Contrarian Betting is a strategy that is characterized by placing bets in contrast to the prevailing public perception about the sporting event. 

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A contrarian believes that certain crowd behavior among bettors can lead to exploitable, artificially inflated lines by bookmakers. For example, say the New England Patriots are playing the Cleveland Browns and 85% of the bets are coming in on New England. This is often an indication that the public is overvaluing New England (and undervaluing Cleveland). The Contrarian play would be to take the Browns because the bookmakers would inflate their line to even up the books. The bookmakers only want to try get an even amount of money on both sides of a bet in order to collect a guaranteed profit with the juice (i.e. interest). Identifying and betting such inflated lines can lead to above-average gains. Conversely, widespread optimism in a bet can result in unjustifiably high lines that will eventually lead to financial losses, when those high expectations don't pan out. Avoiding bets on over-hyped teams reduces the risk of such losses. These principles can apply to bets on the spread, moneyline, over/unders, and almost any other type of bet.

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The majority of bettors bet on the favorites and the over. A contrarian does not necessarily think that these aren't the likely outcomes, nor do they have to believe that these are always overvalued, or that the conventional wisdom is always wrong. Rather, a contrarian seeks opportunities to capitalize on high value when the majority of bettors appear to be doing the opposite, to the point where that bet has become mispriced. 

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Is betting against the public profitable?

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It has been proven that simply taking a more contrarian approach can lead to 1-3% greater return. Now, this doesn't mean you need to ALWAYS bet against the public. This is just another tool to add to your smart betting toolkit. It also doesn't mean to always take underdogs and unders. The media and recent news can make the underdog a favorite among the public by driving a storyline which could make people want to root for them. The key is to find places where you can see percentages of where the public is putting their money and practice finding misplaced value. Then we can add that 1-3% return to our compounding profit using this and many other tools!

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