By Loot, Football Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
Reduced Juice: Bet on Football at Reduced Odds
Betting at -105 odds on straight football wagers is a valuable tool at your disposal that you should take advantage of any chance you get. When discussing how to wager on football, we search high and low for every edge we can find. Like a hawk looking for a mouse, we scour the landscape for little advantages that ever so slightly nudge our bets into a more favorable position. And even those aren’t guaranteed to produce an actual edge.
So if a book just gives you an edge like -105 odds without a fight, it’s really a gift. When it comes to betting football, vig is what makes the world go around. It’s what makes winning at betting football so difficult. If we can reduce that vig by half, we need to be all over it. It makes winning over the long haul just that much easier. Let’s face it, when we see how few actually succeed at this, it should only further increase our motivation to find an edge. When it comes in the form of a hand-out, it becomes foolish to not accept it.
BET ON GAMES AT -105 ODDS (INSTEAD OF -110) AT THE WEB'S BEST SPORTSBOOK: 5DIMES
Let’s use the example of a normal type of bettor instead of a high-roller to see how betting straight games at -105 saves you money. Let’s say you bet 5 college and 5 NFL games, including the Monday Night game, per week. You bet an average of $110 per game to win $100, as you are paying the customary -110 on your wagers. You would be wagering $1220.
If instead of betting at -110, you were betting with reduced odds of -105 to win $100 on each game, you wouldn’t be putting up $1220–you would only be wagering $1155. That’s a weekly savings of $65. That’s a nice dinner for you and your lady. That’s a pair of New Balance and a bucket of chicken. That’s a cable bill (maybe). And that’s just the savings for one week.
It adds up quickly. If you are betting the same way over the course of two months with the industry-standard -110, that would be $10980 in money you laid out. With -105 reduced odds, you would have instead have bet only $10395. That’s a difference of $585 in just two months!
Let’s see how much you would save in a season. If you bet the normal -110 over the course of a college and NFL regular season in the way described above, you would be betting $20130 during the entire season. If you were betting with reduced odds of -105, that total would be $19057. That’s almost $1100 you would saving during the course of a season just by betting at reduced odds of -105.
With the money you saved, it would be like getting a free bankroll for the postseason. With over a grand in saved money from bets, you could make a bunch of playoff and bowl game wagers just off the money you saved by betting -105! Another way to look at it is you now have the money to make a big Super Bowl bet. While everyone else is dipping into their wallet, you’re essentially now able to make $1100 in bets just from the money you didn’t have to bet because instead of betting at -110–you’ve been betting at -105.
Since football bettors wager on games season after season, look at how much you would save in a decade, just betting to win $100 on each game. It would come out to almost 11 grand! We’re not even talking about how much you won or how well you handicapped the games. It’s $11000 that the book is just handing you by giving you the privilege to bet at -105 instead of -110. What might seem like a negligible edge isn’t so petty after all.
At the end of the day, winning is what it’s all about. But when you risk less to win the same amount, you are saving money regardless of how the game goes. It gives the betting man the unique dynamic of having already won before the game even starts. When you’re pulling for your team, it feels good to know you only had to bet $105 for every $100 you will win, while everyone else ponied up $110.
Say you are trying to win a grand on MNF betting with reduced odds of -105. The guy next door has the same bet, but is betting at the standard rate. You’re betting $1050 and he’s betting $1100. Before the first kickoff, you’re already up $50. Add this up over time and we see why getting to bet football at -105 is a truly great perk to have when trying to win money at betting football.
