Sharp Bettor vs. Recreational Bettor

If you have been around the sports betting world for any length of time you probably have heard the term “sharp”. This term is short for “sharp bettor”. You probably have thought “what makes him a sharp?”.  Really the term is used differently by different people.

Here are the varying definitions of a sharp bettor:

1. A single bettor that wins more often than he loses over a long span of time.
2. A type of bettor that increases his chances of winning using one or all of many strategies.
3. A documented winning sports handicapper.

The strategies mentioned above in #2 are:

1. Betting against public money.
2. Playing steam plays before bookie has a chance to adjust.
3. Playing other way after squares move lines.
4. Betting games based on “information”, i.e., knows someone close to team who has information on something that can affect the way key players play, e.g., an undisclosed illness, personal problems, etc.

Someone who has made long-term use of these strategies and has had a history of winning more than he loses will sometimes decide to sell his betting picks for a fee. This person is called a professional sports handicapper. You can find hundreds of handicappers on the internet. The best ones will publish their results and use independent monitors to verify their records.

Recreational Bettor or “Square”

This is your standard husband, boyfriend or brother who watches games and thinks he can pick a game based solely on what is floating around in his head. He doesn’t study stat sheets. He doesn’t look at action figures or matchup angles. He just sees the game coming up and he bets on it.

The square bettor may be able to string together wins and even beat the bookie sometimes but at the end of the decade they are overall losers. Most bettors are square bettors because they have a job, a family and don’t use any of their limited time to actually handicap games.

Squares are not to be confused with a Mush bettor.

When to Use a Handicapper

If you love betting on the games but cannot seem to pick winners yourself, it makes sense to try a professional handicapper. A documented handicapper can show results and spends much more time picking games than your average bettor.

You can also use a handicapper to compare against your own picks and then adjust accordingly. If he has the opposite pick for a the same game, you can scratch that game. If he has the same pick then you can assign more value to that pick.

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The featured image in this article is from a 60 minutes upload from 12 years ago about sharp bettor Billy Walters. You can view it below: