Do you follow sharp money or public betting?

[freedomgo]

In sports betting, people always talk about public money and sharp money.

Public money usually comes from casual bettors who follow popular teams, hype, and headlines. Sharp money comes from so-called “smart” bettors who rely on data and analysis, and when they bet big, odds often move fast.

A lot of people try to copy sharp money or bet against the public, thinking it’s an easy edge. But does that really work, or are we just chasing another trend without fully understanding it?

Sometimes the public wins. Sometimes the sharps are wrong. So it’s not as simple as people make it sound.

Do you actually follow money movement when you bet, or do you just trust your own analysis?

[Agbe]

In sports betting, people always talk about public money and sharp money.

Public money usually comes from casual bettors who follow popular teams, hype, and headlines. Sharp money comes from so-called “smart” bettors who rely on data and analysis, and when they bet big, odds often move fast.

A lot of people try to copy sharp money or bet against the public, thinking it’s an easy edge. But does that really work, or are we just chasing another trend without fully understanding it?

Sometimes the public wins. Sometimes the sharps are wrong. So it’s not as simple as people make it sound.

Do you actually follow money movement when you bet, or do you just trust your own analysis?

i understand the context of this but these two terms are a bit strange to me that's the reason why we learn everyday. The sharps can be wrong sometimes because doing analysis doesn't really control the outcome of the game it only increases your chances of winning and in most cases the match can end up going in the opposite direction of what the bettor actually took time to analyze.

[Charles-Tim]

This will be about moneyline. Not going for what the public are taking means higher odds. The problem in moneyline is that the teams can also draw, it is not just about win or loss of a match.

Following the public can mean lower odds and which still make betting favorable but the odds and what considering.

I prefer to follow my analyses but my analyses mostly go towards the direction of the public most time.

[alastantiger]

Do you actually follow money movement when you bet, or do you just trust your own analysis?

From what i understand from your post public money and sharp money are useful concepts, but they are often treated like cheat codes instead of signals that need context, you see odds movement can happen for many reasons and blindly fading the public without understanding the why is just another form of guessing in itself. Both sides get it wrong at times because betting the markets are not perfectly efficient in the short term and the real edge usually comes from combining information and understanding timing, price value, and matchup specifics, not copying patterns on a screen. Money movement can support an analysis, but it shouldn’t replace it becuase once it becomes the strategy on its own, it turns into trend-chasing rather than disciplined decision-making which is what you want to aim for today.

[Russlenat]

This will be about moneyline. Not going for what the public are taking means higher odds. The problem in moneyline is that the teams can also draw, it is not just about win or loss of a match.

Following the public can mean lower odds and which still make betting favorable but the odds and what considering.

I prefer to follow my analyses but my analyses mostly go towards the direction of the public most time.

Sharp money and public money are not about moneyline, spread, or any specific bet type. They are about how you judge the market price and why the odds are moving.

It’s about who is influencing the line. If the odds move because of smart money, that’s sharp influence. If they move because of hype and crowd betting, that’s public influence.
So it applies to all markets. In the end, it’s about whether the price has value, not what type of bet you place.

[SatoPrincess]

Bookmakers always give the big odds to the underdogs and small odds to teams with a higher chance of winning, and I guess you may refer to that as “public money”. When gambling on sports, I prefer to follow my own analysis than the hype. That way, even if I lose the bet, I can sleep at night knowing I followed my own strategy.

[Chibit01]

Do you actually follow money movement when you bet, or do you just trust your own analysis?

I just trust my own analysis that’s the best I could do, but there have also been cases where I have to bet against the public when I consider a high number of people betting against a particular team in a manner I try to suspect that pattern and I’m likely going to bet against there own odd.

But on a normal day I just place my bet base on what I have been able to gather with the information at my reach I don’t do more than I can handle or give myself extra pressure.

[Dr.Osh]

I only believe in my analysis, so whatever the results are, they seem very satisfying, especially nowadays there are many tools for analysis, especially AI, it will make our work easier to compare them and which one has a greater chance of winning.

[Smartvirus]

In sports betting, people always talk about public money and sharp money.

Public money usually comes from casual bettors who follow popular teams, hype, and headlines. Sharp money comes from so-called “smart” bettors who rely on data and analysis, and when they bet big, odds often move fast.

A lot of people try to copy sharp money or bet against the public, thinking it’s an easy edge. But does that really work, or are we just chasing another trend without fully understanding it?

Betting against the people, I don’t know about that. Not like the people are going to be the ones paying you if you get lucky. You’ve still get to take that money from the house but, that’s about that.

I often look at statistics while placing my bets and most times, it’s often about finding ways in which, the stats would support my having to root for the favorite teams by the bookies or just how I can take a safe bet on the less favored teams.

[Sanitough]

Bookmakers always give the big odds to the underdogs and small odds to teams with a higher chance of winning, and I guess you may refer to that as “public money”. When gambling on sports, I prefer to follow my own analysis than the hype. That way, even if I lose the bet, I can sleep at night knowing I followed my own strategy.

It’s not really about the odds, it’s more about where the public money is going. Most of the time, the public will bet on the favorite, usually on the point spread, because the moneyline gives very small returns.

