Ten Ways To Win At Sports Betting With Unabated

I’ve been an Advantage Player for over 20 years — far longer than I ever expected to be. The secret to my success and longevity is simple: Always have many arrows in your quiver when you plan your attack. You always need to have multiple ways to find an edge or else you’re easily detected and defeated. Put more simply: Don’t be a one-trick pony. One of the best things about sports betting is that there are many ways to get an edge at it. You can be Top Down or Bottom Up. You can hustle promotions. Perhaps you are a prop bet specialist. Maybe you focus on in-game opportunities. Do you like a quantitative numbers-based approach or a qualitative information-based approach? Are you betting low amounts across multiple books, or focusing on high limits via VIP accounts? There are many ways to win at sports betting

Many people don’t realize that Unabated is more than just an odds screen, more than just some alternate line pricing tools. There are many different ways to win at sports betting using Unabated. I’m going to highlight 10 ways for you to utilize Unabated. 

Some of these things require either a Props+ or Premium Subscription and we hope this article demonstrates just how valuable that purchase would be for you. However, some of these are free for you to use as well. This article isn’t just abstract hints, but rather a concise roadmap to profiting with our site. So get ready to load some new arrows as you plan your attack. And if you want a demonstration on how to use Unabated’s tools with these angles, sign up for a one-on-one webinar.

1. Top Down Using The Unabated Line

Perhaps the easiest way to profit using Unabated is to take a Top Down approach using a feature we call the Unabated Line. First, let’s discuss what Top Down is. The Top Down Method is when you identify a sharp line from a sportsbook and consider that your “source of truth.” You then pick off advantageous bets at other sportsbooks based on that source of truth. 

If your source of truth says that a football line should be -3 and you are able to find -2.5, then you would bet that -2.5 without having to do any tedious handicapping on the game. You’re trusting that your source of truth is sharper than you are.

One reason that it is safe to make that assumption is because a sharp market making sportsbook takes wagers from the sharpest bettors on the planet. Effectively, you are leveraging the hive mind of many sharp sports bettors who have shaped this line. All you need to do is to identify which sharp sportsbook you should follow as your source of truth.

However, there lies the problem for many bettors. Different sportsbooks have different strengths. One sportsbook may be sharpest in the industry on NBA & MLB, but another sportsbook may be sharper on NFL. Just like a sharp bettor has leagues they specialize in, a sharp sportsbook has trading teams that may specialize in a certain sport. We explored this in our Know Your Market Makers article.

Identifying The True Price With The Unabated Line

Unabated solves this for you with the Unabated Line. We’ve polled some of the sharpest sports bettors in the world and have reached a weighted average of which sportsbooks are sharpest in each league on our odds screen. The Unabated Line represents a curated weighted consensus line of the sharpest sportsbooks. On top of that, we’ve made it vig-free. 

Let’s walk through an example of how you can use it. In the Eagles/Browns game, the Unabated Line is:
PHI -2.5 +102
CLE +2.5 -102

You spot that Superbook if offering the Browns for +3 -110. Perhaps you are astute enough to know that +3 -110 is a good bet. If so, great. But how good of a bet is it? How much of an edge do you have? How much should you bet? 

These are all answers you can find using our integrated tools. For instance, by using the Derivatives – Alternate Lines tool, you can find how strong that bet is at Superbook. Select that tool on the slideout and then click the Unabated Line of Cleveland +2.5 -102 line. It’s already vig-free so no need to remove the vig. Enter +3 as the alternate line you wish to price out. It informs you that the proper price should be -123 on that +3. 

How good is getting +3 -110 when it should be priced at -123? Another Unabated tool can help you answer that. The Closing Line Value calculator is a tool we have to quantify your closing line value (CLV) but it can also be used to tell you your EV. It’s pretty straightforward to use. In this case, it unveils a very nice +5.30% EV on this play.

