What is Betting Against the Public?

What is Betting Against the Public?

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As is the case with lots of different things, with sports betting, whatever it is that you’re betting on, whatever the sport, whatever the market, you’re typically either betting with the public or betting against the public. 

We’re here to look at what it means to bet against the public, and to properly do that, we’ll be looking at what it means to bet with the public, detailing also why, at times, betting against the public can help you to become an improved bettor.

What does it mean to bet with the public? 

In sports betting, you can bet with the public or you can bet against the public. First and foremost, let’s look at what it means to bet with the public. 

If you’re betting with the public, you’re going with the grain, or following the money. This means that you’re betting with the crowd and you’ll do that by betting on what most of the crowd is betting on. 

For example, let’s say that the New England Patriots open up at odds of -250 ahead of a game against the Seattle Seahawks. After a little time, the Patriots become -300 favorites due to strong market support. The shortening odds means that most people are betting on the Patriots to win. If you do the same, you’re following the crowd. In other words, you’re betting with the public. 

Betting with the public means to follow the money, so if you’re betting with the public, you’re betting on the same outcome as most of the other people who’re getting involved in the betting for that particular event. 

What does it mean to bet against the public? 

If betting with the public essentially means to follow the money, then betting against the public is quite self explanatory. If you’re not following the money, you’re going against the money. Therefore, you’re betting against the public, which is also known as fading the public

Typically speaking, if you’re betting against the public, you’re betting the underdog. At the very least, this is the case for two-way betting markets. An example of this would be betting on the moneyline underdog ahead of an NFL game. Whilst most people are betting on the favorite, you’re betting on the underdog, thus going against the majority. That’s exactly what betting against the public is, going against the majority. 

It’s important to note that betting against the public isn’t all about exclusively betting on huge underdogs. For example, in a horse race containing eight runners, if most of the public money is going on the +100 favorite, technically, you’d still be betting against the public by siding with the third or fourth favorite, simply because you’re going against the majority of the money. 

To confirm, you don’t have to bet on the +10000 outsider to go against the money, as long as you’re going against most of the public money, you’re fading the public, or fading the market. Another example of this would be to bet against a big favorite, such as Scottie Scheffler, ahead of a PGA Tour golf event. Scheffler could be the subject of heavy market support at odds of +250, and to fade the public, you wouldn’t need to bet the guy who’s priced at +20000, you could bet against the public by taking another golfer at +700. 

How betting against the public can be an advantage 

The public often gets it wrong. Not necessarily in terms of outcome, but in terms of overestimating the true chances of an outcome. In general, people don’t tend to think that strong favorites will lose. This thinking often leads to favorites being over-supported in the betting, which means that their odds are often not a true reflection of their chances of success. By going against the market as a bettor, you can often take advantage of generous odds.This is also known as finding and exploiting an edge. If you can consistently find edges over the market, or over the public, then you’ll likely do well over time.

In some cases, not all, the team that is the favorite is often priced shorter than it really should be, due to heavy public support, but as touched on above, heavy public support tends to result in odds that are less than realistic. This is where the smart bettor comes in. The smart bettor knows that the public often overestimates the chance of the favorite, and when this happens, the smart bettor takes the underdog at overinflated odds. By consistently identifying opportunities where the underdog is undervalued, in the long run, the smart bettor can turn a healthy profit. 

It is important to remember that you cannot bet blindly on underdogs and hope to be successful. It’s far from that simple. If it was, then every underdog bettor could quit their job tomorrow. Many favorites should indeed be as strong as the market suggests, but at times, the public or the majority gets it wrong and overbets a certain favorite. It’s down to you as the smart bettor to identify when that is. 

In Summary: Betting Against the Public

To wrap things up, betting against the public means to bet against the most common option. It involves betting on some underdogs, it involves a lot of fading the favorites, and a lot of going against what’s popular. If you want to bet against the public, then you’ll need to learn how to be comfortable with forming unpopular betting opinions. 

Moreover, if you’re going to bet against the public, you’re going to be in for some rough rides, there will certainly be some heartbreak, but learning how to go against the public in a betting sense is key to achieving any form of long-term success.

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