A lot of bettors think of summer as the downtime between the end of the old football season and the start of the new season in the fall. Those bettors are missing out on a ton of cash they could be raking in by betting on baseball.

There’s one major difference between wagering on baseball and on football that bettors should love. No spreads. When you’re betting on baseball you simply pick which team you think is going to win, and as long as they score more runs than the other team you win your bet. There’s no praying that Team A scored three more points than Team B, just hopeful hosannas that your pick scores more runs than the other team, period.

Anyone who knows anything about baseball knows it takes pitching to win (like goaltending in hockey), and it also plays a huge role when deciding on which team to place your bets. All you have to do is take a quick glance at the stats and scouting reports to separate the good from the bad in the pitching ranks. Obviously it’s not a foolproof tactic to simply focus on the starting hurlers, thanks to occasional off-nights and awful bullpens that blow leads, but the more knowledge you have about the pitchers (and bullpens also, of course) is one of the most important factors in choosing a winner when betting on baseball.

Baseball is a game of stats, steroid factors or not, and if you’re not careful you can get buried in the numbers while doing your betting research. Don’t go overboard when looking for statistical data on your chosen game, but don’t stop short either. If a batter is entering a game on a torrid hot streak, check out his history against the starting pitcher. If he’s already owned that pitcher throughout his career, then that hot streak is more likely to continue.

The baseball season is a long one so expect to run into a few bad betting streaks during the dog days of summer, but it can also be the easiest road to profit between snaps of the pigskin.

Here are some great sports books:

Bodog Sportsbook

Legendzsports.com