Betting guide: The best strategies for sports betting

From shopping for the best lines to focusing on Unders, this guide explores several betting strategies used at Michigan Wolverines sportsbook.

With sportsbooks holding a significant edge before a bet is even placed, bettors must be smart with their betting strategies in order to reduce the house's advantage and give them a chance to be successful. Luckily, SportsLine's sports betting experts are sharing the sports betting strategies they employ. 

While no betting strategy will guarantee success, these betting strategies can help bettors improve their odds and make sports betting more enjoyable.

General sports betting strategies

Here are some of the best general betting strategies used by SportsLine experts, regardless of the sport or the bet. 

Shop for the best lines

This is Betting 101. A bettor who likes the Commanders to cover is better off betting Commanders -2.5 (-110) than Commanders -3 (-110). In addition, the bettor should jump on Commanders -2.5 (-108) rather than Commanders -2.5 (-110). 

"Sportsbooks do not always think alike with setting odds," says Mike Tierney, one of SportsLine's top experts in both the NFL and college football. "Football spreads tend not to vary by more than a point, but the difference with a key threshold line (i.e., 6.5 and 7.5 or 2.5 and 3.5) can be significant, making shopping worthwhile in those instances. Basketball has more variance than football, so shopping is worth the trouble."

In order to shop for the best lines properly, having as many books as possible is critical. Larry Hartstein, who is one of SportsLine's top experts in the NFL and college basketball, believes this can be the difference between winning and losing, especially with a high-volume bettor.

Watch late line movements

Micah Roberts -- who has worked in the Las Vegas sportsbook industry for 20-plus years, including a 13-year run as the sportsbook director for Station Casinos -- says sportsbooks will sometimes move a line inside 15 minutes of kickoff, opening tip, first pitch or opening face-off in order to protect themselves from a potentially big loss. This late movement could work in a bettor's favor. Let's say a bettor likes the Commanders to cover and the line is -3.5 but the sportsbook moves the line to -2.5 late. The extra half-point can be the difference between a winning or losing bet, especially since no other information about the teams is likely to change just before the game gets going.

Establish a bankroll

R.J. White -- a Fantasy and gambling editor for CBS Sports who has twice cashed in the world's most prestigious handicapping tournament, the Westgate Las Vegas SuperContest -- believes a bettor should set a bankroll, which is the amount of money that bettor has to bet over the course of a year or season.

"At least 90% of your betting should be single bets," he says. "Your standard bets into that bankroll can run from 1% to 2% of the original bankroll at a time, which means if you have $500 available for betting, you should be making $5 to $10 bets, again with the vast majority of them on single-outcome plays.

"If you have a very strong feeling on a game, you can go slightly higher on occasion as long as you do it responsibly. Longer-shot bets can also be lower than 1% if you want to mix it up, but it could make sense to save those for when things are going well and you have profit from which to pull. In any case, these longer shots should be a small slice of the overall number of bets you're making, and the size should never exceed 1% of your bankroll."

Live betting

Multiple SportsLine experts like to live bet totals and/or favorites who go down early. For example, in the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship between Ohio State and Notre Dame, the Buckeyes entered the game as 8.5-point favorites. After the Fighting Irish scored a touchdown on the game's first possession, some sportsbooks dropped Ohio State to -3.5. The Buckeyes ended up winning by 11.

"If you have extra time on your hands to monitor in-game lines, money can definitely be made with live betting," says Eric Cohen, who has excelled at college football betting and golf for SportsLine. "But similar to the stock market and day trading, live betting takes knowledge of the pregame spread and/or total. I like to live bet totals and/or favorites who go down early."

Use advanced stats

A beginner bettor may use common stats for analysis, such as points per game. However, SportsLine experts use advanced stats, which give a more accurate picture of a team or player. 

Mike Barner, who is a nationally acclaimed Fantasy expert for SportsLine, studies pace of play and offensive and defensive efficiency ratings, among other advanced stats, when betting the NBA. When betting on MLB games, he considers platoon splits and home and road stats, among others.

"I also watch a ton of games, which helps me get a good feel for teams and their rotations," he says.

Keep your bet sizing consistent

Roberts says bettors should stick to their units, regardless if their unit is $10 or $1,000.

"Why go to two units?" he asks. "Even the Super Bowl is just another game; you don't have to bet two or three units just because it's the Super Bowl."

White agrees.

"There will be times you run cold and run hot, so the challenge will be in the discipline to have faith in your ability to find winners whether it's through your own research/system or tailing experts, and not to chase your wins with increased bet sizing either," he says.

Sport-specific strategies

Betting on the NFL will provide different opportunities than betting on, say, college basketball. Here are some betting strategies used by SportsLine experts, broken down by sport.

NFL betting strategy

White suggests tracking lookahead lines that are posted more than a week in advance of a game.

"This allows me to look for spots to bet against overadjustments by the market when I don't think the size of the move was warranted based on one game of data," he says.

White also creates spread power ratings. These allow him to project spreads early in the week and anticipate lines he should bet if he likes them.

College basketball betting strategy

Thomas Casale, one of SportsLine's top college basketball experts, typically doesn't bet games featuring small-conference games after the first two months of the season.

"In my experience, the smaller schools can change a lot from non-conference to conference play," he says.

During the conference tournament season in March, Tierney likes to play Unders in games in which the teams must win to advance to the NCAA Tournament.

"Coaches tend to tighten the reins, and players play nervously," he says. "Conversely, I am drawn to Overs in the NIT. Coaches put less emphasis in the tournament, and players are more loose."

College football betting strategy

Cohen believes there is value in off-the-radar matchups.

"This is my favorite sport to bet," he says. "While everyone is focused on the big games each week, there is a ton of value for the unranked matchups and games in smaller conferences since they don't get nearly as much attention."

Golf betting strategy

Cohen loves to play the outright winner markets as well as finishing positions (top-five, top-10 finish, etc), so he checks on multiple sportsbooks to shop for the best lines.

"Anywhere I can find some value, especially when it comes to plus-money odds, I'm all for it," he says.

Cohen also likes to parlay his golf outright winners with a pick or two in another sport to enhance the value of the bet but admits that this strategy is risky. 

"Let's say I have a +1000 outright bet in golf and put it with a total in the NBA," he says. "That might increase the value of the bet to +2500."

Horse racing betting strategy

SportsLine horse racing writer Gene Menez, who has been following horse racing since 1983 and handicapping races since long before he was legally allowed to bet, says that -- unlike betting on football, basketball or baseball, where the most important step is identifying the correct side of a spread or a total -- betting on horse racing is a two-step process: handicapping the race and constructing the wagers. 

"After I've handicapped a race, I ask myself, 'What is the event that I think is most likely to happen?'" Menez says. "The answer to that question is not always, 'This horse is going to win.' Many times the answer is, 'This horse is likely to finish in the top three' or 'The favorite is going to run out of the top three.'

NBA betting strategy

Multiple SportsLine experts strongly recommend monitoring news about player availability since players are held out regularly because of injuries or load management. 

"There is so much volatility on a nightly basis that I wouldn't recommend betting this more than three to four hours before the games," Cohen says.

Tierney also warns bettors that "NBA games are ridiculously difficult to predict since teams often coast or, worse, surrender with several minutes remaining.