Let’s use the NBA as an example. Say the book opens the line like this:
Los Angeles Lakers +2 vs Sacramento Kings -2

We know the Kings might be struggling, and the Lakers are the more popular team, so naturally, most of the public will jump on Lakers +2 thinking it’s easy money. Now normally, if public money is heavy on the Lakers, you’d expect the line to move toward Lakers -2. But instead, if the line moves the other way and becomes Kings -3, that’s a big sign. That usually means sharp money is backing the Kings. And when sharp money goes against public money like that, it often means something is happening behind the scenes that regular bettors don’t know yet. That’s where the real value usually is.

[robelneo]

Do you actually follow money movement when you bet, or do you just trust your own analysis?

I follow my analysis most of the time, but pay close attention to this so-called money movement to see if my analysis is wrong or if anything needs to be corrected.
When you are too involved, you develop your own method, and it's ok to challenge your method by checking other analyses. There is no perfect method, so you have to be flexible and adjust your approach to achieve the desired results. This is what sports betting is: to get things right.

[rachael9385]

I only believe in my analysis, so whatever the results are, they seem very satisfying, especially nowadays there are many tools for analysis, especially AI, it will make our work easier to compare them and which one has a greater chance of winning.

It is better to make use of your personal analysis, I do that as well but when i look for tools to help me analyse my bets I don't really make of ai because I don't really trust it that much

[Asiska02]

In sports betting, people always talk about public money and sharp money.

Public money usually comes from casual bettors who follow popular teams, hype, and headlines. Sharp money comes from so-called “smart” bettors who rely on data and analysis, and when they bet big, odds often move fast.

A lot of people try to copy sharp money or bet against the public, thinking it’s an easy edge. But does that really work, or are we just chasing another trend without fully understanding it?

Sometimes the public wins. Sometimes the sharps are wrong. So it’s not as simple as people make it sound.

Do you actually follow money movement when you bet, or do you just trust your own analysis?

The public betting perspective always has the most people that engage in them and try to bet as the public does. The category of people that follow this cycle are those that have not so much money to risk in gambling and use as little money as they can risk possible to bet on this game. Only a few number of them can be boastful of using bigger amount of money to make bet here. They mostly win but the odds on those games are very small as the bet is based on the most probable possible outcome which even the bookmakers give lesser odds because of the possibility of it happening.

Smart bettors are always after the big wins as they don’t care about the so much clear analysis of the market which is very obvious that the game will go that way. They believe in turning small money into big ones by knowing that their risk and possibility of the outcome is very small. But when the game does turns and goes their way, they’ll win big. This category of people are more after the big returns than staying by the possibility of the outcome which in most cases is very obvious. They go for bigger odds when making bet because that’s where they can win big if they get lucky.

[peter0425]

Sometimes the public wins. Sometimes the sharps are wrong. So it’s not as simple as people make it sound.

Well the public bet on those popular teams for a reason so it won’t be as surprising if they actually win because they got that reputation exactly from winning too much. But it is not always that they will win. That’s just how sports work.

[ryzaadit]

That's the most basic things.

I think 70-80% will follow the most betting they're do. I mean, cause the chance winning is more higher than comparing the one with higher odds. People will always trying to follow on the sharp one.

Cuase they also want a bets are kinda safest as well.

[Ivystar5]

I follow my guts, my instinct tells me more things that even predictions sites so I just follow what I have in mind if I want to do more research on it by going with data it only ends up giving me reasons to do what which my instinct already told, by this I have concluded that neither sharp money nor public money I don't follow any. I do what my mind instructs me to do.

[red4slash]

Honestly I just found out that there are tips on public money and sharp money, I know what it means but I don't know the term for it

Betting in sportsbetting can be biased, we can't make this a simple thing even though betting is just like choosing one of 2 options (in a match/fight) but still the situation is biased where the ratio is still 50:50 so it's not as easy as imagined.

So when we bet I think we should not only try to find a favorite club or a strong club or maybe want to look for other challenges such as against the public because there must be consideration with analysis, see how the performance conditions and more so that it is not entirely in the favorite club is always right or looking for challenges against the public because we in betting it for me depends on probability.

[maydna]

I trusted my own analysis whether if that is right or wrong. I am not following others bet but if I don't have ideas what to place, I may follow others. I have done this before following my friend and place my bet the same as him.

Betting against the public can be done especially if you see their analysis is difficult to win. But you should know that your analysis better than them so you can bet against them.

[ralle14]

I used to follow both the public and sharps, but now i've been staying away regardless of which side they're leaning. I've seen the public get rolled throughout the season before, and there are times when both choose the same losing side.

It's better to trust your own shit than to stick with either of the two. Still, if there's a betting challenge with those two being the only options to choose from, then i'd probably go with the sharps.

[tread93]

In sports betting, people always talk about public money and sharp money.

Public money usually comes from casual bettors who follow popular teams, hype, and headlines. Sharp money comes from so-called “smart” bettors who rely on data and analysis, and when they bet big, odds often move fast.

A lot of people try to copy sharp money or bet against the public, thinking it’s an easy edge. But does that really work, or are we just chasing another trend without fully understanding it?

Sometimes the public wins. Sometimes the sharps are wrong. So it’s not as simple as people make it sound.

Do you actually follow money movement when you bet, or do you just trust your own analysis?

I think its definitely a mix taking the public betting into consideration while also weighing it against my own. But I also do like to know other opinions from the sharp money as well. I guess its sort of a betting triangle!