Wagering on football every Saturday and Sunday during the season is the greatest joy of the week for me. I have fun betting parlays, teaser’s, live betting, scalping, betting early line  moves, betting late line moves, betting props, and of course trying to middle a game or two.

So how do you middle a football game you ask?  Well first you need multiple places to bet, such as a couple offshore books, local books, and/or Las Vegas books.

Lets say the game is Michigan at Notre Dame and the offshore point spread is the Irish -2.5, but the number you can get from your local bookie is Michigan +3.5. So if you bet Notre Dame -2.5 offshore and you bet Michigan +3.5 with your local bookie, you would need Notre Dame to win by exactly 3 points to win your middle.

Now what are the chance’s you’re actually going to see Notre Dame win by exactly 3 points. I did some research on this subject and here is what I found.

Chances of middling

All the games I looked at were fbs.vs. fbs games.

2010– 568 gms
2011–698 gms
2012–705 gms
2013–694 gms

Push/middle  count or occurrences (1-1.5 point window)

2010–43
2011–46
2012–40
2013–47

Push/middle percentage per game

2010–7.57% (1 in every 13.21 games)
2011–6.59% (1 in every 15.174 games)
2012–5.673% (1 in every 17.627 games)
2013–6.77%  (1 in every 14.77 games)

Based on these numbers you would middle or push a game 1 in every 15.19 games, provided that you have a decent window meaning 1-3 points window.

Statistically you need to hit 1 middle every 20 games at 11 to 10 odds in order to break even (and this does not even consider any pushes). So as you can see, based on the above numbers, opportunities to middle a game would be profitable in the long run.

Definitions & Thoughts

Middling is much more profitable in the NFL due to the teams being so evenly matched and constant spreads of 3,7,10 etc.

Teasers in college football is just a terrible idea. At bookmake.eu you can bet 2 team 6 point teasers at even odds and most times its still a bad bet. The only time I would consider teasers is if the teaser goes thru 3-7 and  the total of the game is 48 or lower.

Money line parlays are fun. I would suggest putting together a couple of underdogs and some surefire bets into 1 money line parlay. such as a +200,+130,+180, and a -150 into 1 parlay.

Live betting in college football can be great, but you have to know anything that can go wrong will go wrong in college football, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket. One suggestion I would make is that oddsmakers always tend to inflate the price on the favorite so backing the underdog in a situation where you’re getting a lot of points and you think the underdog can win the game.

I bet a lot of the props 5dimes.eu puts up on college football Saturdays. One thing I have noticed is that they will put up something such as James Franklin (Missouri QB) pass yards ovr/undr 275 yards, which is his season average, but sometimes they won’t take into consideration that he is playing against Indiana’s defense and he should have a field day against them,  So always look for this type of mis-pricing.

Betting early lines Sunday morning at bookmaker.eu has become a ritual for me. You should make a chart and make lines for every game and see if you can find any value between your spread and the bookmaker’s spread. If you see something you like, bet it right away. Ive seen line swings of 4 points or more on a Sunday morning.

Betting late line moves has honestly been something I’ve never done, but something I’ve become interested in as of late.

Scalping is something that’s hard to due in college football, the theory of a scalp is you bet team A at +110 or better and bet team B at +105 or better. This is a no less investment, however not very profitable unless you’re betting  very large amounts. 5 dimes is your best option for trying a scalp because on Saturday they go to a 10 cent line instead of the typical 20 cent line that almost all bookmakers use.

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