Serious sports bettors often dismiss futures wagers as sucker bets targeted at ’squares‘ looking for a big payoff. For example, a typical futures ’sucker bet‘ would be something like betting that Harvard will win the NCAA basketball tournament at 500/1 odds. Sure, the potential payback is huge but here’s the problem–the „true odds“ of Harvard winning the NCAA hoops tournament are astronomical, and certainly well in excess of 500/1. That means that from the outset this bet represents a poor wagering value.

Of more practical concern to the serious sports bettor is the necessity of tying up a portion of your wagering bankroll for a long period of time. Additionally, once you’ve placed a futures bet the outcome is still subject to the typical areas of concern for sports handicappers–injuries, trades, coaching changes, etc. It’s hard enough to stay on top of these variables on a day-to-day basis, and predicting them over the full season is downright impossible.

So why bet futures at all? More so than anything else, its essential to think of sports wagering not in terms of who wins or loses, but in terms of value. Properly utilized, future book wagers are often a great source of value. Below are some of the ways I like to use future wagers:

Futures can be a good way to leverage value on propositions where your knowledge is greater than the bookmaker’s. For example, many sports books offer betting propositions on entertainment oriented events like the Academy Awards. A handicapper who pays close attention to the movie industry and Hollywood news can stay one step ahead of the linesmaker.

With many books taking bets on awards like ‚Best Picture‘ before nominations are even announced, a bettor has a great opportunity to find overlay situations. By staying on top of the entertainment news and accurately predicting which films will be nominated, its often possible to get substantially better prices than will be available after their announcement.

Making the Academy Awards an even better candidate for futures wagers is the nature of the film business itself. The release schedule for films is set well in advance, and after the year end cut off date no ’surprise‘ releases can sneak in to consideration. At this point, its relatively easy to narrow down the serious contenders and with some work to come up with a ’short list‘ of Oscar candidates.

It’s also possible to leverage value in the ’stick and ball‘ sports with future wagers. There are obviously more variables in sports than in the entertainment industry and the top teams are never going to be found ‚under the radar‘. For example, you can already bet that the Patriots will win the 2010 Superbowl but you’ll be hard pressed to find a value price on such a popular team with the general public.

The place to find value in this sort of proposition is to look at the less obvious teams. A few years ago an associate of mine took positions on several teams NHL that started slowly, including the Calgary Flames at 40/1. By the end of the regular season they were down to prices as low as 5/1 or 6/1.

This play wasn’t based on any sort of profound revelation that a team that underachieved early in the season would turn it around, but rather on the potential value they presented. In other words, the ‚true odds‘ were far less than the number offered at the time the bet was placed. At these high prices, its possible to isolate a few potential ‚dark horse‘ candidates and should any pan out they present a variety of opportunities to hedge and lock in profits.

Also, don’t forget to consider ‚the field‘. Many futures wagers lump a number of teams or competitors together as ‚the field‘ and offer a single price to bet them all. Occasionally, the quick thinking handicapper can find unique value situations. For example, after Dale Earnhardt’s tragic death in 2001 some sportsbooks continued to offer a ‚field‘ position on rookie of the year. A bettor who followed NASCAR closely would have quickly realized that Kevin Harvick–who replaced Earnhardt in his Richard Childress racing Chevy–qualified for the ‚rookie of the year‘ award and could have bet the field at prices as high as 15/1. After he won his first race, the price for ‚the field‘ dropped to 2/1 and by midseason ‚the field‘ was a -250 favorite.

This is obviously a best case example, but there have been similar circumstances that were still good value plays but didn’t work out perfectly like the Harvick situation. Several years ago it wasn’t uncommon to find a field bet on NASCAR road races that allowed you to bet several of the road course specialists like Ron Fellows, Boris Said and Scott Pruett with one bet. You wont be able to take advantage of the field bet often, but if you keep your eyes open and think out of the box it can be very profitable when it does occur.

As a postscript, I want to emphasize the importance on shopping around any futures play for the best price. Shopping points is a smart thing to do on any wager, but the differences from book to book are frequently most extreme with futures plays. A little legwork can yield a substantially better price and the resulting better value.

Ross Everett is a freelance writer specializing in sports handicapping, drag racing, travel and fencing. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is in charge of providing daily free sports picks to a number of Internet and broadcast media outlets. He lives in Las Vegas with three dogs and a wombat.