When it comes to placing your bets on your favorite football, basketball, or baseball team, you have to consider many aspects to make the right choice. The one you might have heard of is “home team advantage”. Is it just a superstitious belief or is there actual truth in it? Should you consider this factor when placing your bets?
The answer is simple: you have to use absolutely every available tip when betting on sports and home advantage is one of them.
Let’s take a closer look at this question!
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What Is Home Field Advantage?
Home-field advantage is a tendency for athletes to win more often when they compete at their home facility. Studies have proved that home performers tend to defeat visiting teams in more than half of all the games played.
Consequently, home-field advantage is a very important aspect to consider when it comes to betting on team sports, especially in such games as basketball, baseball, tennis, wrestling, or football. Depending on the kind of sport, the typical success rate of home teams varies from 50% to 70%.
What Causes Home Team Advantage?
If you are thinking that a familiar stadium or habitual weather are the only aspects that constitute home advantage, you are mistaken. In fact, there’s a little more going on behind this term. Let’s dig deeper and try to find out what causes the advantage of the team playing at home.
No travel fatigue
It is clear that absolutely any team feels much better when they play at home. Firstly, there’s no need for a home team to travel. They wake up in the morning, drink their tea or coffee, and go to the stadium where the game takes place. Moreover, they can get enough sleep and get support from their family or friends.
On the contrary, if players need to spend a day on the trip, they will undoubtedly be exhausted before the match.
Crowd support
It goes without saying the crowd usually supports the home team. They provide confidence and adrenaline to their favorite team players. However, a lot depends on the density of the crowd. For example, football usually has very loud fans while baseball fans may leave the game even before it is over. The atmosphere of the crowd can undoubtedly influence the outcome of the match.
Referee bias
One of the most significant aspects to consider is officiating bias in favor of the home teams. It is clear that referees have to be impartial, but many of them have their favorite teams. Most refs subconsciously want their home team to be the best. For example, let’s take basketball. In this game, the number of fouls and the number of free throws are usually subject to referee bias. If we analyze the data from the 2018/19 NBA season, we can see that the home team usually has 0.8 more free throws.
When Does Home Advantage Matter Most?
As we have already mentioned, a lot depends on the kind of sports that you are going to bet on. Let’s try to delve deeper into this question and find out when home field advantage matters most of all.
Home team advantage varies depending on sports
Home advantage can influence the performance of absolutely any team, but its significance usually depends on the kind of sports and varies widely between the leagues. Statistically, the NFL usually has 57% of winnings at a home stadium of 57%, while for the NBA this rate is 59.9%, and for the NHL it is 55,1%. Therefore, a home field advantage is an important factor to consider for those who want to predict the winner correctly.
Home field advantage matters more during the playoffs
In basketball and football, home team advantage is more important in the postseason, during the playoff. In such games as baseball or hockey, we can see a similar advantage during playoff and regular-season games. During the post-season games, the winning percentage is usually as follows:
- NHL teams — 55.3%;
- MLB teams — 54.2%;
- NBA teams — 64.5%
- NFL teams — 64.7%.
Calculating the Home Team Advantage Factor
Let’s try to find out how to calculate this factor. In such a scenario, you can use the following approaches:
- Calculating home wins percentage
To illustrate the example better, let’s analyze the results of the 2013/14 Spanish Primera Division. There were 179 wins, 115 losses, and 86 draws in total. Now, we need to sum up all wins and all losses and divide the figure by two. So we have: (179+115)/2=147. This is an expected number of wins in case there is no home advantage for any of the teams.
To define home wins percentage, you need to divide the number of home wins by the expected number of wins. We have: 179/147 = 1.22. What does this result show? We can see that in La Liga 2013/14, teams that played at a home stadium held 22% edge over the visiting team.
- Compare home goals
It’s another method that you may use. In such a scenario, you can use the formula:
Home Field Advantage = (Home Goals for – Home Goals against)/the number of games played.
For example, a team has 49 goals at a home stadium and 10 lost goals. In this case, we have (49-10)/19 (the number of played games) = 2.05.
Home field advantage can be applied to absolutely any team-oriented competition. It’s a crucially important factor that is usually considered by experienced bettors when handicapping this or that sports event. Therefore, if you want to make the most profitable bets, you should undoubtedly consider this issue.
Conclusion
No matter what kind of sports you are going to bet on, you should do a comprehensive research before placing your bets. If you are currently looking for a trusted betting platform, Parimatch website is at your disposal. We offer quick payouts, a wide array of betting markets, and we also have a mobile betting app for those who prefer making bets on the go.
Remember that sharp bettors don’t rely on mere luck. Instead, they study all the relevant factors before the game and use the right betting platform!