Welcome to SportsMemo’s guide to Hockey Betting Strategy! Check out the lessons in here, apply them to your hockey betting, and go in a more informed hockey bettor, one with actual hockey betting strategies to guide your NHL betting.
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Sportsmemo Hockey Betting Strategies – Basics First.
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Betting on hockey through legal sportsbook operators provides some advantages that more popular sports, such as the NFL and NBA, do not provide. Because the sport is wagered upon less than other, more popular sports, the market is softer and has less data points in terms of money coming in and number of wagers for a particular matchup on a particular night.
This allows customers to find different prices more often across different sportsbook operators, so like most sports wagering but especially true with hockey, price shopping is a crucial element in becoming an efficient hockey bettor. In addition to a quick how-to for betting hockey, a few strategies for betting hockey is posted below.
How To Bet On Hockey
Like baseball, the most popular hockey markets are a money line wager, a puck line wager and a total goals wager. For example, the New York Rangers is the home team, and the New Jersey Devils is the road team.
The Rangers are a -250 favorite, which means for every $100 the player wants to win on the Rangers, the player must risk $250. Wagering on the Devils with a price of +150 means the player would win $150 for every $100 wagered.
A puck line is a spread market for a hockey game and is akin to the run line for baseball. Customers can either lay 1.5 goals with the favorite and would need a team to win by 2 goals or more or take 1.5 goals with the underdog and either lose by one goal or win the game outright.
The total goals market is selecting over or under for the number of goals scored in a content.
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Three Way Line Compared To A Two-Way Line
Hockey has both two-way odds and three-way odds. A two-way line for hockey includes the result of the game even if it goes into overtime. If a customer selects the Rangers money line at -250 and they wind up winning in overtime, it is considered a winning wager.
A three-way line is also known as '60 Minutes Betting' in hockey, as the money line wager provides three options, the Rangers, the Devils, and a tie after regulation ends.
If a customer selects the Rangers money line and the game is tied after regulation and the Rangers win in overtime, the customer does not win the wager and loses, because of the 60 Minutes market. The odds vary for the customer if selecting a two-way line or a three-way line because of the extra selection, and an example is posted below:
Example Of A Two-Way Line Compared To A Three-Way Line in Hockey
Two Way Line – Hockey Betting
| Two-Way Money Line | Money Line Odds | Risk To Win | Wager Grade If Win In Overtime | Wager Grade If Lose In Overtime |
| New York Rangers | -250 | $250 To Win $100 | Win | Loss |
| New Jersey Devils | +150 | $100 Wins $150 | Win | Loss |
Three Way Money Line – Hockey Betting
| Three-Way Money Line | Money Line Odds | Draw Odds | Risk To Win | Result If Tied After Regulation |
| New York Rangers | -220 | +300 | $220 To Win $100 | Loss |
| New Jersey Devils | +180 | +300 | $100 To Win $180 | Loss |
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With the basics of hockey wagering out of the way, here are some hockey betting strategies to stay consistent through an entire season:
Hockey Betting Strategy #1 – Current Form Trumps All
In a long, drawn out 82-game regular season, every team goes through peaks and valleys. Identifying when a team is in a rut or when that team is playing their best hockey of the season can turn a 10-game period into a money-making opportunity.
When checking on the records of NHL teams, their 'Last 10' and 'Streak' are both listed, which gives a mini snapshot into a team's current form. Even if a team is deemed to be towards the bottom of the league overall, there is no substitute for a team going 7-3 in their last 10 games and currently riding a three-game win streak.
Since there aren't many opportunities to wager on some of the teams towards the bottom of the standings, this is the opportune time to try and take advantage of a team getting +odds because of their overall perception across the league.
Hockey Betting Strategy #2 – Schedules And Rosters Matter
NHL lines can tell a story for where a particular team is during a specific week. Even if the Boston Bruins are the best team in the NHL at the midway point in the season, they may be +100 against the 7th place San Jose Sharks on a Friday night. Upon further inspection, the bettor sees that the Bruins are playing their 3rd game in 5 nights and are in the final stages of a west coast road trip.
Although the Bruins are the best team in hockey, that is still a large hill to overcome. This is also where rosters must be looked at.
If the Bruins have championship goals on their mind, perhaps they sit a defenseman at the end of a road trip to nurse a small injury or sit other starters because they won the first two games of their three-game west coast road trip.
Perhaps the starting goalie is getting a night off and the starters are playing with the team's backup goalie, which can affect the money line odds and the total goals number.
This is a rule of all sports, but the physicality of hockey makes it more pertinent compared to a baseball or basketball game. Because the Bruins are the best team in the sport, this may be one of the few opportunities to either A. wager on the Bruins with + odds as an underdog, or B. Wager against the Bruins in one of the few opportunities someone gets throughout an entire season.
Hockey Betting Strategy #3 – Analytics: Corsi, Fenwick and Expected Goals
It may not be to the level of where baseball has found itself, but of course there are analytical tools used to predict goals, quality shots and expected results.
Corsi is a shot attempt at five-on-five. If a team shoots the puck toward the goal, it's a Corsi For. If the other team shoots the puck toward the goal, it's a Corsi Against.
CF% or Corsi For Percentage:
The difference between Corsi events for and against represented as a percentage. If a hockey team has a CF% above 50%, then that team has been the dominant side between the two teams throughout the game.
Negative To Corsi For Percentage:
All shots are created equal. If it's an end-of-the-period shot across the entire ice that the goalie never had a problem with, it still counts as a Corsi For.
Fenwick
The same thing as Corsi except it doesn't count blocked shots, which means the two percentages, CF5 and FF%, normally wind up being close to one another.
Expected Goals For & Against: (xGF | xGA)
To solve the problem of all shots being labeled as equal, expected goals for and against tries to put a numerical value on the quality of a shot. As mentioned before, a full-ice, end-of-period-heave is not a higher-quality shot than a two-on-one fast break.
xGF (expected goals for) and xGA (expected goals against) try to put a value on each shooting attempt with a more detailed approach.
High-Danger Scoring Chances: (HDSC)
A 'good shot' is also not measured the same as a 'great shot', as high-danger scoring changes gets even deeper. HDSC grades shots that are taken inside the opposition's end with a ranking of 1, 2, or 3. A “scoring chance” is anything that is ranked as two or above, with an HDSC being the only one that is ranked as a 3.
The same kind of analysis kind be found go goalkeeping as well.
Goals Saved Above Expected: (GSAx)
Like HDSC, GSAx (goals saved above expected) can give better context to a goalie's performance. GSAx will factor in the quality of each shot a goalie saves or misses ...
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