The Essentials of Sports Betting
Learning how to bet on sports is, for the most part, relatively easy. There are a few basics that you really need to know, but these are all pretty straightforward and it doesn’t take long to master them. Once you understand the mechanics of how sports betting works, what’s involved in placing a bet, and the different types of bets you can place, you’ll be ready to get started.
However, you need to go a step further if you want a good chance of making money from betting on sports. Simply knowing how to bet isn’t enough, as you also need to know how to bet successfully. This means understanding several other aspects of sports betting, and learning how to master a range of important skills.
In this section of our sports betting guide you’ll find several articles that will help to put you on the path to success. We can’t guarantee that we’ll turn you into an instant winner, but we can certainly improve your chances of taking some money from the bookmakers.
We’ve divided the articles in this section into two categories. The first category is for all the articles containing essential information that you really need to know, and the second category is for all the articles containing essential advice for what you need to do. Links to these articles, along with an overview of each one, can be found below. First, though, we explain two fundamental aspects of successful sports betting.
The Fundamentals of Sports Betting Success
Successful betting takes a great deal of commitment. Learning all the theory is one thing, but putting it all into practice is no easy task. The path to success isn’t clearly defined, and what works for one bettor may not work for another. There are a plethora of different ways to make money, and it’s not as simple as following some magic system that will lead to guaranteed profits.
There’s so much involved in sports betting that it’s hard to isolate which aspects are the most important. There are, however, two particular things that are absolutely fundamental to “beating the bookmakers”.
- Learning How to Handicap the Market
- Practicing Good Bankroll Management
If you want the best chance of success, then we absolutely encourage you to read our sports betting section in its entirety, and encourage you to use other resources that can help improve your betting skills. You might not have the time to do that though, or you may simply want to get started and learn as you go along. Our advice in that case it to make sure that you understand at least the basics of sports handicapping, and that you ALWAYS practice good bankroll management. These two things are vital if you are to stand any chance of making money.
How to Handicap the Market
Sports handicapping is a complex subject. There are many variables involved, and it’s a skill that usually takes a long time to fully master. The good news is that you don’t need to master it straight away. You do, however, need to understand the basics.
In very simple terms, handicapping the market is about trying to identify betting opportunities that have a positive expected value. Wagers with positive expected value are said to be “+EV”, and they are wagers which should, in theory at least, make money over time. Although successful sports handicapping isn’t easy, it can be very profitable if done well.
There’s no definitively correct way to handicap sports betting markets. It’s not an exact science by any means, and there are several different approaches that can be used. Sports handicapping is therefore difficult to teach. It’s a skill that’s best learned through experience and some degree of trial and error.
With that being said, we can explain all the basics that you need to understand, and that’s exactly what we do in the following article.
What Is Bankroll Management?
Bankroll management is all about being sensible with your money. It’s actually quite straightforward to practice good bankroll management, and yet it’s something that many bettors neglect to do. You don’t want to make the same mistake. If you don’t manage your money correctly, then you’re very unlikely to make profits consistently, and far more likely to end up going bust. Many bettors have failed not because they couldn’t pick winners, but because they didn’t protect their bankroll adequately.
The key to good bankroll management is setting specific guidelines for how much you’re going to stake, and then being disciplined enough to stick to those guidelines. There is more to it than that though. We explain the concept in more detail in the following article, which includes some useful advice.
Essential Information
What Makes a Successful Bettor
You would probably prefer to develop your own betting style rather than copy someone else’s, and indeed this is what we recommend. There is, however, a lot to be learned from studying the common attributes and characteristics of successful bettors. This article will help you understand what it is that makes them successful, which will in turn give you a much better chance of making money yourself.
Why Odds and Lines Change
The odds and lines for a betting market are rarely constant. They’ll typically change in the run up to the relevant sports event. The fluctuations can be relatively insignificant, but they can also be quite dramatic. It’s possible to make betting decisions based on these fluctuations in the right circumstances. You need to understand what causes them first though, which we explain in this article.
What Is Reduced Juice?
Any bettor with aspirations of making money should be fully up to speed on what reduced juice is, and how to use it effectively. Reduced juice is a very simple concept in betting, and yet it’s often misunderstood or not understood at all. This article explains it in detail, explores the advantages and disadvantages of using reduced juice betting sites, and compares reduced juice to betting with bonuses.
What Are Staking Plans?
Staking plans are an essential component of bankroll management. In basic terms, they are a set of defined rules which stipulate how much you should stake on each wager you place. These rules can be based on a range of different criteria. In this article we explain staking plans in more detail, and provide some example plans that you might like to use for your own betting.
Why Bookmakers Limit Accounts
One of the biggest challenges a successful sports bettor can face is finding somewhere to place his wagers. Online bookmakers and sports betting sites have an ultimate goal of making money, so a winning bettor is not an ideal customer for them. Since that is the case, they often limit the accounts of winners. They limit accounts for other reasons too, as we explain in this article.
Pros and Cons of Tipping Services
An alternative to making your own selections is to use tipping services. This is often considered to be an easy way to make some money, but this hasn’t always been the case. Tipping services can be good, and even worth paying for, but there are distinct advantages and disadvantages to using them. We explore those in this article, and also offer our views on whether you should use tipping services or not.
Essential Advice
Choosing Which Sports to Bet On
There’s no clear right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing which sports to bet on or how many different sports to bet on. These are things that you should put some thought into though. Ideally you want to bet on the sports which are suitable for you, and that provide you with the best chance of success. In this article we explain some factors you need to consider when determining which sports meet these criteria.
Picking Selections the Right Way
Picking selections is obviously a crucial aspect of sports betting. If you don’t get this part right, then it doesn’t really matter what else you do, you’re simply not going to make money. It’s not essential to win every single wager you place, and you don’t necessarily even need to win more wagers than you lose, but you do need to make sure that you take the right approach to picking selections. This article will teach you how.
Comparing Odds and Line Shopping
You should always try to find the best odds and lines available for any wager you place. This is vital if you want to maximize potential returns, and it’s relatively an easy thing to do. It’s really just a matter of spending some time to see what’s available. In this article we explain just why comparing odds and line shopping can make a big difference to your bottom line, plus we offer some tips on the most effective methods to use.
Emotional Control and Discipline
It’s very easy to lose control when betting on sports. A particularly bad result, or an extended run of bad results, can be hard to deal with and lead to making rash decisions. The most successful gamblers are very good at avoiding this. They tend not to let their emotions get the better of them, remaining disciplined and in control. This is something you should strive for too, and in this article we provide some advice on keeping your emotions in check.
Keeping Records and Analyzing Bets
Keeping accurate records of all the wagers you place, and the results of those wagers, is very important. This not only helps to keep track of how much you’re winning or losing, it also enables you to carry out some analysis of your betting. You can highlight where you’re doing well, and where you might be going wrong, so that you can then fine-tune your approach and hopefully improve your results.
Sucker Bets and How to Avoid Them
One of the easiest ways to make money from sports betting, or at least lose less, is by simply avoiding the worst bets you can make. Wagers that are especially bad and never, or rarely, offer value are known as sucker bets. These are the types of wagers that you never want to place. Not only do we provide some examples of what sucker bets look like in this article, but we also provide some advice on how to avoid them.
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