College basketball tends to get a lot of attention around March, and for good reason. March Madness is one of the most enjoyable times for sports in the entire year—a single-elimination NCAA tournament full of underdog stories and buzzer beaters? Sign us up and check out the best March Madness odds!

With this swell in competition also comes a swell of new bettors looking for college basketball betting systems that can make them money. And while the NCAA tournament itself has plenty of great college basketball betting strategies, there are also general systems that you can use for years to ensure you make a profit year-round. Let’s look at a few.

What Is A College Basketball Betting System?

Sports betting can be an emotional experience—a team wins us money once, and we want to ride them to the promised land over and over again. We develop favorite players, favorite coaches, and favorite teams. All of this can be fun, but it can also lead us to make mistakes when we let our emotions override our good sense when we place bets.

That’s where a betting system comes in.

Having a betting system is a great betting tip to implement in your strategy. By following a set of rules you create, you can maximize your chances of winning and keep your emotions out of the equation. And remember, if you decide on a system and don’t see results, you can (and should) change your betting strategy.

Let’s look at four examples of betting systems you can choose from.

#1 Against The Spread

It’s easy to determine the best teams in any sport—just look at their win-loss record. However, things get a little more complicated when it comes to sports betting. Because oddsmakers use a point spread to even the odds, you need to figure out how a team will perform in relation to the spread. For that, you can check their ATS record.

When point spread betting in basketball, keep these tips in mind:

Don’t overvalue past performance – When it comes to an ATS record, it doesn’t work the same way as a normal win-loss record. Because all the games are curved to make them even, ATS records should fall somewhere around 50%. Oddsmakers aren’t perfect so there will be variance, but just because a team had a good ATS record doesn’t mean they’re likely to keep that up.

Take a long approach – If you flip a coin and it lands on heads five times in a row, the next time it’ll probably land on tails, right? Wrong. That’s the gambler’s fallacy. Each individual flip has a 50% of going either way. But over the long term, the numbers will even out. Same with ATS records—they can’t tell you the result of any individual game, but they can make you aware of trends that will pay off in the long run.

#2 Evaluating The Matchup

Another betting system that can help you organize your bets is one that allows you to set up a few rules as to when you should bet the favorite and when you should bet the underdog. When evaluating the matchup, consider the following:

Home-court – Which team is playing at home? This may seem simple, but teams play better at home due to home-court advantage. As such, it may be smart to avoid putting money on the road team.

Recent performance – Is either team on a winning or losing streak? Recent performance can affect results.

Margin of victory or defeat – In addition to wins and losses, what were the scores of recent games? Has the favorite been blowing teams out or barely winning? Has the underdog been getting destroyed or fighting hard until the end?

If all of these points are in the favor of one team, it’s a smart move to put some money on them.

#3 Strength Of Schedule

Another way to go beyond the win-loss record of teams is to look at their strength of schedule. If one team has been playing weak teams and the other has been battling the best teams of the sport, you may want to put your money with the more battle-tested squad, regardless of recent record.

There are also more mathematical ways that you can use a team’s strength of schedule to evaluate their wins that can help you determine where to put your money, such as giving a different value to easy wins vs. hard wins.

#4 Over/Under History

While we tend to think of betting as picking winners, there’s more to it than that. You can often find favorable odds by looking at over/under total points for a game. By looking back at whether teams generally go over or under predicted scores, you can get a good idea of their tendencies and find value before oddsmakers start adjusting the betting line.

Test Your System At Tipico

Even a sports bettor utilizing computers and advanced algorithms can’t guarantee that their betting system will be a winner. That’s the beauty of sports. But by finding a system and betting strategy that you believe in, you can be sure that you’re making your bets with your head.

Whether you’re betting in the NCAA basketball tournament for the underdog, or for a ranked team during the regular college basketball season, the system you can always count on is Tipico’s online sportsbook.

Whether your system uses advanced calculus or you always bet on the team wearing red, you can feel secure that you’re seeing the best college basketball odds and bet options at Tipico Sportsbook. We offer sports betting in Ohio, Colorado, Iowa, and New Jersey. Sign up and start winning today!

Tipico Sportsbook supports responsible gaming year-round; learn more and find resources at the AGA’s “Have a Game Plan“.