Ask the Oddsmakers: Where do the Public and Sharps Differ for NFL Week 10?

As sports bettors, we tend to focus most of our attention on breaking down specific matchups between teams or players. While handicapping games is obviously important, some novice bettors might not be aware of the power of reading the market. 

One of the most popular strategies used when doing research on the betting market is fading the public and following the sharps. What this means is that you identify which teams the “betting public” are siding with and which teams the professional bettors are betting on. The logic behind fading the public is that sportsbooks are in business because the public loses more than they win. Thus, betting against the public increases your chances of positive results. Often, but not always, big favorites and overs are popular public bets. 

Fading the public is such a strong strategy that we decided to ask WynnBET trader Sawyer Johnson about where the smart money is in Week 10.

“We’ve taken a good amount of action on the Chargers and Vikings, Browns and Patriots as well as the Seahawks and Packers game,” Sawyer told Betsided. “The public seems to like the Vikings, Patriots and the Packers, but the sharps seem to prefer the Browns, Chargers, and Seahawks,” he added. 

The Packers, Patriots and Vikings are very popular teams across the country and tend to see more public money than other teams. The Patriots and Packers are both favorites this week as well. Meanwhile, the Browns and Seahawks are underdogs and have been identified as sharp bets by Johnson. 

Generally, the method used to identify sharp vs public bets is to look at the consensus reports. These tell you the percentage of bets that one team is receiving and the percentage of money. If a team is receiving a low percentage of the total bets but a high percentage of money, that means more big bets are coming in on that team. Big bets usually indicate sharp money and help to highlight games to keep an eye on. It isn’t recommended to just blindly bet against the public. But, with the right matchup research, it's a powerful addition to any sports bettors arsenal.