6 tips for more profitable sports betting

There is money to be made in sports betting providing you know what you’re doing. With a little thought and strategy, you can come up with a way to minimize losses and maximize profits. If you are planning to make a career out of sports betting or just want to improve your chances of winning as and when you play, these sports betting tips should help you achieve your ambitions.

Find a Good Sports Betting Site

In the first instance, you need to find good sports betting websites to use. Good sites tend to have the following traits:

  • They have a decent reputation – You may find wonderful odds at a lesser known site but are they trustworthy? To this end, ensure their certification within their country jurisdiction is up to date and on point in the first instance. This includes licencing and software certification. Read reviews and go with your instincts whether you can trust them. Pay particular attention to payout information.
  • Customer service – Sooner or later you’re probably going to have to talk to their customer service to resolve a dispute or to clarify odds. When you’re checking reviews check that their customer service responds promptly and professionally.
  • Bonuses – The better sites give you good signup bonuses and the better the bonus the better. Other bonuses include a first deposit bonus and a loyalty bonus.
  • Odds – Odds should be competitive and compare with the biggest sites in sports betting.

Set a Strategy

If you are planning to make a living from sports betting then a strategy is essential. Work out a budget and stick to it whenever you play. As well as this, you should consider doing the following:

  • Work out how much time you have to bet – If you can work out on a month by month basis how many times you can spend the night sports betting. This is especially helpful if you are on a limited budget.
  • Workout a staking plan – As well as a budget you should work out a staking plan. This is basically how much of your budget you use with every wager. The pros tend to use 1-2% of their budget per wager going no more than 5%.

Just a quick note about budgeting, do it by day, week, month or year or total amount.

Having a budget and staking plan helps you manage your money. Reducing the chances of:

  • Chasing losses – a cardinal sin.
  • Less likely to lose money.
  • More likely to keep a cool head.

There are several published strategies online. Although you will probably develop your own strategy over time, it is worth reviewing what other techniques seasoned players use to make money at sports betting.

It is important that your strategy is realistic. You won’t win every match as a beginner and even seasoned sports betting pros have a bad night now and then.

Select Your Sport With Care

Sports betting websites gives you a ton of options. Every sport in the world is featured and it feels like you can bet 24/7. New players often make the mistake of betting on sports they know little about. Instead, choose a niche where you know something about the sport and have some insights to bring to the table.

Betting on sports you know little about really is potluck. You won’t know which players/teams/horses are in form for the majority of the sports. You can also be tempted to make lots of bets which makes it hard to keep track of where you have skin in the game. This can be just as dangerous as betting too much money on a single bet.

Compare Odds and Lines

Obviously, you want to get the best bang for your buck so it is important to compare online betting odds. It is worth shopping around as you don’t want to win on one betting site where the odds were not as good as they would have been on another.

For example, you put $30 on a game on one site, and the odds show that you’ll get $35 should you win. On the next site, the odds make you stand to win $37 and on a third $39. That’s a difference of $4 which is greater than 10%. So shop around.

Keep Records

It is a good idea to keep records of your bets. This will help you track expenditure and stick to a budget, and explore your bets to look for areas of improvement.

As such, consider keeping records of the following:

  • Odds
  • Amount staked
  • Results
  • Payout received if you won
  • Selection

This will help you track expenditure and profits, and should you explore your historical records you may spot a hidden gem.

Use Strategy Not Emotion

It is easy to get lost in the emotion of sports betting. This is often a bad move as you may bet on your own team to win when it is clear the chances of this are slim. Other aspects to watch are getting overconfident and getting disheartened when you’re having a bad day.

Finally, never bet when you’ve had a drink as this is a bad move.

Most of all enjoy the games you bet on and enjoy your sports betting.