If you are not betting on football First Half lines you are missing a valuable tool from your available betting options.
How many times has the football team you bet on started out strong and built decent lead, only to let it slip away in the second half?brbr
Sportsbooks offer first half football betting for the simple purpose of increasing handle. The more you bet, the more (hopefully) the book earns. There is not much secret in how First Half lines are derived; it is generally just the pointspread for the game cut in half with a half-point to full-point adjustment against the favorite.brbr
For example, the Monday Night game (Colts at Tampa Bay) had a pointspread of Tampa Bay –4.5 or –5 and a First Half spread of –3 (even). There is usually a bias against the favorite team because bettors tend to prefer them in the First Half as perception is that the favored team is more likely to get out to a quick lead in the First Half before allowing a “back-door” cover in the Second Half. However, I have yet to see any statistics that prove that either the dog or favorite for the game are a better bet. Like any other bet type, you need to pick your spots.brbr
It is very easy to find a team’s total points for and against for the season as a total. Every newspaper and major sports website provides this readily. What is tougher to find is a team’s points for and against broken out by first half and second half. I track this myself every week in a spreadsheet and it helps because interesting mismatches do appear. Remember that a team is playing the same opponent in both half’s of every game so even great and horrible teams will have a stronger half.brbr
Imagine one team outscores its opponents 48-7 in the first half of the first four games but is only even at 31-31 in the second half. It would be a good team because it has outscored its opponents 79-38 and that team would probably be 4-0 straight-up but may not have covered the spread all four times. This would be a strong contender for a first half play.brbr
Conversely a team that is outscored 48-7 in all its first halves to date and manages to get to 31-31 in its second halves would be bad and probably winless; but may have a couple of back-door covers to its credit. This would be a strong candidate to play against in the first half.brbr
These examples are dramatic, but you get the idea; some teams get off to a quick start but fade while others start slowly but finish strong. When you compare two teams that are playing each other and see that one plays better in the first half and their opponent plays better in the second half, there may be an opportunity to exploit the weakness of the first half pointspread. This is by no means a system, but it is definitely something you can easily do in a few minutes every week. If 15 minutes a week of tracking scores by half leads you to find a single winning play, then it is worth it every time.brbr
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