Sports Bet Handicapping

The Fallacy of Sports Injuries

This section will furnish you with one of the key secrets to successful sports handicapping. It is a critical factor in sports bet which very few, if any, people understand.

Injuries in Sporting Events

The factor is injuries in sporting events. Specifically, I refer to injuries incurred by starting players which puts them out of action. Believe it or not, such an injury gives the effected team a much better chance of winning, or covering the point spread, in the next few games played without their regular player(s). Ten thousand people just said, “Well, Kaufman has finally crackedup’ Maybe I have, but I have the statistics and the logical explanation to back up my statement.

Football handicapping

First, I’ll list some specific examples. Let’s look at the 1980 National Football League (NFL) football season. Do you remember Dallas and Washington very early in the season? The pointspread opened at Washington favored by one point. But then defensive back Ben- fly Barnes, due to an injury, was unable to play in the game. And the spread jumped to Washington favored by three points. Meanwhile the public jumped all over the Redskins thinking they were taking candy football. The only people, however, who giggled all the way to the bank, were the bookmakers of the wend. Dallas easily cruised to a 23-3 victory.
Another example, again using the Dallas Cowboys, is a Monday night game in the latter part of the season. They were playing a game with the Los Angeles Rams in which the opening spread was “pick ‘em.” The Rams had more injuries to their starting players than you could count. At least nine starting players, including the whole offensive backfield except for their quarterback (Ferragamo), would not be able to play the game. The pointspread eventually went to Dallas—4 points and the Rams won 38-7 in an absolute cake walk.

Basketball handicapping betting

This injury phenomenon occurs in all sports like hockey betting and basketball also. Remember the sixth and final game of the 1980 National Basketball Association (NBA) play-offs? The game was played in Philadelphia with the Los Angeles Lakers visiting the “City of Brotherly Betting” minus their star center, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The 76ers opened as a7 ½-point favorite, and they closed as a 9-point chalk. They got buried by the Jabbar-less Lakers. A fourth example uses the Kansas City Kings. Their two best players were injured before they went into the 1980 play-offs. Although they were eliminated in the semi-finals by a very rough Houston team, the Kings played valiantly without their two superstars. Another example of this is in horse racing.

Injury-riddled teams, somehow, keep winning ball games. I would hate to tell you how many financial mistakes I made betting against injured teams until I got wise to what was really happening. But you say, “No Ernie, it can’t be so! Why should this happen?” There is a group of very logical answers to your question. I think you’ll be surprised when you read them. You will see just how logical the whole thing really is.

Public sport bets

Injuries to starting ball players, such as Benny Barnes or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, are common knowledge to the average sports fan. The news media will make sure that everyone who reads a sports page, or listens to a pre-game show on radio or TV, knows about the injured player(s). Consequently, the public bets the game against the injured team. The public support of one side of a game creates a drastic move in the pointspread away from the injured team’s side. Thus, the betting lines is receiving an extra point or two just because of the injury.