In this article, I will examine the Road Underdogs sports betting strategy, and how it can be used to make profitable Major League Baseball (MLB) betting decisions. This strategy doesn't apply strictly to baseball gambling and can be used successfully in other sports as well, but for the purposes of this article, we will apply the concept to baseball handicapping.
At a high level, the concept behind betting on road underdogs is simple: home field advantage is often overvalued in baseball games and good money line prices can frequently be found on visiting teams. With a solid baseball handicapping process, you will find visiting teams listed as an underdog when their recent performance dictates that they should actually be favored in the game. Betting these underdogs on the money line means you will receive a positive payout from the sportsbook, and the more positive payout bets you place means the less frequently you need to win in order to turn a profit.
Understanding Negative Payout Structures
Before going further on the strategy, let's talk about payout prices you could receive from a sportsbook. An even money bet means that if a $100 bet was placed, you would collect $200 if you won the bet and lose $100 otherwise. This is represented as +100 (or -100) in American odds. While the math on even money bets is easy, the reality is that you're not very likely to find them in a sportsbook.
Negative payout structures are far more common when placing bets in a sportsbook, and the most common one you will see for any sport is -110. A payout of -110 means you have to wager $110 to win $100, so when you win the bet you collect $210 and lose $110 otherwise. The difference may not seem like a big deal but this is how sportsbooks make their money.
While -110 may be the most common payout offered by sportsbooks, it certainly doesn't stop there, and the lower it goes, the less you get paid for a winning bet. A payout of -200 means you have to wager $200 to win $100, and a payout of -1000 means you have to wager $1,000 to win $100. Please note that you can wager any amount you wish as long as it meets the minimum and maximum requirements of the sportsbook. I'm just using increments of $100 to make the math easy.
The Sportsbook's Perspective
Let's use a simple example looking at this from the perspective of the sportsbook. Assume the Yankees are playing the Red Sox and there is no clear favorite. The sportsbook sets the money line for both teams at -110. They receive 10 bets on the Yankees for $110 each, and 10 bets on the Red Sox for $110 each. Those bettors are all wagering $110 to win $100. The sportsbook collects $2,200 in wagers and they have done their job by balancing the action equally on both sides of the game.
From the sportsbook's perspective, it doesn't matter who wins the game because the action on both sides is equal and everyone placing a bet has accepted a negative payout structure. Let's assume that the Yankees won the game and now it's time for the sportsbook to make their payouts. The 10 customers who bet on the Yankees each get their $110 back, plus $100 in profit, meaning the sportsbook is paying out $2,100. Remember, they collected $2,200 in wagers and balanced the action equally on both sides, but now they're only paying out $2,100, resulting in a house profit of $100. This profit outcome would have been identical if the Red Sox had won the game. The profit made by the sportsbook is known as "vigorish," "the vig," or "the juice," and it's entirely based on the negative money line payout offered for both teams.
The Bettor's Perspective
Let's look at things from the sports bettor's perspective to see why placing wagers with negative payouts is so difficult to overcome. If you assume that any sports bet has a 50/50 chance of winning, then, in the long run, you will probably win about half of your bets. The problem is, if you're always placing bets with negative payouts, you will lose money if you only win half of the time. In order to overcome the vigorish of -110 bets, you will need to win at least 52.4% of the time in order to turn a profit. This may not sound like a big deal, and plenty of new sports gamblers think it will be easy to win at this rate or better but believe me, this small advantage is all the sportsbooks need to turn consistent profits.
Now, the question becomes, how can you, the sports bettor, turn these odds in your favor? The simple answer is to stop placing bets with negative payouts and only place bets with positive payouts. The best thing about placing bets with positive payouts is that you can win less than 50% of the time and still turn a profit. Let's take a quick look at the math behind positive payouts.
If you place a $100 bet with a payout of +110, your profit will be $110 when you win, and your losses will be $100 when you lose. If all of your bets were placed at a +110 payout, then you would only need to win 47.62% of the time. By comparison, if all of your bets were placed at a +150 payout, then you would only need to win 40% of the time.
This all sounds great, but obviously, as the payout price goes up, this means that the sportsbook sees the chances of that team winning as less and less likely. Blindly betting underdogs with positive payouts would be a good way to lose your money, but if you have a system in place to help you find value on underdogs, you can use this to make regular profits with sports betting.
Back to the Road Underdogs System
Now that we understand the inherent difference between placing bets with positive and negative payouts, the value of the Road Underdogs system becomes much more obvious. We know that if we identify value and place smart money line bets on underdogs with positive payouts, we can afford to win less than half of our bets and still turn a profit. The trick is understanding how to identify value.
For starters, there is a reason this system is called “Road Underdogs” and not just “Underdogs” or “Home Underdogs.” As mentioned at the beginning of this post, we tend to overvalue home-field advantage, and this happens in all sports. In general, we think teams playing at home are more likely to win, and this may be true to some extent, but no calculation or consideration is being made regarding how both teams have been performing.
