to find value in your picks. 

Picking underdogs, especially on the money line, usually gives you the larger payout. So how do you find the right underdog? A money line is a simple bet. It’s who you decide to pick to win the game outright. First, look for matchups that give a team a little extra hype.

The best way to pick your underdog is by finding the team that doesn’t get the credit they might deserve from the public. 

Next, look for favorable matchups. For instance, the favored team might have an offense that excels at running while the underdog might have a strong run defense. Watching matchups carefully is important when picking your picking spots. You also should pay attention to motivation. 

A common example of motivation is when a team clinches a playoff spot in the regular season. A club might decide to rest the starters on the team, trying to make it out of the game healthy, while the opposing team obviously wants to win and try to prove something.

Often sports pickers tend to overlook a team’s motivation. Talented teams can lose games to the inferior team due to a lack of motivation. This is why it’s important to understand both teams’ incentives before placing each bet. 

5. Adopt Flexible Handicapping Techniques

Ask any experienced picking expert and they’ll tell you how financially irresponsible it is to have a very strict criteria when picking. The game is always changing, players are improving, and regions are performing differently from how they were. 

The top sports handicappers are always evolving. They assume what might have worked yesterday won’t necessarily work today. Handicappers who can’t change the way they picks are not as likely to be successful. To have better success, pickers must become flexible, adaptable, and resilient. 

The top sports handicappers follow two types of handicapping: technical handicapping and fundamental handicapping. Technical handicapping is the idea that it’s all about numbers. When you practice technical handicapping you rely heavily on trends, stats, and patterns. 

Another form of handicapping is fundamental handicapping. Fundamental handicapping not only recognizes statistics but also takes into account different factors like the weather, injuries, motivation, and home-field advantage. 

6. Look For Home-Field Advantages

The home-field advantage is real and there are teams, such as the Seahawks and Patriots, that seem to perform better on their home turf. Make sure to align picking with home games.

Teams with home-field advantage perform more comfortably since there is no travel and have a more welcoming environment. The 2021 NFL season is showing less impact from home court advantage than the historical average, but this season you can safely assume an average home line of -1.9.

Oddsmakers will often give the home team 3+ points toward the spread. Also take into account where teams are traveling. Teams traveling from coast to coast don’t always play to par. Time zone changes can affect the way an athlete plays, particularly if traveling westward. Put your money on teams with a winning home record or even home teams that gain large crowds. 

Large crowds make winning difficult for the visiting team. Teams that visit stadiums like CenturyLink Field of the Seahawks or Arrowhead of the Chiefs often find it difficult to hear as these are some of the loudest stadiums in professional football.

Home teams that feel like they are a lock can be a good idea. However, home teams are often the favorites and the payouts are generally smaller than potential road underdogs. 

Also, take into account the time of the game. NFL teams on the east coast often kick off at 1 PM EST, and on the West Coast kick-off starts at 4 PM EST. An earlier start time for a West Coast team could negatively affect the way a team plays.

While the home-field advantage is a thing, it’s not everything. The top sports handicappers look into all the factors for the home team and their opponent.

7. Follow Injury Reports

Football is the ultimate team game, to the point where a single player not performing optimally can throw off an entire game. Handicapping lines can be impacted by the injuries a team might face. Sometimes injuries are a key to a game. 

Look for players that have missed practice during the week due to injuries. If key players are out, like a star quarterback or running back, it can make a negative impact on a team and can help make the picker a clear decision when they make their picks.

The NFL has three separate ways of reporting injuries: 

• The practice report gives teams and fans a good idea of what the player is dealing with and how much practice the player had that week.
• The game status report gives the following designation for a player that might be hurt. “Questionable” is designated for players who are uncertain to play that week. Players with this tag “Doubtful” probably will not play. Lastly, athletes with the “Out” designation won’t play that week.
• The injury report can help pickers figure out how the picks might swing for a certain team.

The most important thing is to keep an eye on the daily practice reports. Injury news is something that you should pay attention to so that a player out won’t affect your bet. 

8. Trust The Experts

Experts come in two forms. There are the master handicappers with their selective spot-picks, and there are expert sports consults such as The Best Picks on Sports, because they have such a long history of winning picks.

When you handicapper you’re looking to find the best value and picks for the max profits in return. It’s important to look at your experts’ overall history. 

The Best Picks on Sports has some of the best sports handicappers. When you look for experts to follow you want to make sure they have longevity and positive results. The Best Picks on Sports offers both by offering a sports handicapping system that has never had a losing season over a 16-year period. 

It’s important to understand that when you go through experts they won’t win every day or even every week. A benefit of going to an expert like The Best Picks on Sports is that they can offer picks not only on professional football but also other pro sports like baseball and basketball.

At The Best Picks on Sports, their mission is to increase your bankroll each month. For any questions on how to get started, you can reach out to them at either [email protected] or give them a call at (323) 568-1300