It’s always been popular to bet on sports, as it is considered the most straightforward kind of gambling, but things have really taken off with the appearance of online betting. Now placing a bet doesn’t even require you to leave your home. Some bet only from time to time to add some fun and excitement to watching their favourite game, while others bet professionally. Professional bettors have taken sports betting to a whole new level, which takes much more dedication and time. They typically put a lot of effort into developing their betting strategy.

Whether you’re merely a recreational bettor or you have an aspiration to become a professional one, you might find yourself making mistakes and losing bet after bet. If that’s the case, you’re probably in need of some guidance and a few pieces of good advice. Take a look at these tips for improving your skills to start betting like a pro.

Get Familiar with the Basics

If you want to be a successful bettor, it’s necessary to learn the sports betting basics and to do it thoroughly. This is important for more than one reason.

It will enable you to place some of your initial bets with a certain level of knowledge, which means you’ll be more likely to make some profit and not lose as often as you otherwise would. Of course, knowing the basics doesn’t guarantee you’ll instantly start winning every bet, but it might allow you to realise your mistakes more quickly and then not make them as frequently. It also makes betting for beginners more pleasurable since knowing more about what you’re doing can take some of the initial stress away.

Take it upon you to learn what odds are, why they are sometimes called “fixed”, who are the parties to the wager, what the selection, stake and payout are, and, aside from fixed-odds betting, what other types of betting you can choose from. When you’re betting online, it’s important to know which payment and withdrawal options your sportsbook offers or how you can use the website’s in-play betting section. A good online betting guide can also be valuable.

Comprehend Value

How well you grasp the concept of value will make the difference between you becoming a thriving professional bettor or failing at it. To understand what value is, you first need to be clear on what odds are and how they differ from the actual probability that you’ll see the outcome you’re betting on.

So, when you realise you have an edge against the bookmaker – that there’s a lower chance of an outcome than what the bookmaker odds are – you have the opportunity to place value bets. Identifying values and placing bets accordingly can help you earn more in the long term, so invest some of your time into analysing players, competitors, teams, and games to find odds that are repeatedly too high, higher than you’d expect them to be so that you can capitalise on that and advance as a bettor.

Once you manage to judge probabilities with more precision than the market, you’ll see that sticking to some of the most popular bets doesn’t make as much sense as you thought it would before you started developing your betting skills. Just because favourites are expected to win, it doesn’t mean that betting on them offers any real value.

Therefore, although this may seem difficult at first and takes plenty of practice, locating undervalued selections and betting on those while skipping the obvious selections is the right course.

Brush Up on Your Maths

If you want to bet, math knowledge is a requirement. In the plainest of words, betting is all about numbers, chances, and statistics. You won’t get any good at it if you don’t know the basic mathematical operations, such as multiplication, division, percentages, and decimals. Without understanding your numbers fully, you won’t even know how to read odds or follow the statistics properly.

Yes, some people listen only to their guts when placing bets, and they sometimes even win big, but if you plan on betting over an extended period and perhaps even want to live off it (which is generally not something we would advise), you’ll have to rely on more than just your instinct. Only when you have no problems with doing the necessary calculations will you be able to work out the odds and values, create a plausible and sustainable staking plan, and develop a well-founded betting strategy.

Establish a Reasonable Betting Bankroll

Whoever wants to gamble safely should know that determining a budget and avoiding going above it is essential for several reasons.

First of all, sports betting, like any other form of gambling, can lead to significant financial losses and even debt if you bet more than you should. Sometimes the possibility of winning big can push you towards placing unreasonably high bets. When you win one or two of them, especially when that happens in a row, you may get the feeling these risky bets are an excellent way of making money and that you should continue placing them.

This erroneous belief is so common there’s even a name for it: it’s called the gambler’s fallacy. However, successful sports bettors know nothing is certain in betting, and risking large sums of money just for the excitement of it is rarely a good idea.

This brings us to the second reason: You don’t want your gambling to have a negative impact on your lifestyle. You shouldn’t put yourself in a situation where you bet away the money you were planning to use to pay for your rent, bills, or food. Prioritising is crucial here. Betting can be addictive, so make sure you don’t allow a fun pastime to become an obsession.

