Here you will find the betting percentages for the spread, money line and total for all of the upcoming college basketball games. Oddsmakers rarely release lines on college basketball games early, so more times than not the games you will see are only for the current day. Understanding betting percentages can be a useful tool for handicapping games. Not only does it give you insight on where the sharp money is coming in, you can also see which games the betting public is pounding.
If you are new to betting on sports and aren't quite sure what betting percentage is referring to, it's simply the percentage of bets that have been placed on each side of a specific matchup. Say there's been 1,000 wagers placed on a game. If 600 are on "Team A" and 400 are on "Team B," that means "Team A" is receiving 60% of the bets (600/100 = .60 and .60 x 100 = 60%). What a lot of people get confused, is they think the 60% is a reflection of the amount of money being wagered on the game. This is not the case. The betting percentage is simply the number of bets. The actual amount that is being wagered is something the books don't share with the general public.
You might be asking yourself how is this information helpful? The key is to factor in the betting percentages with line movement, which is why we include both the opening and current line in our charts above. If a team is receiving 60% of the bets, your would expect the line in that game to go up or down depending on which side is receiving the action. While a lot of times this is the case, there are numerous instances where the line goes in the opposite direction.
For example, "Team A" may have opened as a 6.5-point favorite. If they were getting 60% of the action, you would anticipate the line to go to "Team A" -7 or more. If it were to drop to "Team A" -6 or less, that's a good sign that sharp money is coming in on the other side. Sharp bettors typically risk a lot more than the general public, so while they are only accounting for 40% of the action, the amount of their bets offsets that of the public and forces the books to lower the line to try and get more action on "Team A." While the sharps aren't always right, siding with them over the long-run is a wise investment.