Late Sunday afternoon and into the early evening is prime time for professional gamblers during football season. The sharps spend surprisingly little time watching the games they have bet on, preferring instead to dissect the early lines for the following week’s games, and crunch numbers seeking one or two mistakes which they can pounce on. Every so often during NFL season, oddsmakers – who are in a hurry to get lines on the board as soon as possible – trip up, and the pros want to be there when they do. And pros keep a close eye on the often-overlooked total, which many contend is easier to beat than the standard betting line.

Recreational bettors for the most part pay little attention to the O/U, and more than a few handicappers say that that is a mistake because with some work, betting over or under the total number of points scored in a given game can be easier than picking an ATS winner. The caveat is the word work. It doesn’t come free.

One thing that many handicappers also agree on is that bettors consistently undervalue the Under. Recreational bettors prefer offense to defense, but sharps look for opportunities to bet against the Over – and there are plenty of chances:

• Weather is a huge factor. Oddsmakers’ total number is based on a game being played in decent weather, and storms can hit the south early in the season and the north late in the year. If the number on this season’s Jan. 2 New England at New York Giants game is set the previous Sunday at 41.5 and early in the week a storm is predicted to move into the East, a hard Under play makes sense. If the storm hits you most likely will cash; if it doesn’t, you can still catch the Under if only one of the teams has an off day offensively. In 2008 a windstorm hit Buffalo on Dec. 28, and the Patriots passed only 6 times the entire game on the way to a 13-0 win that easily came in below the posted total of 35. Unders are almost always worth consideration in games played in the North (Buffalo, Pittsburgh, New England, New York, Green Bay, Chicago) late in the year. The number will never drop more than a couple of points, although some offshore books are compensating by keeping numbers stiff and adjusting the juice one way or another.
• Keep an eye on high-scoring teams and bloated numbers. With two high-scoring teams in last season’s Super Bowl, Vegas got big play early  on the Over, even with a 56.5 total (some sportsbooks dropped the number to 55 later in the week due to heavy betting on the Under). But adjustments were made defensively, not all bettors realized that to go Over both teams had to play well offensively, and the Under easily paid off when New Orleans won, 31-17. In big games some coaches tend to get conservative, depressing the total.
• Early in the decade 37 was the average number of points scored in an NFL game, but rules designed to help offenses have pushed that number up to 41.5. The half-point is crucial to O/U players because games can end 21-20, 24-17, 27-14. For lower-scoring teams (Cleveland, Buffalo, Tampa Bay), the number to look at is 37. Anything above that deserves a close look at an Under play; anything below should give the Over some consideration.

Seems easy. Just hit on 55 percent of your NFL bets and you can make money for the season. No sweat. Read up a little bit, check the Friday injury reports and let nature take its course. If an octopus can pick World Cup games correctly, how hard can it be to pick pro football winners?

But if it was that easy, lots of people would be making a living at it and sports books would be forced out of business in less than a month. Picking pro football games against the spread is part knowledge, part insight, part crap luck. Lots of factors play into it.

There are few secrets in the NFL, and that’s the way the league likes it. Injuries have to be reported, the Internet allows oddsmakers (and bettors) to mine franchises for information. All that results in tight lines that are hard to beat. But there are a few factors that bettors can look at before throwing down their money:

1. BET EARLY. Sportsbooks all try to be the first up with numbers, and the Vegas books and offshores are all trying to get early action. Games for the following week are often posted late Sunday afternoon. Be ready to hit as soon as you find a game that you really line. Make sure your team has not suffered any major injuries. Oddsmakers are good but not perfect; every once in a while they post a line that’s a few points out of whack. If/when they do, jump on it early before betting smooths out the number. Numbers rarely fluctuate more than a few points from late Sunday to game time the following Sunday, but you want those points in your pocket.
2. LIMIT YOUR BETS TO A FEW TEAMS. Knowledge is power, and it’s impossible to know everything about every game. Concentrate on fewer games and hit them harder. For several years I made an annual trip to Vegas and bet on every NFL game on a particular Sunday. The best I ever did was 8-6; the worst was 6-9. For the last few years I’ve limited myself to 3 games each Sunday and bet more, with better results.
3. RUN AWAY FROM DOUBLE-DIGIT FAVORITES (especially on the road). The public loves favorites, and dominant teams draw lots of play. But there is talent on every team, and the margin between winning and losing so narrow, that it makes no sense to give away huge numbers. In 2007 the Patriots went undefeated in the regular season and started 8-0 ATS. But in their final 11 games (including post-season) they were double-digit favorites 10 times, and were 2-9 ATS in those games. Flip the coin over and look at the 2008 Detroit Lions, who were winless (0-16) SU. After going 0-4 ATS to start the year, they covered three of the next four, with all three covers coming on double-digit lines. Detroit, in fact, was 7-1 that season when getting 10 or more points, and 6-0 on the road.

