When you are considering your picks for your weekend bets it’s a good idea to always make sure that you check the injury reports for whatever team you are looking at. I know that it sounds like a pretty obvious statement but its crazy how many people seem to ignore this important information. It’s surprising how often people place bets for teams with significant injuries to key players and they wonder why they’re not winning as often as they could be. To maintain a consistent winnings in betting on sports you need to look at all of the information you can before you place your bets.

Probably the most common reason people don’t look at it is that they don’t feel it’s really as important, and it really is. If key players are out of the game it’s really going to affect the outcome. You need to be thorough with your knowledge of the team and how they rank amongst each other. To help you with this, injury reports and team depth charts can be found on-line at most major sports outlet websites and many other sports sites. You should check this information daily and before you make any bets.

When you are fallowing a low risk betting strategy, you should avoid teams with injuries of players that are near the top of the depth charts. Yes, this will limit some of the teams you should bet on, but don’t forget about your goal. Increasing your bank roll will happen with low risk, safe bets that you are sure to win.

One thing you may notice while quickly scanning the odds for Week 11 is the large spreads that have been given to a number of games. There’s usually been at least one large spread each week this season (every time New England suits up anyway), but right now there are four double-digit spreads already and if the lines move the right way more could soon be coming.

New England gets a divisional matchup with the Buffalo Bills this week and they’re a huge 16-point favorite. Coming off a bye the Pats should be ready to put a ton of points in the board, while Buffalo could be without one of their few offensive weapons, running back Marshawn Lynch.

Also garnering double-digit odds this week are the Indianapolis Colts, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys. The Colts are a huge 14.5-point favorite against Kansas City despite the fact they’re overloaded with injuries on both offense and defense. The Eagles’ offense exploded for 33 points against Washington last week, and Philly is a 10-point favorite against the winless Dolphins on Sunday. And, finally the Cowboys and their NFC-best offense are a 10.5-point favorite in their game against Washington.

Other games that might be on their way to double digits odds include Pittsburgh at the Jets, in which the Steelers are a 9.5-point favorite, and Carolina at Green Bay, in which the Packers are also a 9.5-point favorite.

I used to be a serious Mac-o-phile. Down with Big Blue and all that. Then one of my friends, a computer programming whiz, gave me this piece of wisdom: All Operating Systems Suck.

Yet the PC is still king, and some sports gambling sites still have issues when you log on with a Mac, or if you’re running Linux. This is a rare problem these days, though. Just about everything you see on today’s Web pages was written in an open standard language, including “Web 2.0” stuff like XML. The experience of sports gambling should be almost identical on a Mac or a PC.

Security is another issue. Virtually all viruses, Trojan horses and other bits of nastiness are written for Windows. If you have an account at an offshore sportsbook, or any other sensitive information that resides on your computer, you might want to consider a non-Windows environment. Why add more risk to your betting?