Betting advice

Prevent frequent mistakes

It’s only human. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s nothing to get angry over, it’s nothing to be frustrated about and when it come to betting, it is nothing to panic about. The best things about mistakes is that you can learn from them. Use them as a learning curve to improve your betting experience and outlook. If everyone got every decision right all the time there would be no bookmakers in business. So mistakes are going to happen and how you handle and react to them is the key to successful betting. Here we take a look at home to prevent the most frequent mistakes.

Don’t chase bets and long odds

One of the biggest mistakes that new bettors make is chasing bets. After suffering a couple of losses with sports bets, the temptation is to try and make up for the lost stakes by betting an even bigger stake, usually on bigger, riskier odds. This is the total opposite of what should be happening. This is where having a set betting budget is essential. That way you know how much you can afford to lose and if you lose that amount that is it, time to step away. But punters don’t like losing and try to recoup losses by taking drastic measures. You aren’t going to look at short favourite odds when you are in a hole, you look for longer odds and end up throwing away more money. This is chasing bets and absolute thing to avoid in betting practices. Never change your staking or budget plans in the account of a loss.

Lady luck is not a bettor’s friend

When a player pops up late in a game and nets you a winning goal, then you have the sensation of lady luck being on your side. That’s not true, it has nothing to do with it. Luck is actually not a great thing to look for in betting. Avoid any wagers that rely on luck like who wins the coin toss at the start of the match. That equates to a 50% chance of losing which is a percentage far too high to risk from a betting perspective on something that is out of everyone’s control. It’s just not worth the risk because you could use that stake to find far more favourable odds for yourself.

Don’t bet on the unknowns

The more that you are informed about a market, the better your chances are going to be of building yourself some profit from it. If 100% of all your betting has gone to football matches, but then suddenly you get caught up in the hype of a big club rugby match going on and you throw money at it without having any prior knowledge of the game or the teams involved in the match. That is a complete shot in the dark and not a great betting practice. Don’t get pulled away from what you know, what the very staple of your betting practices are. Do so when you have informed yourself better about a new market, but not before.

Top Betting Advice Tips

• Learn to walk away (when winning or losing), have an exit strategy
• Don’t look at luck for help
• Learn from mistakes
• Never bet to try and make up for losses
• Don’t bet on unknowns

Just because you have a budget, don’t spend it all

Having a betting budget is so important to a punter so as to at least limit any potential losses. However, just because you have a budget doesn’t mean that you have to spend all of it. If you are having a good day of betting and find yourself in profit, then learn how to stop. Why keep going and spend all of your budget? Say you have a budget of £10 for the day and you have so far staked £5 of it and you have earned £20 in profit. There isn’t always the need to spend the other £5 of your budget that you had for the day. You could simply look at that as profit and walk away. This is recognising how to have an exit strategy from your betting. It is tempting when you are winning to keep playing, but having self control and knowing when it is best to step can potentially boost how much cash you keep on your side and not the bookmakers’.

Massive windfall, small chance

The enthusiasm and optimism with which a punter enters the world of betting is understandable. Nearly everybody will think that they can beat the bookmaker easily and pick up profit on a constant basis. Not only that, pick up big profit from small stakes by backing selections at long odds. The reality is, is that is not the case at all. Do big paydays happen? Of course, but do they happen a lot? No. Just think about how many people bet across the UK in one day, how many are likely to walk away with a massive profit? Not very many at all.

There are ways to gun for a big win, but for beginners learning how to build profit slowly and carefully over time is the correct approach to take. You can throw away money after money after money in chasing long odds and by the time that you manage to lose one, you will barely compensate for you losses in between. Use your money more wisely and look for more sensible options. If a bookmaker has quoted a team in a match at 4/1 underdogs to win, they have done so for a reason because it is very unlikely to happen. Be humble and don’t get blinded by trying to chase a big winner. Side bets of accumulators and system bets are fine for that, but not in regular betting.

How to overcome a losing run in betting

Most seasoned punters have been through it. Nearly all new punters will face it down the line. The dreaded losing streak when nothing you seem to do goes right and Lady Luck has completely deserted you. Every betting decision that you make, even looking in backing favourites seems to get upset. It happens, it’s nothing to fear, it is something to be prepared for. Knowing that it is going to come at some point and recognising that it will, so when it does you don’t panic, is a pretty important step. That way you can at least be prepared for it.

Advice during a losing streak

What do you do when you seem to keep losing? Well, there are some actions to take and some actions to definitely not take. Not chasing bets, meaning that you are throwing bigger stakes at bigger odds selections to try and make up for some losses is definitely not the thing to do. That’s likely to just get you into more of a hole. When you are stuck in a bit of a betting rut, it is important to recognise that you are actually there because then you can make yourself step away from the betting action.

Stepping away, taking a break from betting will clear your head and more importantly stop the losing streak. If you are not betting then you are not losing, so that is a good way to look at things. Treat that as a positive to take a break as you could be stuck in a mental rut in your approach to your betting selections as well. A rest is as good as a change as they say.

Be adaptable

The actual change may be a good thing too. If you are hitting a losing streak, stop and take a look at your betting strategy. It may be the case that your downturn in fortune is happening for a reason. Be open minded and adaptable enough to adjust what you are doing, be humble in recognizing that perhaps your betting strategy isn’t as solid as you had first thought it was. Take some time away from betting and try and tweak your betting strategy. We are not suggesting throwing everything out of the window here but look for small adjustments that you could be making. Maybe it is the amount of favourites that you are backing. Maybe you are chasing odds which are too long. Maybe there has been a calculation error in your staking formula. Maybe you have missed some teams news about a club. Whatever it is, take a patient look and everything and re-assess what you are doing.

Cut back on your stake

The natural way to try up make up losses, and something that is a mistake that a lot of new punters make, is thinking that by throwing more money at the problem it will get better. If you have lost five bets, throwing a huge stake which is beyond your budget at one big bet to try and cover all the losses that you have taken is a poor betting choice. In fact, you should be doing the opposite until you get back on track. You need to cut back the stake that you are playing. This is a way to manage your losses until you settle back into a solid betting strategy and things are taking a more positive spin. Until that happens there is no point spending all of your betting budget until things are aligned. Just as importantly, when you find yourself winning again, don't go crazy by drastically raising stakes. In fact you could play with a formula such as after every winning bet you decrease your stake by one unit, and after a losing bet you increase it by one unit, thereby keeping things in balance.

Proceed with caution

Part of cutting back how much you are putting out is to do with caution and care. When you are looking at losing streaks it is a good idea to tread just a little more carefully. Take more careful betting options. See if you have been inadvertently taking shortcuts through your statistical analysis and research. Don’t make radical changes and don’t overreact.