Besides battle fatigue brought on after long NFL and NBA seasons, there is a good reason why baseball draws such little action from bettors -- it’s just too hard for Joe Public to understand and requires time and research. Why pore over a dugout-full of statistics when it’s easier to sit at the beach with a cold one?

And that’s a shame, because professional handicappers say that there is far more low-hanging fruit for bettors in baseball than in the more-easily-understood NFL and NBA.

The ying and yang of baseball betting can be complicated for wagering newcomers. Since many games finish with a one- or two-run difference, a point (or run) spread like those offered for football and basketball doesn’t make sense. So the odds are often manipulated in the moneyline or the vig.

Baseball is built on statistics, and betting baseball is not much different. If you don’t enjoy analyzing numbers, chances are pretty good that betting baseball will get tired very fast. But if you’re a Sabremetric nerd with a gambling jones, and are still years away from carpal tunnel syndrome, it could be what you’re looking for.

Legitimate handicappers offer dozens of systems for betting baseball, some legit and some gibberish. But there is one unassailable fact that needs to be taken into consideration when throwing down hard-earned money on a game – that is, approximately 44 percent of games are won by underdogs. Pros who can’t agree that on breakfast cereal will almost to a man tell you that the way to win money in baseball is to find value in a dog, and hammer it. And if you can find a division rival road dog that is hitting the ball halfway decent, all the better.

Veteran handicapper Steve Merril says that bettors can often find an edge by tracking a team’s offensive production, as oddsmakers more often than not will set lines based on teams’ starters.

“Betting lines are based on the starting pitchers,” says Merril, “so often this is already factored into the equation. I think current form, especially current offensive form, is something that is often overlooked by both the oddsmakers and the bettors. Teams definitely go through hot and cold streaks, especially on offense as these players are in the rotation every day as opposed to a starting pitcher which only appears every fifth game.” Merril points to the Orioles series in Texas this past weekend. “[Baltimore] has been the worst team in baseball all season and they all of a sudden have gotten hot offensively, batting over .300 as a team the past week and they go a perfect 4-0 at Texas this weekend, including winning three of those four games outright as a +200 underdog or higher. They outscored the Rangers 23-12 in those four wins and cashed a total of +9.8 units of profit on the moneyline. Baltimore had a similar hot streak at the end of June when they went 5-1 during a six-game period, outscoring their opponents 39-29 and cashing +4.2 units on the money line. If you remove those two recent hot streaks, the Orioles have been an atrocious 20-58 (.256) in all other games this season and -30 units on the money line.” And if all this is a bit too much to deal with on a warm summer day, bear in mind that the first NFL exhibition game is less than a month away.

Hockey is an extremely slippery slope in betting. Rarely can you find yourself making significant gains in hockey betting. But you can have some fun and make some headway with a few guidelines to help focus your betting and make the most of your bets.

Hockey games are tight and predicting them can be a nightmare because there are so many variables:

Officials – if they are calling a tight game, there may be a lot of power plays. This benefits the weaker teams, giving them a chance to hang in there with a more powerful team. Some teams are dynamite 5-on-5 at even strength, but struggle in the penalty kill or on the power play.

Injuries – A definite part of the game, both during the game and prior. More so than any other sport, hockey coaches are extremely guarded about injuries. So many times you will see descriptions as vague as "upper body injury" given to players. There is no way to know for sure how hurt a player is unless you are actually at practice or sit in the room with the doctor.

Back-up goaltenders – A goalie change before the game could change the outcome. There is a big difference between the starter and the backup. Think of a football game where Tom Brady is benched just before the start of the game so that he can get a rest!

Goaltenders in general – A goalie can stand on his head on any given night and steal a game. This X factor is always in play in hockey. One team can completely outplay the other, but if the goalie is hot, there is nothing getting by him.