If a team is an underdog while playing at home, there is probably a good reason for it. Therefore, games with home underdogs would not be a candidate for this betting system. What we’re looking for are visiting teams that have been performing well over the last three to five games. We want to catch them when they’re getting hot, particularly compared to how their opponent is performing.
While I can’t give away our exact formula for this system, I will say that you want to measure recent offensive performance for both teams and compare that to how many runs they’re allowing during the same stretch of games. Since baseball is so heavily driven by pitching matchups, it’s also very helpful to compare stats from the expected starting pitchers from both teams. You also need to have a concept of the value of one run in a game.
Once you have placed a value for a run and you have compared the recent offensive and defensive performance of both teams, you will be able to generate your own betting line for the game. In some cases, the betting line generated by your formula will indicate that the road team should be favored even though the sportsbook is listing them as an underdog. Imagine that the visiting team has a money line price of +120, but according to your calculations, they should actually be a -120 favorite. You have just uncovered 40 points of value! These are prime scenarios where the Road Underdogs system can be used for profitable sports wagers.
Additional Considerations for the Road Underdogs System
More often than not, I prefer betting the Road Underdog system in pairs. I handicap every game for that day and take note of all the plays with positive payouts where I’m seeing good value. Once I’m done handicapping the games I like to pick pairs of games to bet on because, due to the positive payouts I’m getting, I can win only one of the two games and still turn a profit. If I was betting games with negative payouts this wouldn’t be a possibility.
Obviously, I can lose both games when betting on these road underdogs, but I find it’s more likely that I win both games than lose both. This is a testament to the handicapping process and the ability to find value when public perception says otherwise. Let’s look at another fictitious example to drive this concept home.
I bet $100 on the Orioles +120 at the Rays and I bet $100 on the Mariners +130 at the Angels. If both the Orioles and the Mariners lose, then I’m down $200 for the day. If the Orioles win and the Mariners lose, I’m up $20 for the day. If the Orioles lose and the Mariners win, I’m up $30 for the day. If the Orioles and Mariners both win, I’m up $250 for the day! Any of these four scenarios are possible, and going 1-1 is the most likely, but in my experience, I’m more likely to win both games than to lose both. Even if I go 1-1, I’m still turning a 10-15% profit on my investment, depending on which team wins.
Identifying Road Underdog Value with Cappers
Something I learned very early on related to sports handicapping is that it’s a slow process. Regardless of which system you’re using, a lot of research is required to collect every necessary data point and use them in the corresponding calculations. Even if I gave you the exact formula we use to calculate value in the Road Underdogs system, it would be a slow process to handicap every game.
That’s where the Cappers App comes in! We all know that time is one of our most valuable resources, and the Cappers App was designed to save you, the astute sports investor, time when handicapping games. Rather than spending time researching data and running calculations for each game, you can utilize our application to simply select the game and click ‘Submit.’ In milliseconds you will be presented with all of the data you need to make a smart baseball betting decision. Not only will we give you the results from the Road Underdogs system, but you will also receive results from 16 other MLB betting systems!
Think of how much time it would take you to handicap a single MLB game with 17 betting systems. Now multiply that by the number of MLB games in one day. The time savings alone are incredible and believe me, you don’t even want to know how many hours we have put into coding these systems to run on our site.
It’s important to realize that there is no single magic system or formula which guarantees winning at sports betting. This is why Cappers is dedicated to presenting our users with a wealth of important information to aid their decision-making process. If you’re looking for a tout service where they simply tell you who to bet on and how many units to wager, we’re not it. There are already plenty of those available, and let’s be honest, most of them won’t make you any money, especially when considering how much you’ll be paying for their picks.
At Cappers, we’re taking a different approach; one that believes in the intelligence and decision-making ability of our customers. We don’t tell you what to do, we simply give you all the tools, analytics, and system results to allow you to make the best possible decision. Plus, we want to help you save time in the handicapping process. We consider ourselves a premium service at a fair price point and therefore do not advertise to our users. We’re not affiliates of any sportsbooks, we don’t sell advertising space on our website, and we don’t limit how many games or sports our subscribers can handicap with our platform.
If you happen to be reading this article during the early days near our beta launch, we invite you to take advantage of our introductory pricing, but even if not, we are committed to always offering a 14-day free trial of the Cappers App. All you have to do is visit https://app.cappers.ai/ and register for a free account. Once your account is created, click the button to subscribe to either a monthly or annual subscription. You will be taken to a Stripe checkout page where you will enter your payment information, but you will not be charged for exactly 14 days. To ensure ultimate security in payment handling, we use Stripe for all payment processes. During those two weeks, we encourage you to use our platform as much as possible. We want you to see the value it provides.
If you decide to cancel, simply click the link on your profile page and follow the Stripe instructions before the two weeks are up. We welcome all feedback and questions, as we are committed to evolving this platform based on the needs of our users. Please send your feedback and questions to [email protected].
We hope you enjoy the Cappers platform and get as much value from it as we do. Again, we’re committed to evolving the platform to suit the needs of our users. We’re dedicated to your success and hope you will join us.
