This is a must read for novice sports bettors!

Betting the last week of the NFL season can be a real nightmare for novice football bettors. If you were one of many who logged into your sportsbook Sunday morning to find some of the most unbelievable lines you've ever seen, your not alone and don't be embarassed if you got duped into playing those lines. Just be sure that you took it as a lesson learned.

Week 17 NFL wreaks havoc for many each and every year. The reason for this is that NFL teams in contention to make the playoffs or that are already in the playoffs with their home field locked up can present some SERIOUS situations in which there is no motivation to win at all or huge motivation to win.

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With that being said, teams who have home fieldlocked up and have nothing to gain will almost always sit theirstarters for either the whole game or half the game at the veryminimum. A perfect example of this would be Week 17 of the 2005/2006season when the red hot Seattle Seahawks opened as a minus 2 favoriteat Lambeau Field vs. the Green Bay Packers. The line quickly droppedand then started going in Green Bay's favor with a gigantic 7and a half point move all the way to -5.5 at gametime.

A novice bettor not aware of the fact that bothQB Matt Hasselback and star RB Shaun Alexander along with allthe rest of the starters and major cogs would be sitting afterthe first or second series of the game would view this as a dreamline with Seattle getting 5.5 points. Naturally, the bettor can'tcontain himself and throws down a whopper on Seattle at +5.5.All the while, the Packers are the value play here despite havingto lay the points. Seattle has no motivation to win and they wantto protect their starters health for the playoffs so this putsthem in a position where they really don't give a hoot if theylose the game. They just wanna get out of Lambeau healthy!

Another example from the 2005 week 17 seasonwould be Cinci at Kansas City. KC needed Denver loss which happenedthe day before, they needed to win against Cinci and also needPitt to lose in order to make the playoffs. With these cicrumstancesin play, you can bet that they will bring their "A game" againsta Cinci team that is already in the playoffs and had planned onsitting Carson Palmer and Rudi Johnson amongst others. The alreadyhefty line actually went up even more making Cinci getting 10points almost a no brainer to the average bettor. How could theykick butt all season long and not be able to cover a 9 or 10 pointspread? Well, easy, motivated starters vs. 2nd and 3rd stringplayers are an easy mark, even for a bad team.

We hope this article has better educated youto think twice before betting into fishy lines at the end of anNFL season. Always be sure to read the game previews which usuallylet a reader know if a team is fighting for playoff position,has thrown in the towel, or is going to be sitting their starters.It makes a huge difference and will better help you to explainthe fishy line because something one will quickly figure out whenbetting on sports is that if it looks too good to be true, itprobably is! Investigate the spread and why it is so off kilterbefore chasing something that you are almost sure to get smoked on.