How many times have you thought to yourself “If I could only see the first few minutes to see what kind of attitude this team has tonight, I could tell immediately how this game will play out”? Well guess what– you have that opportunity through second half betting.

Second half betting can be a valuable tool to add to your arsenal when used properly. There are a couple of ways that you can gather enough information to make an informed decision on your second half bet. The easiest way is by watching the first half. If you watch sports regularly, you can usually get a feel as to which way the game will ultimately go. In basketball, if one team seems to be diving on the floor for loose balls and taking a bunch of charges, while the other team doesn’t seem to have as much interest in winning the game, you can tell how that game will eventually finish. Same goes for in football, when it seems like one team can run the ball at will or is pressuring the QB on every pass play, those teams are usually going to pull it out in the end. Some of these things show up in the stats, but many of them don’t, so you would actually have to be watching each game to pick up on them. Unfortunately, you can’t watch every single game, so there has to be another technique to gather information, and that is through the analysis of the first half stats.

Knowing what to look for in first half stats can help you determine when to place a second half bet. There are a few classic situations that you should take advantage of when the opportunity arises:

·         Shooting percentage discrepancy- When one team has a huge first half advantage in shooting percentage over the other team, your first thought is probably, “Wow, this team is WAY better than the other one”. But statistics tell us that everything will eventually revert to the mean, or their usual shooting percentage. Thus, we have an opportunity to make some money from this situation. This situation is especially reliable when one team is shooting well above its normal percentage, and the other is shooting well below its normal percentage. For example, let’s say Texas shot 71% in the first half, and Baylor only shot 29%, and Texas leads 38-26 at half. And let’s also say they are both about 45% shooting teams on average for the season. We would fully expect those shooting percentages to come close to evening out, i.e. Baylor would shoot a higher percentage than Texas in the second half. Knowing this, a bet on Baylor (assuming they were giving only a small amount of points) would probably be a good idea.

 

·         Rebounding advantage-  Unlike shooting percentages, rebounding advantages usually hold true throughout the whole game. If one team has a strong advantage in the first half, for the most part they will keep that advantage for the rest of the game. The reason for this is that rebounding doesn’t take as much skill as shooting; a sharpshooter may have a cold first half, but could still turn it on in the second half. Rebounding doesn’t follow the same rules; generally good rebounding players and teams are more consistent. For a team with a large rebounding advantage at half, you would expect them to hold on to a lead if winning, and make it a close game if trailing.

·         Trailing big at home- One of the best situations to take advantage of is when a home team gets down big (15+) in the first half. This situation is not a lock every time necessarily, but with the right teams it is. Team that this works well with are teams that are well-coached, experienced, hard-working, blue collar types. As an example, say Duke is trailing Florida State 41-24 at halftime. You can pretty much count on the fact that Coach K will get through to his players and light a fire under them, and that they are going to come out fighting in the second half. Thus, a play on Duke in the second half (as long as they are giving a reasonable amount of points) is probably the smart play.

·         Sleepwalk through the first half- This is kind of the opposite situation of the previous one. This situation comes into play when one team is a large home favorite, and plays somewhat lackadaisically in the first half and only has a small lead. The same teams that work for the previous situation also work well for this one. Say Kansas is an 18 point favorite at home vs. Colorado, but only lead 36-32 at half. The second half line probably won’t reach the original spread (18), so you will be able to pick up some value by playing the second half. Again, with good coaching, and a senior-led team, you would expect Kansas to come out playing hard in the second half.

The second half bet, when played at the proper times, can offer a unique opportunity to a sports bettor.