HOW TO MAKE SPORTS BETTING A PROFITABLE VENTURE:
Learning the basics of profitable betting is the best way to get started on a successful betting career. But as every successful bettor knows, you must continue to expand your knowledge and experience. In this article we discuss five ways to take your betting to the next level.
Perform Intensive Self Analysis:
To improve, you need to delve deeper and find trends in your results. As successful bettors we should already be quite good at this. You must use all of the analytical skills that you apply to selecting bets, to perform an unbiased account of your own betting record. Doing so, you will find the true nature of your edge.
A good place to start is by finding the odds range where you are most successful. For instance, some punters specialise at picking long shots and win a disproportionate number of bets on these underdogs. Other bettors know when to back favourites to create a steady stream of small wins. Whatever your specialty is, you need to find it and make a conscious effort to concentrate in that odds range.
Reign In Your Emotion:
Everyone has an emotional weakness in their game. Perhaps you are susceptible to chasing losses or maybe you place hasty bests due to overconfidence during a long winning streak. Either way, these emotional responses are affecting your results.
Develop a hypersensitivity to your particular emotional weaknesses and investigate how they are influencing your betting. Think back to all of the times where emotion has influenced the picks you have made and think of all the profits it has cost you. Once you have done this, it will be much easier to realize in the future what is happening and to control your instincts before you act.
The bookmaker is counting on you to become victim to the emotional chemistry in your brain. Channel these feelings into a more positive mindset and use logical calculation instead of emotional reaction to maintain your edge. It is crucial that you identify your emotional weaknesses and do your best to eliminate them from your process.
Refine Your Strategy and Be Consistent:
When you started betting you may have experimented with a plethora of different strategies such as doing form research, creating statistical systems, or combining several different methods. In order to get serious about your betting method you need to focus on what is the most proven method for you. You should develop a type of ritual and use it to select bets every time.
Never cut corners and never be in a rush to place a bet just because the line initially looks good to you. It is better to place no bet at all, than to place a bet through a halfhearted and haphazard research process. You must be disciplined to go through your full process with each bet.
A professional has no time for untested systems and approaches. If you want to try a new system or have an idea for a new edge, first paper trade that strategy for an extended period of time. After trialing the approach, first put it into practice with very small stakes, only then if it continues to prove successful should you fully incorporate it into your overall betting strategy.
- Bet With A Striking Mentality:
By this we absolutely do not mean that you should bet recklessly. Instead you should be aggressive and decisive in highly selective circumstances. Betting odds are by nature defensive measures employed by bookmakers to protect their commission. Bookmakers are not particularly interested in which side of an event pays out (although this is not always the case), only that they have created an even amount of action on either side so as to take their commission no matter what the result.
The only way they can do this is by moving the price on a line to make it equally appealing to backers of both sides. In this way, the bookmaker is at a disadvantage to the educated punter.
Because the bookmaker has an incentive to create as much action as possible, their line can often inaccurately reflect the real probability of a given outcome. The essence of successful betting is recognizing instances of these discrepancies. Bookmakers must offer lines on many different events.
Even events where they know they have no advantage. Lucky for us, we can wait on the sidelines for the exact line we want. When you do choose to attack, it will be because you understand your edge fully and know when you are in a position to take full advantage of it. In understanding what the bookmaker’s incentives are you can use their position to your advantage, control your exposure and secure success.
