College basketball is a huge draw for online sports bettors and NCAA basketball fans.  The games are exciting (much more so than NBA in my opinion) and if you know what you are doing you can make some decent cash betting on college ball.  These 7 tips should help you be one of these profitable college basketball bettors this season.

Tip #1 – Notable Injuries

Of all major sports basketball is likely the one where a superstar can most easily change the game by themselves.  There are only 5 players on the court at a time and the top players will play almost the entire game.  For this reason injuries to notable players can drastically change the outlook of a team and their ability to win games.  You should also research player injuries and look at what type of player will be coming in for replacement and how the team may have to adjust to account for their injured star.  If you think the backup isn’t that much of a drop off it may be advantageous to bet on the team with the injured player because the line will likely have moved dramatically to account for the injury.  On the other hand if you think the star player is a massive part of the team it may be smart to bet against them while he is out.

Tip #2 – Match Ups

Match ups should also be taken into account.  Certain teams may match up well against others in college basketball.  For example if one team simply doesn’t have a player capable of guarding their opponents top guy they may be in for a long night.  One team may match up well against a team whose star player is a point guard, while not having the personnel to match up with a 7 foot center.  These are just basic examples, but they are meant to get you thinking about ways each team could beat the other and try to figure out how the game will be played.  If you can do this you can easily handicap the game.

Match ups are much more important in college basketball than the NBA, simply because teams may not have the personnel to compete in certain areas with other teams.

Tip #3 – Streaks

Confidence is huge in basketball.  If a team is on fire and everything is clicking they will be extremely difficult to defeat.  On the other side if timing is off and a team is making mistakes that they can’t seem to correct they may continue to lose.  I suggest looking at the teams past few performances and seeing where they went right or wrong.  Then decide if those areas will continue into the next game.

Tip #4 – Shop For Lines

This is a very important tip if you want to be a winning online college basketball bettor.  This doesn’t involve doing research on the teams and handicapping a match up, but it does involve research.  You must always search the internet for the best line for each game you are betting on.  If Duke is a 5 point favorite at Bovada.lv, but at 6 point favorite at 5Dimes.eu you need to place your Duke wager at 5Dimes.  It may not seem like a big deal giving up a point, but over the course of an entire NCAA basketball season this can be the difference between winning and losing.

Tip #5 – Bet On Dogs More Than Favorites (Against Public)

In general it is smarter to bet on underdogs than favorites.  That said, if you bet on every underdog throughout the entire college basketball season you would still lose money, but the chances are high that you would lose a great deal less than if you had bet on the favorites.  What I’m getting at is that it is usually easier to find sharp bets on underdogs than on favorites.

Another general rule is it is easier to find sharp lines betting against the public than with them.  The reason for this is sportsbooks will often shade lines on public teams in order to save some points (effectively taking advantage of casual bettors who just want to bet on their favorite teams) and to try to keep the bet amounts even on each side of the line to guarantee a profit.

Tip #6 – Smart Money Plays

This brings us to smart money plays.  Finding smart money plays involves looking at which team the majority of the public is betting on and also watching for line movement.  If the lines moves in the opposite direction that the majority of the public is betting on this means there must be a great deal of smart money on that side of the line.  I’ll give a quick example here:

Duke -5
Maryland +5

Duke is generally a public favorite so lets say that 80% of the public bets have been on Duke.  Then if the line moves to Duke -4 and Maryland +4 there must have been some big plays on Maryland in order to have the line move like this.  Therefore smart money is likely on Maryland.

When this happens you should try to find Maryland +5 at online sportsbooks that take longer for their lines to move.  This has proven to be a winning strategy over the years and the logic behind it makes sense.  Basically you are trusting the big professional bettors and betting syndicates by following this strategy and betting against the public or casual bettor.