A sportsbook has a 4.55% edge when they book games at -110. Living your life playing 5.3% edges will make you a very wealthy person. Many of our users hunt around our odds screen looking for situations like this to appear throughout the day. For more information on using this approach to profit with Unabated, check out our Step by Step Guide for Finding Positive EV bets. 

The Unabated Line and Alternate Line Tool are Premium Subscriber features. The Closing Line Value Calculator is available to Props+ and Premium users.

2. NFL Season Simulator For Futures Bets

From Top Down to Bottom Up. For many bettors, building a model that can make projections which beat the market is a holy grail. The reality is that the programming and data science skills required are typically beyond the reach of most bettors. We developed our NFL Season Simulator as a way to win at sports betting by bridging that skill gap. 

When it comes to projecting out odds to win a division, conference, or even a championship game, the best way to assign a probability to that event is via simulation. Similarly, the value of each win in Regular Season Win markets can best be reached via simulation. Our NFL Season Simulator works by taking your power ratings and applying variables that you control to a Monte Carlo simulation of the season 10,000 times over. 

If creating your own power ratings is outside your wheelhouse, no problem. We have importable power ratings from various sources including the Massey-Peabody ratings from Rufus Peabody and Cade Massey. 

An Example Of Using The NFL Simulator

We have videos and articles available in the simulator section to explain how to use the tool. Let’s use a set of power ratings I recently created by using a blend of both the Market Based Ratings, the Massey-Peabody injury impacts, and my own opinions. You can click on the image to see a full size version.

The result is a table which provides projected wins, odds to make the playoffs, and odds to win division, conference, and Super Bowl. However, the strength of these results is the ability to overlay them in our Futures Odds screen. 

You now have projections side-by-side with the actual lines in various sportsbooks. You can quickly line shop and find the best price. Don’t forget about Alt Win Totals which are readily available at many sportsbooks. That allows you to utilize the full range of the Win Distribution Table that your simulation has produced. 

In this example, I’ve got the Jacksonville Jaguars over 6.5 wins as being a -114 true price, but I can currently grab o6.5 +115 at FanDuel. The Alt Win Totals also have some decent value as well. But perhaps the most advantageous part of the NFL Season Simulator is that Futures bets are not just preseason wagers. Sportsbooks update their Futures Odds throughout the season for all available markets including two-way markets like Make Playoffs or Season Wins. You can utilize the simulator throughout the season. We update the simulator and the importable power ratings weekly. 

The NFL Season Simulator is a Premium Subscriber feature.

3. NFL/NBA Player Prop Simulators

Speaking of simulators, we have another simulator product that really appeals to those of you who like trying to beat player props. It’s no secret that player props are beatable. Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) players transitioning to sports betting player props is making prop betting a viable way to win at sports betting. 

Many aspirational bettors make a big mistake when they attempt to handicap player props. They create an average and then compare that against the betting lines. However, sportsbooks don’t hang the mean (average) because player performance is not evenly distributed. It is often skewed. For example, a wide receiver can go for 100-plus yards on a good day, but is extremely unlikely to have less than zero yards. This skews the average higher, but the line that would be the middle point where half of the results would be over and half would be under is called the median. That’s why generating a median result via simulation is a powerful tool to your betting arsenal.

The Unabated Player Prop simulator takes your projections and applies a bucket standard deviation per position to then simulate out the player performance 10,000 times. This results in output that you can use to bet on a player prop no matter what the posted line is. 

We output the entire distribution of results, both in table and graph form. You can also view both the mean and the median output as well. Want to place a bet on whether the player will have a 100-plus yard game? We’ve got that too.

If you’re a bettor who enjoys playing NFL player props or NBA player props, you’ll find a lot of value in adding Unabated’s simulator to your process.   

The NFL & NBA Player Prop Simulator requires an Props+ Tier subscription.

