Lots of individuals literally bust their asses searching for angles on sports picks. They waste time looking at a great deal of meaningless stats (shots on goal for, shots on goal against). They crawl through useless trends (the Miami Heat are 6-0 on Sunday afternoons). They invent weird systems (fade any team coming off a loss if their opponent is coming off a win through which they had 4 or less hits or in which their opponent’s opponent hit 3 or less home runs sometime last week).

But few if any ever focus their attention on the actual sportsbooks at which they wager. Some betting angles may be picked up simply by browsing your sportsbook’s website with a sharp eye and also a clear head. As an example, we found an article upon the website of among the most prominent online bookie books in the world that gave a sort of overview of soccer betting. It was a simple enough article, a sort of “Soccer Betting For Dummies” kind of thing. Harmless.

But one sentence did catch our eye: “Generally it really is wiser to pass on the draw bet in soccer unless you have a really strong angle.” At first glance it appears like an innocuous enough statement. After all, Precision Plays believes it’s generally wiser to pass ANY bet unless you’ve got a really strong angle (and that angle will be and only value).

What stood out about this sentence was which it was advice. All the other sentences within the article were dedicated to simply explaining the many different ways one could bet a soccer game. But with this sentence, the book was really giving advice on betting.

As true gambler advocates, we can just pray that no poor sap actually takes betting advice from the guy who stands to make money if he loses. Translating this sentence from Crap-ese, it reads in English: “We do not really want you to bet the draw in soccer.”

As always, Precision Plays doesn’t recommend you go nuts tomorrow and bet all the draws in soccer, but the simple proven fact that a sportsbook took enough time in a soccer betting how-to article to discourage a particular sort of bet should give one food for thought.

Another clue to explore is a sportsbook’s wager limits. Few ever think about the reasoning behind them. By way of example, at a book we love and use daily, the limit upon an NBA spread bet is $10,000, but on a university basketball spread it’s $25,000. Why do you suppose that is? At the same book, the limit upon an NFL spread is just $5,000. Perhaps these differences may be explained by the owners of the book being huge college basketball fans, but we doubt it.

If you check around at a lot of distinct sportsbooks, you’ll find that wager limits vary. In the above example, we used the wager limits of a sportsbook we use personally. This book may be considered a “sharp” book, one that caters to more sophisticated players with larger bankrolls. A “square” book is just one geared more toward the recreational bettor. You may spot a square book easily enough by the large sign-up bonuses and numerous ads with skimpily dressed women in them.