Thirdly, you’ll want to come up with a staking plan, and the only way to do that is to know exactly how much funds you have at your disposal and then carefully strategise about how much you’ll bet on each of your selections.

Don’t Go All Over the Place

If you want to bet professionally and ensure you have a steady income from it, you should be as selective as you can. This means that you shouldn’t bet all across the sportsbook, since that way, it’ll be harder to know who to bet on. Instead, choose only one or two sports and bet on those.

But that’s not all. Focusing on a single league or two can make it easier to keep up and learn more about the teams and players. If you’re a beginner, perhaps you can only choose one team and follow it. If you do that, you can actually watch all its games, stay updated with the latest news about it, be aware of any injured or suspended players, or any other changes within the team, so that you can do your own data analysis on them.

All of this will considerably increase your chances of winning the bets you place since you’ll be able to beat the bookies by knowing more about that particular team than they do. Similarly, bookies sometimes pay less attention to the lower leagues, which opens an array of opportunities for you to follow exactly those leagues and teams. Don’t lose yourself in all the events, competitions, and sports on the betting market, but focus on the precious few which you feel can lead to profit down the road.

Do Your Research

Those who want to develop successful betting strategies and become seasoned bettors should always be ready to invest enough of their time and energy into research. After all, you can’t really advance in anything if you aren’t willing to learn more.

Of course, if you’re only betting from time to time, there’s really no need to spend hours on studying the data related to various sports, teams, and competitions, unless you take pleasure in it and consider it entertaining. On the other hand, if you’re a betting pro or aspire to become one, it could be wise and beneficial to take it upon yourself to read articles, forums, blogs, and maybe even look for various betting tips on the events that interest you.

That way, you’ll know if the suggested odds you find on any gambling platform are something to cling to or not. If that seems like too much, or if you prefer doing your research in another manner, you can simply watch sports on TV and enjoy the game while paying attention to the players and their moves.

Listen to Your Weatherman

It may not have crossed your mind, but it makes all the sense in the world. If the event you’re betting on is taking place outdoors, the weather conditions can have an enormous effect on the players and how the game goes. Weather stats can tell you if the game will be slower due to rain, snow, or cold, and it can help you predict the score more accurately. After checking out what the expected weather is on the day of the event in question, take a look at some previous games played in similar weather conditions so that you can place your bets with more certainty.

However, while the weather can affect players and their performance in sports like football, and can help you improve your football betting odds to some extent, don’t lull yourself into thinking you’re bound to win just because you’ve seen the forecast. The edge it gives you is a limited one; don’t rely on it too much. Instead, before placing your bet, take other factors into account as well.

Put Your Emotions Aside

This is a no-brainer. Betting is about being logical and sensible, keeping track of statistics and numbers. If you allow your emotions to take over, you’ll only be doing your bookmaker a favour. Even the best sports betting strategies can fail you if you don’t learn to control your emotions. And let’s be clear about it, no matter how rational you are, you will get emotional at some point.

Whether you get excited and overjoyed over winning repeatedly, or you get sad and disappointed over losing more than a few consecutive times, make it your mission not to place any bets until you’re cool-headed and back to your normal, reasonable self. When you’re overly happy and in a celebratory mood, it’s easy to forget how odds work and start placing unfounded and unnecessarily big bets and expecting your luck to kick in when you need it.

Similarly, when you seem to keep losing one bet after another, you might be tempted to chase your losses. The best advice anybody can give you in such situations is to calm down and think hard about what the best strategy and the ideal time to bounce back are.

Make the Best of Your Money

One of the upsides of betting online is the variety of choices available. Plus, mastering betting has been made much easier with all the tips and sports betting tools you can find on the internet. So, whether you choose horse racing or sports like cricket, there’s a high chance you’ll find a whole bunch of tips and tools to help you bet more successfully.

All of this allows you to make the best use of your budget. For example, there are a myriad of websites which specialise in gambling or just sports betting, and most of those sites have some attractive betting offers. Some will match your deposit in full; others will provide you with some bet credit or offer you free bets and welcome bonuses.

