November 1, 2006

Making money betting football isn’t difficult, says professional gambler Steve Fezzik. Just about anybody can do it.

All you have to do, Fezzik says, is jump on early mistakes. That means being ready to fire away Sunday afternoon when some Las Vegas and Internet sportsbooks put out the coming week’s opening numbers.

Of course you have to be prepared.

But if you know the teams – and for myself that means concentrating just on the 32 NFL teams – picking off mistakes on a virgin line presents tremendous line value.

“You can say you want to wait to check on injuries, weather and situations,” Fezzik said. “Fine. But when the number is so bad there’s no time to check.

“It’s just fire the bet before someone awakens from their slumber.”

Fezzik says on average there are two mistakes each week on NFL numbers. It only takes finding one to give you a profitable week.

The most glaring one this week, according to Fezzik, was the Denver-Pittsburgh total opening just 34. The over/under currently is 37.

Pittsburgh is 12-0-1 to the ‘over’ its last 13 home games. The Broncos got its offense going last week as Jake Plummer played his best game.

“Clearly that was a bad number,” Fezzik said of the opening 34.

The key is being up on as many teams as you can and having your homework updated as much as possible. Then it’s a matter of jumping on a line that doesn’t look right.

“You have to be at least semi-competent setting a line,” Fezzik said.

Last week, a few places opened Kansas City +2 against Seattle even though Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck hurt his knee. At the time, no one knew the severity of Hasselbeck’s injury.

But the point was the Chiefs, for a brief time, presented great value.

“I liked the Chiefs +2 even if Hasselbeck was going to play,” Fezzik said.

As it turned out, Hasselbeck was declared out and the line closed Kansas City -5 ? or -6. The Chiefs ended up winning by seven.

A prime example this week is several books opening Washington -1 ? before Dallas even played Carolina in the Sunday night game. After the Cowboys routed the Panthers, with new Cowboys starting quarterback Tony Romo looking good, bettors steamed the Cowboys up to -3.

Pinnacle was one online book that opened the Redskins -1 ?.

“The sharps jumped on the Cowboys right off the jump,” said Simon Noble, bet shop manager for Pinnacle. “This caused us to move the line very aggressively, but even after moving the line 4 ? points, most of the money has been on the Cowboys. Dallas has received six times as many bets as the home team.”

Dallas may even get to -3 ? by kickoff. Several books are making bettors lay -$1.15 juice instead of the normal -$1.10 if they want the Cowboys at -3.

“It’s very clear Dallas has gone from dead in the water with (Drew) Bledsoe to being a viable contender with Romo. He’s clearly a competent quarterback,” Fezzik said.

The Cowboys-Redskins total opened 39 before the Cowboys-Panthers matchup. Currently the over/under is as high as 42 ?.

While you can find value early, you also can get value betting late by fading moves.

“Sometimes the line is correct and gets steamed too far in one direction,” Fezzik said.

Fezzik, for instance, wouldn’t touch the Cowboys at -3 ?. Maybe the linesmakers clearly set a bad line opening the Redskins as the favorite.

But Dallas as a road favorite of more than a field goal seems like an over-adjustment.

“It’s best to play early or play late,” Fezzik said.