4. Best Line/Synthetic Hold Columns

A recent addition to our Odds Screen is our Best Line and Synthetic Hold columns. Their purpose is to guide you to the best play you have available at your sportsbooks. While other odds screens have the ability to identify the best price on the screen, they don’t have the ability to adjust across spreads or totals.

For instance, one book may have -3 -120, while another book may have -3.5 +105. Which line is better? This could trip up other odds screens, but Unabated was built on logic like this. We know that -3.5 +105 is actually a better bet. 

This is also very useful information when markets are opening and different books have different opinions. Finding the best line quickly helps you make bets faster and sometimes speed is very important in fast-moving markets. 

Synthetic Hold And Sports Betting

Complementing the Best Line is our Synthetic Hold column. This was inspired by Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow’s landmark book, The Logic of Sports Betting. In it, they presented the idea of taking the best price on either side of a market to come up with the synthetic hold for that market. You want to bet into wagers with the lowest synthetic hold because that presents the least margin of error for the sportsbook to profit. The lower their edge, the more likelihood that you will stand a chance to profit.

On the Unabated Odds Screen, our Synthetic Hold column represents the expected value for the sportsbook. A positive number indicates that the sportsbook expects to make this percentage of expected profit assuming balanced action on either side. When that synthetic hold is a negative number, we highlight it in green and it represents an edge for the bettor. An arbitrage opportunity. 

The addition of these two columns to our odds screen has created an extremely simple way for users to find positive EV situations and profit from them. It doesn’t get much easier than letting Unabated do all the monitoring and calculations. Furthermore, since we feature major sports markets on our Odds Screen, you can get down some healthy sized wagers on these opportunities.  

The Best Line & Synthetic Hold features are free for all users. A Premium Subscription unlocks more market making sportsbooks.

5. Unabated Community Discord

As professional bettors, we’ve seen the toxicity of sports betting message boards as well as Gambling Twitter. We understand that it is a tough crowd. The very nature of trying to make a profit in markets literally stacked against you by outsmarting and outwitting sportsbooks makes for a sometimes disgruntled demographic.

However, it doesn’t have to be that way. In the end, we are all very like-minded. While each of us are on a different part of our journey to become a sharp bettor, we’re still all looking to climb the same never-ending mountain. 

We’ve built a Discord sports betting community that, to the best of our ability, facilitates that positive energy. There’s no pick-selling or scam-touting. There’s not a thousand different channels where you’re not sure where useful information would be posted.

Interacting With Professional Bettors

Instead, you can interact with our proven professionals, Rufus Peabody, Peter Jennings, and especially me, Captain Jack. In fact, if you don’t see me active on our Discord, you may have stumbled upon some of the few hours I sleep, or else it’s time to do a wellness check.

It’s not just idle chit-chat either. Our Discord members have been very generous in sharing promotions and bonuses in the #promos channel. They also have great dialogue on the optimum way to play bonuses. Spotting situational edges and sharing them is another common Discord thread. Especially in our Premium channels.

Premium Subscribers get access to our premium channels where a lot of the Art of Sports Betting is discussed among the smaller private audience. Many subscribers have taken their game to the next level by learning of new and inventive ways to scale their betting operations thanks to our discussions in the Discord. 

If you haven’t checked out the Unabated Sports Betting Discord Community, it’s completely free and you can generate your invite here. 

The Unabated Community Discord is free for all users. Premium Subscribers get access to private Premium channels.

6. In-Game Betting Tools

One of our first objectives in starting Unabated was to give bettors access to information about market dynamics that previously had only been available to few. Our Alternate Lines and Compare Lines tools did that for pregame odds. However, the industry is shifting to a higher percentage of wagers being placed in-game. 

Giving bettors access to alternate line pricing data on live in-game wagering is a revolutionary step forward in bettor knowledge. The value of each half point in a spread or total increases as the time remaining in a game decreases. Rufus Peabody and our team of qualified data scientists have built complex tools to do this for college basketball, NBA, MLB, and soon we will unveil NFL and college football. 

