The Future of Handicapping

Of all the dramatic effects associated with the internet, the rapid advances in forms of gambling are perhaps the most tangible and lasting.

Before, you see, it was simple. You bet on a football game. You got 10/11 on your team if your team beat the pointspread, and nothing if you lost. The sportsbooks hoovered up money while a handful of semi-mythical, highly skilled handicappers eeked out a profit. Simple.

The advent of the internet means that, where once it was difficult to get access to more than a dozen lines on given sporting contest, now you have over a hundred at the click of a mouse. Moreover, the types of wagering are becoming more and more sophisticated. Nowadays you don't even have to bet with a bookie but can bet with some anonymous stranger via person-to-person betting. Also, many contests can be bet "in-running". This is an innovation first introduced and most appropriate for European sports like soccer, but it is gradually being introduced to all major sporting contests.

Betting on the result of game before it starts is a chaotic science. Even the best handicappers struggle to beat 60% on conventional pointspread bets. However good you are, you have to acknowledge that most of what happens in a sporting contest can't be predicted beforehand.

But, if you can bet in-the-running, the picture changes dramatically. You can keep statistics on a myriad of information that potentially can give you a very healthy advantage. This is where handicapping is going.

In the future, handicappers won't just be looking for factors such as key injuries, psychology and tactics to get an edge over the bookmakers at sports betting. They will be measuring the individual performance of each and every athlete and how well they interact with each other at each and every stage in the match. Handicapping will move much closer to actual prediction rather than determining when the percentages have subtly shifted in one team's favour. Naturally, computers will play a key role in collecting and analyzing this data.

These are exciting days if you bet sports, with the potential for fortunes to be made.