Why I don’t bet totals, halves or quarters.

Let’s talk real betting again, and I want to talk now about betting some different things. I bet basketball, and the main thing for me, of course, is betting money line and handicap. So, people are asking me if I bet totals, for example, and some other stuff. Totals I normally don’t bet. I mean, if I calculate, totals would be less than 5% of my betting, maybe even less. Sometimes I see very good totals, and I take them.

Sometimes during the game I can see a nice total, and take it. Sometimes the news, the inside information that I have is such that a total bet becomes more valuable. And that’s when I can take a total bet. But normally I don’t, because, again, I like to bet something that means something for the players. So, I want the players on the field to fight for my bet. That’s why I bet money line mostly, and small handicaps, like minus 1, minus 2.

Because I want the players on the field to be on my side. When you bet total points in a game, the players don’t care. They don’t care if they score 160 or 170, together 150 or 100. They only care to win. Sometimes they care to win by a certain difference. So, that’s why I don’t like totals. There are some other bets that can be taken in basketball, like half-time bets and quarter bets. But you have to understand one thing, that no matter how good that bet is, it has much smaller probability of winning overall than your main bet.

Because, again, the main bet, the game itself, the whole game is what the players are fighting on the field. So, if you bet first half, they don’t care. They will lose first half by 5 points and win the match by 10. And you bet money line in first half.

It’s for good coaches, good coaches. It’s even better. Not better, better, better. But it’s a very not bad situation if their team is losing at half-time. Because it means that they can get to the players better in the half-time and talk to them and explain to them their mistakes. You know, when you already winning, some complacency can come into play and you can relax, so on and so on. But, so what I mean is, it’s not a big deal for a team to win, to lose a half and then win a game.

Then quarter, quarter is even worse. You know, who cares about the quarter, the match is the main point. Recently, I had a bet on a quarter in one game and I shared that bet also and it was statistically a very very sound bet. Very very good bet. But the thing is, I bet the second quarter and I explain why. And they won every quarter very big, but they lost the second one. You know. And the reason I bet the second quarter was because in the second quarter I knew for a fact that my team will play with two Americans.

And the other team will play with zero. You know. And in this league it’s like huge advantage because these Americans and imports, they score 20 plus points every game on average. So, my point is, I took, I didn’t like the big handicap in the match. So I decided to take a smaller handicap in the quarter because I knew there will be zero against two imports.

In the second quarter. And my reason and reasoning was that, well, they have to start playing better with, to gain good advantage and then later they can relax. But that was my assumption. A bet was on my assumption. The players didn’t care. They didn’t work out in the second quarter. The other team was scoring three points left and right. The other team won the quarter, but they lost every other one by big margin and they lost the match by big margin.

And I lost. And that is the second quarter for you. They don’t care. And it’s a lesson. And I think it’s one of the few times when I took a bet like that on the second quarter. And maybe it will be the last. I prefer the players to fight for my bet.

Which means I prefer money line and small minus handicaps.