The Top Down Method of In-game Betting

Sportsbooks have been led to believe that in order to increase profits, they need to increase the frequency in which people wager. In-game betting is their means to that end. They get more bets as the market in the game progresses. The difficult part of this equation for the sportsbook operator is that they need to constantly be making new lines throughout the game and this presents even more surface area to defend. On top of that, in-game linemaking on complex US sports is much tougher than other sports they’ve dealt in the past.

Seeing the gap in the market for better in-game linemaking, Huddle (formerly DeckPrism), founded by Matt Davidow and Ed Miller, came on to the scene a few years ago with a better pricing model for in-game. They are the premier market maker for in-game betting. That’s why we have them prominently featured on our odds screen. 

You can use the Huddle real-time feed as your source of truth to practice a Top Down Method of finding value. Our live in-game screen only displays lines from our real-time sportsbooks, so it’s a decreased selection. This is because in-game lines move fast. Even a brief delay would be problematic for an in-game bettor. 

Ways To Win At Sports Betting Using Unabated’s In-Game Betting Tool

Our tool is designed to be used during TV timeouts when the lines stabilize for 2-3 minutes. In baseball, that’s between half innings. In the NFL, at halftime and during timeouts. We have a live real-time score feed in our odds screen so you’ll know when those windows of opportunity are. 

You choose your source of truth from our odds screen. Then you enter the game state information. We’ll project out vig-free pricing for moneyline, spreads, and totals based on all the information provided. From there, it’s up to you to find the value that exists in the market. Perhaps it’ll be at a book that’s on the screen in real-time. However, more likely it is in the Alternate Lines area of your own possible sportsbooks.

Here are two examples of the In-game Betting Tool in action. One using the in-game total on an MLB game. Notice the vig-free price of over 10.5 should be -138, but it’s available at DraftKings for -135. The second example shows that the fair price for NYY -5.5 is +153, that makes the OAK +5.5 naturally be -153. Looks like +5.5 -135 at DraftKings is also +EV.

We’ve found that sportsbooks are slow to countermeasure in-game bettors. They can’t effectively calculate the CLV or EV of the bettor. It comes down to win/loss and they have a blind spot of believing in-game bettors are a goldmine for the sportsbook. We think you’ll find that in-game betting is an incredible way to profit using Unabated. 

The In-game Odds Screen and the In-game Betting Tools require a Premium subscription.

7. Learning To Model With Our Video Library

To many aspirational bettors, coming up with their own projections is how they would like to beat sports betting. That can involve building quantitative models and often the learning curve is daunting. Especially when you factor in learning programming languages or advanced statistical concepts. It appears to many to be beyond their grasp. 

At Unabated, we are building what we hope will become an extensive library of video instruction to help you along your path to becoming a quantitative modeler. We have a series of short digestible videos from a guy that doesn’t waste letters in his name:, T. He has a great way of explaining the sometimes complex world of modeling. He also walks you through everything using Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. We have also released a series on building a sports betting model using data science.

If you’re looking to get into sports modeling, this is a great place to start. There’s no need to learn complex statistical theories, new programming languages, or new software. This summer, T built upon a baseball lineup model that explored the effect of player replacement in a lineup. He also explored building a pitcher strikeout model. Next he is moving into building models for NFL Player Props. These videos will help you create your own projections for use in conjunction with our NFL Player Prop Simulator. 

Additionally, I’ve been known to make an instructional video or two and I’ve got some great ideas of my own that I plan to work on in the months to come. These videos are completely free to watch and learn from. Check out these playlists if you haven’t already.

Our Educational Videos are free for all users.

8. The Unabated Props Odds Screen

Midway through the 2021 NFL season we launched our NFL Player Prop Simulator. For bettors who make their own projections or utilize projections from other sources, it was a game changer. Pricing out different yardage props for each player suddenly became much more accessible. 

