Pay-Per-Head books taking stock of football betting’s top trends

As a bookie, you want to stay up on current industry trends, because you can be damn sure your clients are. As college and pro football roll into October, there have been some notable shifts in the market and pay-per-head agents will want to monitor their action on their bookie software to see if the betting public is wise to these wagering ways.

The dogs have been barking in the NFL, especially over the past two weeks of action. Football betting underdogs are 20-12 ATS in that span, and covering at over 56 percent on the season heading into Week 5. That’s great for PPH books, with the general public always siding with the favorites.

The backend of this trend is that some of your sharper clientele and the ones that bet bigger, may be killing it. That’s OK, as long as those average joes keep siding with the chalk. It’s only been two weeks of dog-friendly results, so don’t sweat slimming the lines on the favorites – you can get in some real trouble then.

Another NFL trend showing up the past two weeks are the rise in Over returns. We had some very low-scoring results in the opening two weeks of the season, with books posting a collective 13-19 Over/Under record. However, it seems like offenses are shaking off the rust with totals going 20-12 O/U the last two weeks of pro football.

This one may be a bit more concerning, as the betting public does prefer to side with the Over. The sharper players love to grab value in the Under, so any money they’re making off the hot underdogs, they’re pretty much giving that back on totals. Again, this is a very short sample size so don’t overact and start ticking totals up higher than they have to be.

Booking the opening weeks of the college football season is some of the toughest action to take due to the even playing field between books and bettor – we both don’t know what to expect. In that first five weeks, road chalk has proved profitable with a 50-31-1 ATS record – that’s a 62 percent against-the-spread winner if you blindly laid the points with visiting teams so far.

This is another solid moneymaker for TheBestPerHead.com agents, as many bettors look to home underdogs for added value in the spread. Not only do wiseguys hunt for live home pups but the betting public is attracted to those extra points on a friendly field. Last week, road chalk went 13-6-1 ATS but these one-sided trends do tend to balance out over time, so don’t bank on road faves to keep cashing in – especially if the market starts to chase this trend.

We are starting to see the country’s elite programs pull away in the Top 25 rankings, and that’s also the same for the NCAAF ATS rankings. Going by the AP Top 25 rankings, the Top 5 teams – Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, Penn State, and Georgia – have a collective count of 17-6-1 against the spread – covering 74 percent of the time heading into Week 6. That’s not great for PPH bookies, since the public will blindly bet this elite-level chalk each and every week. You may want to tab on an extra half point to their spread if this success continues.

Looking below the Top 5, there is no real consistency to the remaining 20 ranked teams. The biggest money pits so far for college football bettors have been Florida at 1-3 ATS, Louisville at 1-5 ATS, and Southern California at 1-4 ATS. The best ranked ATS teams outside of the Top 5 are Utah at 4-0 ATS, Notre Dame at 4-1 ATS, and Central Florida at 3-0 ATS.