So do you ignore hockey all together? I can’t! I love the sport. So here are a few helpful guidelines to get you interested in playing some hockey games:

1. Look for situations where a team has played three games in four nights. Or four games in five nights. Particularly, if the team is an East Coast team playing out West or vice versa. I always like to take the home team in those cases. These are "getaway games" for the road team. They are focused on getting home and ending the road trip. Hockey is a grind and that third or fourth game is a nightmare on their legs. They aren’t skating as well and this results in more penalties, which leads to more scoring. Take the home team and bet the over when you find these cases.

2. Speaking of over/unders, this is a very good way to attack hockey games. Many over/unders are set at 5 in hockey, but the number is usually obviously leaning toward one direction or the other. If you follow teams and know your hockey, these numbers seem to jump out. Toronto, for instance, is horrible defensively. I have gone with the over with them in virtually every game this year and have not been disappointed.

3. Go for the wins and favorites. Playing spreads in hockey is a recipe for disaster…unless you bet against the Leafs! Empty net goals and teams adding a late goal by pulling the goalie can wreck point spreads in hockey. Avoid those spreads completely and just side with the winner.

4. Look for back-to-backs and teams coming off rest. There are many cases in the NHL when one team will actually be spending the night in a city while the other team is on the road. I know of a case last year when the Sabres were playing in Chicago and flew back to Buffalo that night, not getting into town until 4 am. The Penguins had the night off and were staying in a hotel in Buffalo. The rested Penguins pasted the Sabres in Buffalo. Additionally, that team playing the back-to-back, will probably start their backup. Again, a huge difference in goals and wins and losses.

So don’t be afraid to take a look at the frozen pond for some interesting action. If you know your teams, you can be successful looking at hockey games.

George Clooney was in a memorable movie called The Perfect Storm. In it, Clooney plays a fisherman who just hauled in a fantastic catch and was poised to return home with tremendous riches. However, he and his crew are notified of an immense storm blocking their passage home. The crew has to decide to wait out the storm and risk losing their catch, or go ahead and risk it through the storm. They go ahead and blindly sail through the worst storm in history and perish. There is something to be said about being conservative and safe. Betting can be an emotional enterprise, especially for those novices. It can also be addictive. But being the smart captain of your betting ship can keep your head above water.

There is great risk in betting the exotics: point spreads, over/unders, parlays, etc. There can be great reward, but the perils of playing those bets as your bread and butter can be extremely risky. I espouse a conservative approach to betting. There are plenty of games out there for you to play that have W’s written all over them. Take this weekend for example:

Florida was a big favorite this weekend against a mediocre Arkansas team. Historically, Florida has a tendency to obliterate over/under numbers as well as point spreads. But this is a team struggling to get receivers open and their quarterback is not quite 100% healthy. Many folks went with the heavily favored Gators to cover the spread. Those people were out some hard earned coin, while I sat back comfortably on my couch with a W.

College is usually the easiest place to find large point spreads and tilted matchups. Take your easy catches and bag a bunch of easy wins. With those winnings, you can come up with some three game parlays to boost your winnings. 10+ point spreads can be found fairly easily each weekend. Pick three big favorite winners and parlay them and bank your easy money.

Building some consistency in what you do will help gain you some much needed confidence as well as coin. This will give you the ability to speculate later and try some dogs and exotics to really boost your winnings. But getting home to port is the key. If you keep taking those chances with longshots and dogs, you will run into the perfect storm and find yourself at the bottom of the ocean.

I my humble opinion, WinTheTrophy really forces us to take a new look at picking sport event winners. By providing the tools to take a close look at the events on a given day, you can really become a better (no pun intended) sports fan. We all know that any sport takes years to learn and even more time to understand the nuances. The timeline to a PhD is shortened if you actually played the sport, but not many people have had the chance to play a college or professional sport. But having played the sport at any level isn’t a prerequisite to becoming an expert. In fact, many so-called experts never participated in a single down, inning, minute, match or whatever it may be labeled. These experts have mastered another set of skills and their vigilance and study allows them to see things that others don’t. That’s why we value their opinions and that’s what I contend WinTheTrophy helps you to attain: a better, more enlightened, fuller, more descript, understanding of sports and the teams that play one another.