In 2022, we debuted another tool: the ability to shop prices on prop markets. An odds screen, dedicated to just player prop bets! In the past, you had to pull up every sportsbook and drill down endlessly through all the menus to find the price they have on a player prop. Now, you’ll be able to see those numbers aggregated on one prop bet odds screen for easy comparison.

However, that’s not all. We’ve taken the technology we originally implemented on the NFL Season Simulator and applied it to player props. You can overlay the output of the simulator onto the props odds screen. Use projections from several preloaded sources, or upload your own.

You can even use this to quantify the edge at different lines. It’s essentially like having our popular Compare Lines feature, but for props. For some bettors, this is a magical tool for finding value on those prop bets.

Betting Props Isn’t The Account Killer It Once Was

One of the biggest paradigm shifts in sports betting since regulation began is the popularity of prop bets. The surge of new sports bettors that come from a background of betting on DFS has caused sportsbooks to be more receptive of prop bettors. 

Previously, if you focused on just betting player props, you could expect your account to be quickly limited or counter-measured. Now, sportsbooks are seeing a large portion of their weekly handle revolving around player props. As a result, in the NFL especially, they’ve become a bit more tolerant of player prop action.

There’s still a long way to go before sportsbooks will really tolerate big prop action, but for bettors who typically bet $500 or less, there is a decent market out there for getting money down on player props.

The Props Odds Screen requires an Props+ Tier subscription.

9. Pricing Alternate Lines With Unabated Betting Calculators

Our first product we unveiled to the betting world in the Summer of 2021 was our array of betting calculators. It remains the cornerstone of what separates Unabated from other resources out there for bettors. It’s also still the most versatile weapon you have in your arsenal when using Unabated.

Developed by Rufus Peabody and a team of talented data scientists, our betting calculators are composed of the following tools:

Compare Lines – A tool to compare two betting lines to indicate which one provides the better price.

Derivatives – Alternate Lines* – Enter a Primary Line and an Alternate Line and we’ll tell you what that Alternate Line should be priced. 

Derivatives – Partial Game* – Enter information about the full game odds, and we’ll price out partial game wagers like 1st Half, 1st Quarter, and 1st Period for you.

Closing Line Value – Use this calculator to find your CLV when the line moves between point spreads or totals between when you bet it and when it closes. You can also use this to calculate EV.

Hedge Betting Calculator – Enables you to find situations where hedging your bet produces optimal bankroll growth. 

Odds Converter – A lightning fast converter that takes any entry and converts to other formats. 

No-Vig Fair Odds Calculator – Quickly find the vig-free price for a two-way line.

Hold Calculator – Quickly find the theoretical hold for the sportsbook in any line.

* – Premium Subscription required.

Ways to Win at Sports Betting With These Betting Calculators

You got a glimpse of how these tools can be used in conjunction with the Unabated Line. They are also powerful on their own. 

For instance, you can explore the pricing of alternate spreads and totals using Compare Lines or the Alternate Lines tool. There is a lot of value buried among alternate lines even when they don’t show as the Best Line. In this example, we see that the Unabated Line is Over 6 -107 for the Tampa Bay/Miami game. The price at FanDuel doesn’t seem too special at over 6 -120.

However, if we dig into the menu at FanDuel, we find this list of Alternate Totals.

Using the Alternate Lines tool we can quickly price out various alternate totals. Doing so we find that the price of over 8.5 should be +234, but at FanDuel, it is +240. Betting on Over 8.5 +240 is a much better option than betting on over 6 -120. In fact, it’s a +1.8% Positive EV play. Had you looked at just primary lines, you wouldn’t be able to find a price better than the vig-free over 6 -107, but in the Alternate Lines there was value.

An Example Of Finding A Way To Win Using 1st Half Odds

Another popular calculator is our Partial Game tool. Finding value in halves and quarters is not unusual. Here’s a quick example. You’re line shopping for NFL 1st Half wagers and you see that a total of 21.5 is the standard price on the NYG/TEN Week 1 matchup. There are two outliers though. DraftKings has 22 and Caesars has 20.5. Inputting both into the Partial Game tool, you can see that only one produces an edge over the market consensus.

