380 pages
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Sharp Sports Betting
by Stanford Wong
Spotlight Reviews
Emphasis on Statistics. Good for Beginner to Intermediate., March 14, 2003
Reviewer: mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA)
Sharp Sports Betting is a complete lesson in betting on the NFL. For the beginner, there is instruction on what kind of bets are available and how to place them. And there is detailed instruction on how to handicap sporting events and determine what bets are worth taking using complex statistical analyses. I say that it is a complete lesson in betting the NFL because most examples that the author gives are from the NFL. Much of the book's content can be applied equally to other sports, and the author frequently tells you exactly how to do that. But I would say that it is not a complete lesson in betting on other sports, due to its emphasis on the NFL.
For those unfamiliar with the workings of sports books, Sharp Sports Betting explains how to place bets, money management, calculating what you stand to win on bets, and what types of bets are available, including separate chapters on money lines, over/under bets, props, parlays, and teasers. There is a glossary of sports book terms in the back of the book. And there is a chapter on internet sports books.
Moving beyond the basics, the author lays out his highly mathematical methods of handicapping sporting events and choosing bets. I have to say that I was not at all surprised to find out, on the last pages of this book, that Stanford Wong is also a professional blackjack player. He earned his way through graduate school playing cards. He has written books on blackjack. And he handicaps sports precisely like a blackjack player. I think the cardshark perspective that Wong brings to handicapping sports lends a little extra interest and unique content to Sharp Sports Betting. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the guy is a statistics and probability nut. He doesn't actually make his own lines, so there is no instruction on line-making. He just tells you how to beat the lines that the sports books are offering, using probabilities. At least half of this 384-page book is dedicated to teaching the reader how to calculate probabilities of various things happening in a game -pretty much anything that could happen
in a game, actually. I wouldn't know how to begin to explain it, so I won't. In addition to instruction, the author includes a lot of charts which aid you in predicting outcomes, many specifically for the NFL, but some relevant to other sports. There are also 2 appendices with charts of Poisson distribution of events (probabilities), one cumulative and one not. A third appendix contains charts for win-lose-push probabilities.
Sharp Sports Betting is a good introduction to sports betting for the novice. Its very mathematical tone and in-depth instruction on calculating probability make it useful for the intermediate bettor, as well. The author's passion for applying statistics to sports, in the spirit of a card player, may result in some fresh ideas for the experienced handicapper also.
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