To me, understanding what happens behind the scenes is often as important as what you see in the black and white (stats). Many a team has come into a season highly ranked, populated by great recruits, returning seniors, a tested coaching staff, a reasonable schedule, but failed to even make the post-season. Why? X factors. You see a growing contingency of reporters, online bloggers, behind-the-scenes insiders, and so forth, who work assiduously to try and shed some light on what is happening in the locker room, the front office, the practice field and at the homes of the players. Television shows – like HBO’s Hard Knocks – take us through the entire pre-season; it’s during these episodes, taken as a whole, that we begin to see the complex dynamics of fielding a professional football team (let alone a successful team). Distractions abound, injuries lurk, coaching opinions fluctuate, public opinion peaks and ebbs, players’ confidence rise and plummet, money issues dominate, signings linger, agents do agent stuff, fans prognosticate and so on and so on. What you begin to understand is that building and maintaining a team at the highest level is equal parts – art, science and luck.

So back at home our lonely sports picker must sift through a litany of data, feelings and instincts to make an accurate prediction. And the good ones do just that: they objectively look at the facts, make a choice and then lay it out against their instinct and – if all factors are green-lighted – they place their pick and sit back to either muse at their genius or watch as their calculation fails miserably. However, even the losses – like in real sports or real life – teach something and those that learn something from these mistakes become better at an infinitely iterative process that ultimately helps them reduce the chance factor to a minute number (or fraction thereof). And these are the people who have evolved from the casual prognosticator into something more akin to a highly successful Wall Street trader. They are better than average and their opinions get noticed, and once they have a reputation, they must continue to perform or they will be disregarded as a fluke.

WinTheTrophy lets you develop these skills and objectively follow your development or regression. Numbers don’t lie and you can see from the categories where your talents reside and where you need improvement. Or, if you happen to be really good at one thing, WinTheTrophy shows you what that is and that, my friends, is certainly something worth knowing. So sports picking is just like commodities trading, stock picking, monetary investing and a vast array of other activities that are based on the choice of an individual who ingests a massive amount of information, makes a choice and wagers that that outcome will come to fruition. It’s infinitely difficult, perceptibly humbling and a skill that only a few can ever really master. So give it a try and see if you have the gift…you’ll never know if you don’t give it a try. I truly believe WinTheTrophy makes you learn, appreciate and ultimately become a better sports fan.

Not being a big sports fan, I found WinTheTrophy to be interesting in a different way: I wanted to see if there was a simple set of rules one can follow to consistently win more than what was bet. After a week or two of trying different strategies, I realized the following observations:

• On average, no one knows the future. That is, if you were to randomly bet on all the teams, your winning percentage will be close to 50%.
• If the above point is true, you should bet more on the team in a given game with the largest payout.
• However, you must make sure you gain the advantage of statistical significance: bet on as many teams as possible in a given day.
• As you win, continue betting on other teams the next day to take advantage of "compounding interest": the more chips you gain, the more you can bet on the following day (until your chip count is reset the following week).
• This strategy has a weakness of being very naive: you might not want to bet against a team with a perfect winning record playing a team with a "perfect" losing record, for example. However, even with this weakness, this strategy has on average won twice the amount that I bet for a given week. 

After seven weeks of betting, I stopped because I became bored with the copious amount of clicking required to play using my particular strategy (i.e., as many bets as possible on high-payout picks). (Again, I’m not a big sports fan.) However, if (when?) WinTheTrophy offers rule-based betting (or bots, as they’re usually known), I plan on taking advantage of them.

After some tough losses in Vegas, I’ve come to learn that objectivity is central to picking winners, but I’ve also learned that subjectivity (or gut) plays a strangely vital role as well. If I had a $100 for every time I’ve heard or said – “I knew it. I knew it!” – I would be very rich. So sports wagering is like anything in life: you can get lucky a few times but it is those who consistently do their homework that win in the long-run. The fundamental difference between just guessing and becoming a student of the game is that the student learns to see the subtleties and to interpret the miniscule and to find an edge where others see nothing but open sky. It is knowing the players, the coaches, the ownership, the trends, the obstacles, the weather, the zeitgeist, the time, the alignment of the stars, and a multitude of other factors that are accumulated, synthesized, weighed, and finally deduced into a selection that is either a winner or a loser. Simple and pure. You either got it right or you got it wrong, or worse: you pushed. And here in the United States, no one likes to be a loser at anything – ever.