In this case, we wouldn’t try to hit the over 20.5 / under 22 middle. We’d focus on the poorer line and play the over 20.5 -110 with a slight edge.

Finding Closing Line Value 

Another versatile tool is our Closing Line Value Calculator. The tool itself is very straightforward. You enter the bet you made, and what the closing line was, and it will produce your closing line value (CLV). CLV is a popular metric with bettors. It helps them be less results-oriented and more focused on whether they had a good bet.

If you want to know your EV for a bet, you can enter the vig-free price of the sharp closing line in this tool and the answer is also your EV. For example, you make an NFL wager of CIN -6 -110 and the line closes at -6.5 -110 at the book where you bet it. Your CLV there is +3.34%.

Since we didn’t remove the vig from the closing line, that number is just the movement relative to the closing line. If you enter the vig-free closing line of -6.5 +100, you’d see your EV is still slightly negative at -1.32%.

However, the book you used might not be the best barometer of what is sharp and what isn’t. You can use the Unabated Line closing value to get a better sense of your EV. In this hypothetical example, if the Unabated Line closed at -6.5 -105, then you’d use that vig-free line as the Closing Line. Now, you do have a +EV wager. 

Finding Ways To Win At Sports Betting By Answering Tough Questions

The biggest advantage to our array of calculators and betting tools is how frequently you can use them to identify and quantify an edge. They are a Swiss Army Knife of functionality and since the data science behind them is quite complex, we strongly believe Unabated will continue to be the only place where you can use this unique array of tools. 

For many sports bettors, one of the hardest parts about betting is not being able to quantify your edge easily. This is especially true for bettors that might be coming from a math background, or maybe formerly pursued advantage play as a card counter in blackjack. The great thing about using these tools is we enable you to finally get those answers in many situations. These tools help clear a mental obstacle that blocks the path of many bettors.

Some of our Betting Tools require a Premium subscription.

10. Livestreams

You can read all the articles on our site. You can watch all the videos and read our lively Discord. However, for many it doesn’t actually click unless they see someone actively using our tools. Actually seeing a professional bettor at work and talking with them is paramount to understanding how winning betting is done.

This is one reason why we offer both free and premium livestreams on multiple platforms. For non-subscribers we have weekly livestreams during peak betting months. We also launched the Unabated Podcast, which is available on our YouTube channel as well as on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or anywhere else you get your podcasts. You can find Rufus, Peter, or myself frequently on these livestreams. The chat window is always open and we love answering your questions. We also have a large array of friends and guests to bring on. It’s a great opportunity to learn something new and interact with the presentation.

For more exclusive access, we offer Premium Livestreams to our subscribers. In these very informal half-hour broadcasts, it’s usually just me talking about my thoughts regarding a variety of betting topics. I tend to become loose-lipped in situations like these. I’ve pointed out more edges and angles on these short broadcasts than I could ever write about in a hundred articles. If you’ve ever wanted to hang out in a sportsbook with Rufus, Peter, or myself, these premium livestreams are probably as close as you’ll get.

Here’s one example of one of those premium livestreams.

Conclusion

These are just 10 ways to win using Unabated, but this isn’t an exhaustive list and it certainly isn’t the final word on the topic. Unabated will never be a finished project. 

Just like a good sports bettor, we are always finding ways to evolve. We want to stay one step ahead of the sportsbooks as well. We believe we have built a great data science team and tremendous engineering team to help make all of our fantastic ideas become usable reality.

Providing you with more ways to win at sports betting also creates sustainability in these edges as well. Not every Unabated user will be using the exact same approach. You are not a one-trick pony anymore. You are a multi-faceted warrior with many different ways to attack. Balance your attack and your opponent won’t know where you are going to strike next. Start your Unabated subscription today.

Happy Hunting!