Depending on the type of strategy you'll follow.
For example, the strategy in sports betting which I think is effective is " bet against the public",.
It's an effective method as I've mentioned but you can't just follow this method blindly, you also need to spot a match-up that you think one side is heavily favored by the public, so you can spot the value before you take the other side.
The crowd is always betting on favorites. And as far as I know, studies have been conducted and it turned out that the bet on the favorites is the least profitable.
If we look at the overall result, we can only choose between "profitable and not profitable", so I would like to tag the public to be not profitable.
Therefore, even such a strategy loses to the strategy "do not bet at all"
I'm just referring on the overall bets and I'm glad that you have agreed that the public are betting on the favorites all the time, so they will lose most of the time. How I wish I can always follow this method, but TBH, it's hard to follow as sometimes you also like to enjoy watching and your favorite team is sometimes a public bet.