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If you’re new to sports betting or just not all that familiar with all the jargon, you may have heard the phrase “fade the public.” You might not know exactly what it means, but the concept is pretty simple.
Fading the public in sports betting is simply betting against the public. Who is the public and why should bettors consider betting against it?
We answer those questions and more in this article.
The Betting Public
Fading the public is also known as a contrarian method of sports betting. You are wagering against the general betting public. These are your casual bettors, recreational bettors, and those who do not bet professionally for a living.
These are the bettors that are easily fooled by oddsmakers and sportsbooks and will lose much more often than they win. This, of course, is one reason why sportsbooks stay in business.
When you bet against the public, you are betting with the house. This is normally a strong wager since the house typically does quite well for itself. Sportsbooks win on all of the betting losses plus they collect their juice from all the winning bets. No matter what the house wins and that is why it makes sense to bet with the house.
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When to Fade the Public
The betting public has a tendency to bet on favorites and Overs. Knowing this, sportsbooks shade their lines against favorites and Overs since they know bettors will often play them blindly. Oftentimes, public betting will move a line by a half-point making fading the public even more valuable.
One of the situations where you can clearly see how fading the public works is in the NFL. Over the past eight seasons, games in which 75 percent of the public bet on one side have lost roughly 54 percent of the time. That means betting against the public has led to more wins than losses.
In college football, road teams getting a ton of public action make for a great fade scenario. If you bet against road teams getting 75 to 80 percent of wagers over the last eight seasons, you would have won approximately 56 percent of the time. That’s a solid win percentage.
Take the 2018 season-opening Michigan-Notre Dame game. The Wolverines were a 2.5-point road favorite. The game was the most heavily bet game of the day. The majority of tickets – 63 percent to be exact – were on Michigan to win and cover. Using the contrarian method of fading the public would have led you to a win. Notre Dame pulled off a 24-17 upset.
The Long Game
Like any betting strategy, it has to be used consistently and correctly. Fading the public is one strategy that has stood the test of time. It doesn’t work all the time. Sometimes favorites do win and Overs do cash. However, over the long run fading the public will win more often than not.
Sportsbooks always know where the public money is and the smarter bettor will track that as well. Smarter bettors understand that sharp money often bets against the public and you should consider doing the same when it makes sense.
