Underdogs are most likely always the team that is cheered, but never bet on. Even though the spread favours the underdog, bettors have always naturally inclined toward their favourite teams, a subconscious human error that most people fall victim to. The logic seems to be simple: the favourites are expected to win. However, the fact that betting on underdogs can be more beneficial in the long run is a seldom recognized truth.
What is an underdog? An underdog is the side of the bet that is expected to lose. Most betting websites such as Betmaze attach higher payout values to the underdog since they have a lesser chance of being bet on. Does that mean a definite yes to betting on the underdog? No, the bets must be placed on the underdog only when the conditions are right.
Sports betting is never black and white. You never just bet on the team that has higher chances of winning. It is not that simple. Most often even the teams who have a higher chance of winning may have a point spread of 7, which means that the favourite team must win by 7 points more for the bettor to win the bet. However, the underdog can lose by 7 points or even win by 7 points, either way, you will end up winning the bet. Here, the 7 is the point spread and it helps in making betting fair between the favourite and the underdog.
Sports betting is all about such subtle complexities, and a bettor who is new to the scene may find this as difficult as doing algebra in a tornado. Hence, most bettors just jump on the stronger teams hoping that their favourite teams will open the gates of luck and shower them with exciting payouts. However, the unappreciated truth remains that the worth of favourites are more often than not less than what they actually deserve. This is because most sportsbooks know that most bettors would jump on their favourite. Hence, the underdogs are given longer odds since the market doesn’t value them.
Steven Levitt, a University of Chicago economist had pointed out in 2004 that the logistics that most sportsbooks use when deciding on the point spreads isn’t the same as that of normal markets, where the prices increase or decrease based on the supply and demand. This means that normally, when the demand is high the price is high, and when it is low, the price reduces accordingly.
However, sports betting doesn’t work that way. Most of the time, the sportsbooks keep the value of the favourites (the one with high demand) low, and the underdog (the one with low demand) high, so that they gain a significant profit since most people are bound to bet on their favourites.
Although Levitt’s theory explains why people bet on their favourite teams, it still doesn’t explain the many psychological influences that create such a strong bias inside people’s minds for their favourite teams. Joseph Simmons and Leif Nelson, who work as associate professors in different universities, had come together to conduct a research on this psychological dilemma. They came up with the theory that most times people’s confidence in their decisions urges them to take decisions even if that confidence is not justified.
Quoting Nelson, “ When people decide how to bet on a game, first they identify who is going to win. The faster and easier it is, the less concerned they are with correcting that intuition when answering the more difficult question of whether the favourite is going to beat the point spread”. Nelson observes that the choice of which team to bet on is often done easily and not with much thought, especially when the teams are not evenly matched.
As described above, for people who are new to the betting scene, decoding the point spread may be a difficult task. Apart from this, the tricks that the sportsbook plays while setting the point spread rubs salt on the wounds, making it increasingly difficult to choose anything else other than the favourite team. Betting then becomes a guessing game, and most times bettors only have their intuitions as tools while making decisions, forcing them to simply go for the easiest option, which is the favourite team.
In conclusion, although betting on your favourite team can be a safe choice, it may not always be the most rewarding choice. In retrospect, betting on the underdog could offer you massive payouts and consistent wins. So, next time when you bet, instead of focusing on the big names and the favourites, it would be beneficial if you could give a bit more attention to the point spreads and bet according to the conditions. This will help you gain better chances of winning larger payouts.
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