People often refer to “the smart money” when betting, but is there anyway to quantify this. Fortunately, the answer is yes, and tracking lines that move in the opposite direction of what team the higher percentage of bets are on is the key. Blindly following reverse line moves without doing any handicapping whatsoever has been profitable, so this just may be the new wave.

Teams tend to go Over the total more in non conference games than they do in conference battles, as the former are the least important games on the schedule for tiebreaking purposes. Thus, teams usually play much looser and open up the offense, unlike conference games that are played much closer to the vest. Gurthermore, if a team is off of a comfortable win, the Over percentage climbs even more.

Many non-Saturday NCAA Football games are on national TV, and these are games where the public loves to bet the Over. The books are aware of this however, so they have inflated weekday totals to the point where playing the Under has produced a 313-233, 57.3 percent mark. Play close attention to Thursday ESPN games, as these are the most heavily bet games and have the highest Under rate.

The College Football season starts early this year on Thursday, and when the season has started in the month of August, the road teams and the Under have held the advantage. In fact, blindly playing all August Unders has hit at 61.5 percent, and if we break down the road teams by conference, there are five conferences hitting at better than 60 percent against the spread. Look for these trends to continue this week.

The defenses are ahead of the offenses at the beginning of the NFL season, and as a result, the Under is 646-548, 54/1 percent in all September games since 1985. This is a great success rate for blindly playing a simple angle with a sample size this large, and the win percentage can be improved on with some simple filters. Keep a close eye on the Colts, Bucs and Panthers early on in the year.

Another NFL preseason is upon us, which means another opportunity for easy money. To start, keep an eye out for road underdogs that are classified higher.