Sharp bettors are the professional, competent and highly experienced bettors that you should definitely want to follow. It is those bettors that are succeeding in sustaining long -term profitable betting action and who are most likely earning an income from smart wagering.
Sharp bettors are not new to the world of sports betting. Their action, though, was hardly ever noticed by the average bettor back then, when everything was happening in the traditional, brick-and-mortar bookmakers.
But the internet and the fact that bettors now can wager via the web on an online sportsbook or a bkash betting site, have exposed sharp bettors and made their action more ‘explicit’ to the eyes of those bettors who are determined to spot them.
Spotting sharp action in sports betting is significant for two main reasons:
The first reason is that, sharp bettors generally know what they do and in the majority of cases they end up with profits in the long run. This doesn’t mean that all their choices and all their bets are successful. However, overall, their betting strategy pays off and when they do place wagers it appears that they have a very good reason for doing it.
So, who wouldn’t be thrilled to be able to follow sharp action, if this was to give them pretty good chances of winning?
The second reason is that spotting sharp action gives you an edge as well. Bettors who are able to spot sharp bettors’ money and trail their bets, eventually acquire an edge in betting too either because they get to learn more of the betting game or even because they become more and more accustomed to reading between “the lines”.
How to spot sharp action
Spotting and tracking down what sharp bettors bet is actually one of the most difficult things to do. This is far more difficult for those punters who generally don’t like to get too involved or too preoccupied with following line movements, but who mostly want to place their wagers on their favorite teams and wait to see whether they will win or lose. In fact for this type of bettors – the more recreational ones – spotting sharp action might be impossible in the end!
But for those bettors who are determined and who want to advance their betting game, their competencies and who seek to develop sharp betting skills, identifying sharp action is possible – not easy, but doable.
Unless you have some access to sharp bettors, the best way to spot their action is by monitoring how bookmakers move the betting lines. This is because the sharp bettors don’t usually buy picks, but they buy prices and value.
When there is a steam move or a reverse line movement in a bet, then there is a great chance that there is some sharp betting action behind it.
When bookmakers notice that their most skilled bettors are suddenly putting a lot of money on one side of a bet at a given price, then they quickly respond by moving the line so as to either correct the potential discrepancy (because the sharps are perceiving the odds to be different than those offered and so they see value in that price – in short they have a game at a different price than this offered by a bookie) or to offset the large volume of money put into the side, by triggering more action on the part of casual, non-pro bettors on the other side.
Such a steam move, therefore, may well indicate that there is sharps’ money on the bet and if you manage to spot big, drastic and sudden line moves then you might want to look into it.
In some cases bookmakers realize that sharps are putting money on one side of a bet and they want to be on the same side with them. Consider for example a sportsbook that is moving the line not opposite to the public bets -which would be the expected thing to do in order to create action on the side that has not still generated many bet slips – but in favor of the popular side! If the line moves strangely like that – a reverse line movement – then most likely -all things being equal – there is sharp action there.
Now, if you are able to spot reverse line movement and manage to act upon it quickly, then you are most likely in a position to lock in profits.
