Betting on NHL - tips for players

Be better than a bookmaker. Bet on NHL and win.

Winning in sports betting in a longer run is not luck - it is wide knowledge. The most important is fact that you are not betting against a bookmaker but against set odds, which are set mistakenly by bookmakers. Besides you need to have adequate budget, which should be around 40-50 times a stake of a bet. For one bet you should not dedicate more than 4% of your budget. Some players prefer only around 2% for a bet.

Example: In case your whole budget is $10 000 you shouldn’t bet more than $400 on a single bet.

If you want to success while betting on hockey you have to take into consideration many factors.

1) Primarily is is needed to study well the schedule of particular teams, paying close attention to few important element:

• Number of consecutive away matches (from my own experience I know that long travels, hotels, being away from family, do not have good impact on players and it is resembled in the results).
• time zone differences, especially in case of matches played by western teams in the east (the difference is 3 hours)
• weekend or holiday matches, which often are played during different hours and do not work well on “biological clock”
• Number of matches played in short amount of time, because of which player’s body doesn’t have enough time for good rest. For instance 4 matches in six days or 3 matches in four days. With such series even the best teams and the biggest stars need rest that is why sometimes at the end of series there might be some surprises. In such a case I often bet on a team which is more well-rested.
• rivalry of teams in the same division is more important, that is why in other matches the best players might be conserved to a large degree. Similarly in case of prestigious matches before which a team must play a little less important match.

2)  Before checking odds at a bookmaker try thinking about odds that you would like to bet yourself. If the ones you’ve thought about differ a great deal from the one set by bookmaker analyse precisely the match. Somebody definitely has made a mistake! The question is: was that you or a bookmaker? However if the odds which you have thought about do not differ from the ones set by bookmaker skip the match. There, you probably won’t find a valuebet, and betting without it is gambling.

3) Playing on over/under

Most often bookmaker set lines 5 or 5.5, sometimes 6. Usually sum of goals in matches NHL equals 5 . Historically around ⅓ matches ends with such results therefore it is not strange that bookmakers often set such line. Score on over 5,5 goal is about 42% of all the results, score less than 5 goals happens seldom around 25% of all the matches. In the 60’s and 70’s number of goals was higher than now. 5 goals were rear to occur and the average was definitely higher than 6-6.5 goal for a match.
When playing on over/under I concentrate mainly on the shape of bookmakers which in hockey is of a great importance. Position of goalie in hockey is similar to position of pitcher in baseball.

4) Don’t play for your favourite team. Often in case of playing on a team which you are fan of you over estimate the chances of winning. Such matches are to watch not to bet on. Psychological aspects is of a big importance here. Good tipster is characterised by setting chances for both teams objectively. There is no spot for sentiments here.

5) Play for the highest odds which are available at renown bookmakers and concentrate on only one league. You cannot be interested in everything. It is not important that in the TV there is NFL or NBA match, you have to be concentrated on NHL.

6) Visit hockey forums thanks to it you will get to know philosophy of other players, you may find something which you missed. Don’t follow the crowd, pick your own direction and try to make use of heard information. Way of thinking of amatour players do not coincide with the way of thinking of professionals, I would even say it is the exact opposite….

7) Go through statistic, not only team statistics but also efficiency of attacker and average number of goals scored, percentage of saved goals. The best source of such statistics are pages like espn.com and ngl.com

NHL is characterised by the fact that in the league two similar teams are fighting. That is why it is hard to find sure bets. Before each tip we have to gain some insight on it and avoid tips at 1,45 level. In a longer run such playing will make us loss whole budget. In case of low odds we can be helped with handicaps.