5 Common Sports Betting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Sports betting is a big industry that is providing an extra avenue for sports lovers to entertain themselves with the prospect of earning a few or millions of shillings in the process.

Success at betting can be mainly attributed to strategy and with it you can make betting become a secondary stream of income.

However punters more often than not let their emotions get in the way of their gambling making them prone to wiping away their fortunes. Learning about the common mistakes will make you less susceptible to them which in turn gives you increased chances of crafting a winning betslip.

Below are the gravest of errors bettors should seek to avoid in future;

1. Not understanding their limits

This is probably the most common mistake most punters make.

One characteristic about this mistake is changing your waging amount depending on how well or poorly you are doing. Punters on a hot winning streak often get the irresistible urge to go large and double or risk more because they are feeling confident

On the other hand when one is one a losing streak, they tend to chase their loss on top of trying to add to their original pot to avoid seeing as if they wasted their precious time

Without giving much thought to the little monies they have, they fail to budget on how much they are willing to spend. You therefore end up making bets you simply can’t cash.

Players need to instill in themselves the value of bankroll management. This involves setting aside money you intend to bet on aside from that of your daily expenditure and savings.

A good betting principle to commit to is the flat-bed approach which requires one to bet the same amount of money on every game and risk only between 1 and 5% of your total amount. This saves you from going bankrupt when faced with the inevitable bad stretch.

To put it in the simplest term possible, don’t bet more than you can afford to lose

2. Not knowing when to give up

Another of the major mistakes reckless bettors is the false belief that they are due for something good or positive after betting in vain over a given number of games.

Losses are part and parcel of betting and chasing after them is going down a slippery slope.

So many of bettors commit this mistake that a term has been coined to further explain it; the gambler’s fallacy. It is the belief that if something happens more often than normal in a period of time, it will happen less frequently in the future.

Simply put, it involves making a string of losses and then in this false belief causes you to increase the value of your bets in order to salvage them.

You are also likely to be guilty of betting with your gut instinct and are biased towards betting favourites, home teams and overs in the case of football matches. This bias continues towards teams with a great history behind them of past years, those with the most media coverage and the star layers. Thus they bet on what they want to happen rather than what they think will happen.

3. Lack of research before placing bets

When it comes down to the truth, sports betting is simply about cold, hard facts. The use of statistics and historical data to make predictions is what it’s all about.

There is only one reason to place a stake if your aim is to make long term profit and that is when you have identified a genuinely good betting opportunity.

A good approach to betting is to be selective. Instead of wagering on lots of different sports and events, why don’t you try to focus on one or two that offer greater security of winning? It is rarely a good idea to regularly make a large number of bets.

Keep in mind that the goal is not to place as many wagers as possible. Rather it is to place the best possible wagers you can.

4. Failure to understand that the bookmakers always win

Everyone knows that events on betting sites have the odds stacked in the bookie’s favour. Everyone except an inexperienced bettor knows this.

While you may be on a hot winning streak, the bookie will eventually win out in the course of time. This is especially true in online casino games with the advantage against the punter known as the house edge. The bigger the house edge, the worse the chances are for a player to win an event over time.

Most betting firms have the casino game of online roulette which is a popular pick for players. A study showed that the average house edge in roulette is 5.5%.  This means that for every Sh100, the sportsbook expects to win Sh5.50 over time

5. Unrealistic expectations

There are lots of people who start betting on sports with the unrealistic expectation of turning into millionaires overnight. This gives them a false delusion that simply because they know about Arsenal or Manchester United players for example, they can easily start minting money from their games.

Though it is not impossible to make long term profit from sports wagering, winning is an extremely challenging undertaking that is the preserve of a small and elite section of sports punters.

Going into betting with the thought that getting that ‘congratulations’ message from the betting companies will make you a disappointed gambler at the end of the day.

There is however the element of beginners’ luck. And as you will soon figure out it eventually runs out and is the exception rather than the rule.

But this advice is not to discourage you from trying. Just don’t be over-ambitious on your chances. If you want a real chance of making money, you have to put in the hard work

Conclusion

Even if you avoid the above listed mistakes in your gaming career, it is inevitable that you will slip up and make a few errors. Don’t lose your head. Play by the rules and you will be all right.