Book Review: Sports Betting Down the Bones

Reviewed by Joe Walters

It’s not all about luck.

Sports are about as unpredictable as the world is. Sure we might have some ideas about what might be forthcoming: rain, another extinction, the 76ers winning the finals this year. But we can’t really know for sure. Since it’s unpredictable, some of sports betting is luck. No doubt about it. Sports Betting Down to the Bones doesn’t even shy away from that. Instead, it embraces it and helps you prepare for it. 

This beginner’s guide to sports betting tells it like it is—and helps you figure out all the hullaballoo (and strategies) along the way. From unfamiliar terms to popular months for specific sports, this book is bound to have newcomers prepared and excited to place their first bets.

Sports Betting Down to the Bones does so many things right, but none feel quite as important as the feeling of confidence readers will have after finishing and before jumping into the murky waters of sports betting. 

I feel so relieved that I had a straightforward and honest author-team to guide me through the realization that winning in sports betting is about preparedness and managing a bankroll responsibly, not only knowing how good Joel Embiid is.

But this baseline understanding gets more specific partway through the book. It begins to dive into the specifics of what kind of bets you should look out for, like games involving the weather, the team’s history in games of this nature, and NFL’s divisional underdogs in September. I love the specificity here. After reading this book, you have a handful of bet strategies that you could implement right away.

An ever-important feature for guidebook nonfiction, this book is structured well and would be great to revisit when it’s time to set up spreadsheets, while you’re researching, and while you’re placing bets. I could see this book littered with post-it page markers for all the helpful and practical information inside.

There may be a few times when beginning bettors are inundated with sly usage of just-learned terms, but that can be expected with nonfiction on any new subject. Since the book starts with terms—an important move considering there is new language essential to learning—it doesn’t focus too much on inspiring you at the beginning. But by the time you reach the end and have all of the information provided, your inspiration will come from the idea that, “Hey, maybe I can do this.”

I’d happily recommend Sports Betting Down to the Bones to readers with a bit of disposable income and a willingness to use researched-strategies to make money on the side. Manuel and Angela do such an excellent job of giving us what we came here for.

Genre: Nonfiction / Sports

Print Length: 162 pages

ISBN: 979-8847054492

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