So, before you place a bet online, make sure you’ve compared all these websites and that you’ve chosen the one with the best welcoming offers for new customers, as well as promotions and rewards for regular users. Also, go through some of the customer reviews of the best betting sites, since that way you can find out if any of the platforms have issues with the safety of their clients’ money and information. A reliable betting platform for UK players should always hold a license issued by the UK Gambling Commission.

This is just as important for beginners who are still learning betting as it is for seasoned bettors. Maximising your money’s worth can give you more space for betting and maybe even learning through trial and error.

Don’t Let Your Biases Guide You

Let’s say you’re a huge basketball fan, or you never miss a Premier League match. You probably have a favourite team or even a player you respect more than any other. This is a regular occurrence, and most people have favourites in sports. However, letting your preferences affect your decisions when betting can put you on a slippery slope.

If you’re unsure about how to bet on an event, place your trust in numbers, stats, and history rather than in your own desire for the team to win. As much as you would love to see your team or player win, you can’t be irrational and expect them to do well just because you’re their fan. Bear in mind that you’re betting for profit.

This doesn’t mean you can’t take pride in your favourite football team when they beat their opponents, but all the effort you’ve put in learning how to win football bets will go to waste if you put your biases before logic. So, if you want to bet on your favourites, make sure you’re only betting for fun so that you don’t get downgraded in any way if they lose.

Hold On to Your Betting Records

As with anything else worth doing, you have to work hard to get to the point where you win more often than you lose. This implies a lot of time spent developing the best possible betting strategy to always keep you afloat.

A large portion of that time can be wasted if you aren’t organised enough to keep track of your betting records from the very beginning of your betting days. This is something you might not realise as a beginner, which makes this particular piece of advice even more precious. It’s the most efficient way to know exactly where you stand money-wise and be aware of how much you’ve spent and gained over time so that you can stay within your budget at all times.

Besides, creating usable sports betting systems can give bettors a much-needed edge, and keeping records of all your bets can help you greatly in this venture. Make sure your records contain information like what your selections were, precisely how much you wagered, at what odds, and how much you won or lost in each instance.

The easiest way to do it is to create spreadsheets, one for each of the sports you bet on, fill it with all the relevant data, and create your own version of a betting guide based on your previous betting experiences. Analysing your performance in betting can be helpful for those who are trying to be more pragmatic and can help you earn more in the long run.

Those who continually educate themselves are more successful and make progress more quickly than those unwilling to learn. It’s the same with sports betting. If you want to prosper in it, you have to be prepared to invest your blood, sweat, and tears into it. Whether you’ll only stick to football betting tips you find online, or you’ll learn to depend on your own experience and wits is entirely up to you. If you genuinely want to improve your betting skills, take the advice from this article and make it work to your advantage.

FAQ

What is the best betting strategy?

You can employ a whole list of betting strategies to make a profit and get better at betting. One of them is the so-called matched betting, which many consider the most profitable betting strategy. If you look at any matched betting guide on the net, you’ll see that it relies on the various promotions you can get on most of the popular betting websites.

For them, this is a true and tried way to entice new clients to bet on their platform and choose sports and teams from their online sportsbook. This particular strategy’s upside is that there is almost no risk to the bettor, so this is a very popular way of betting. Plus, it’s uncomplicated to learn how to match bet. However, even though this strategy is a well-liked one, the best strategy depends on the bettor and their mindset, so it’s up to you to settle on the strategy that suits you more than others.

What is the winning method in betting?

There is a wide array of betting methods to pick from, but some of the most frequently mentioned ones are the matched betting, value betting, spread betting, and proportional betting. Most bettors agree that finding a functioning betting method is the key to successful betting, but you have to do some serious research and bet for some time before deciding on the right betting method for you. Furthermore, no matter how popular a method is or how well-established you are as a bettor, you’re still bound to lose sometimes.

How can I bet smarter?

If you want to place smarter bets, you first need to spend enough time and put enough effort into going through the data and doing your research. There isn’t a definitive guide to betting on sports, as too many variables influence the market, and the trends change in an instance, as even the best teams can lose from an underdog.

Always expand your horizons when it comes to sports and become familiar with the history of matches for the teams you want to bet on. Have confidence in your own opinion, but don’t be too proud to take advice and learn from other bettors and their experience. Once you reach the point where you develop your own betting strategy, you’ll probably be far more successful at betting than you were initially.