Any successful tipster knows that betting is a job as any other. More effort you put in, better chances for success you have. And as in other jobs there a few rules you should follow to be successful. Let’s read 10 golden rules of betting.
1. Discipline
The first and foremost rule is discipline. As in any other job you need to do things every day and try to to do them better and better. You need to follow the rules and working procedures set up by your employer. In betting, either as a man trying to earn for living from it, or doing it a side job you need to follow your rules. 10 golden rules of betting or any set of rules you decided to follow at the start. The rules are your bible, you need to follow them no matter the events on the sports field or in your betting company. Of course, you can adjust them and improve them over time, but you should never forget them.
2. Watch, Read, Study
I already use comparison to other jobs a few times and I will go on with it. If you want to pursue a career of successful bettor you need to educate yourself. You need to study odds, teams, sports. You want to know what other tipsters think about the matches, what pundits say about the teams’ performances and chances. You need to watch hours of matches to find out the tactics and play system of particular teams. Essentially you should become an expert on sport and match you want to place a bet on. Do not expect quick and easy results, this is a long process of learning.
3. Doubt Everything and Be Selective
Picking the winning bet is not easy. With thousands of matches played every day and derivation of odds, there are plenty of opportunities to choose from. To pick the winning one is pretty hard. Looking at the daily sports schedule gives you several tens of potential opportunities. You can not bet on all of them (you need to watch your bank), so you need to choose the one or two with the highest probability to be successful. That means you need to be over selective. You will make several rounds of picking and rejecting the ideas for bets. The doubting will be your friend for a while. You will doubt everything, the team recent results, injury situations, ability to repeat performance, head to head statistics and match-up. Basically, you need to ask again and again if your pick is worth of money. The charm of the successful tipster is to pick one or two bets daily and get them right. From thousands of opportunities to choose one or two with reasonable odds and good probability to be right. That is your task every single day.
4. No shortcuts
You will see several bet-slips a day with huge wins during your betting career. 10 matches, huge odds, small stake and a huge win at the end of the day. Well, that is a dream of many people but not yours. That is a lottery and you do not want to be part of a lottery. You are executing a job with long perspective. You are not looking for a “once a lifetime” big win, but for series of small but sustainable wins over a year. Therefore you should not try to score a big just once, but you should try to score many times in a small. In words of numbers, you need to have a probability of over 50% and average odds above 2.0 or probability over 60% and odds above 1.67. That is all you need to make betting sustainable in the long term. And that is your dream and aim, to make betting the way of earning an extra every month and year.
5. Keep in Mind Your Bank
Every tipster experience a series of bad results. It can last week or two, sometimes even a month. And that’s the time the bankroll management can help you to survive. Your bank should be big enough to cover a long series of bad results. It should be the multiple of your average bet. The highest the multiple is, the better chance for surviving the bad wave of results you have. Do not try to increase the stakes after a few bad bets. Be disciplined and minimize the risk of losing everything quickly. Keep the staking plan you have and do not try to cover your losses as fast as possible. Betting is a long-run game, sometimes it needs time to be profitable again.
Check the tips of best tipsters (independent verification!)
6. Forget Low Odds
Everybody likes the favorites as they win often. But I would not recommend betting on them because of low odds. Low odds make your chance for long term profit worse. Imagine, you are betting every day a single match with odds 1.20. That means you need to get right the outcome 4 out of 5 times you bet and you are still not making a profit. You need to better than 8 out of 10 times, or 16 out of 20 bets you make. And that is pretty hard, even with betting of biggest favorites. It is good to set up a rule for yourself to exclude the bets with odds lower than some exact number (1.5 or 1.3 or 1.2). These lower odds will not bring you anything good in the long run.
7. No Accumulators if possible
Accumulators are a popular way how to attract retail customers to betting outlets. Look, you bet $1 on a mix of 16 matches and you will get $100 000 next day. What a crap. That is good for a betting outlet, but not for a “professional to be” tipster. Any combination of matches decreases your overall chance to win. And the reduction of probability is exponential. It is pure statistics but a true one. Your chance to be a successful tipster is much bigger if you will bet on single matches. That is the way how to skew probabilities in your favor.
8. Intuition
Intuition is something you either have or do not have. It can not be learned, it has to be inside of you. Usually, fans who watch a lot of games know when the team is going to lose. They can recall some patterns in the match dynamics or team (or player) behavior that led to losses or win before. It is something subconscious that appears from time to time in your head. Intuition is a good way how to reselect the matches from the daily schedule list. Sometimes you just see the match-up and know the probable scenario. It sounds weird but I recommend to follow your intuition. It is the same as in real life. You use intuition in your relationship, job, daily routine, so give it a chance in your betting too.
9. No Bet on Team You Root for
The team you know most about is usually the team you root for. You can name their squad and results in the last 10 years, you know the injury situation in the cabin and also the relationship between the players and coach. Basically, you have an informational advantage against anyone, the betting company included. It seems like a sure bet for you to bet on the team you root for. But No. Don’t do it. You need to give up your informational advantage because your decision about your team is not rational. And never ever will be rational. You always wish your team to win, and it is not rationally explainable. The best approach to matches of your team is to avoid betting on them.
10. Luck
Intuition is one of the irrational things we spoke before and know at the end we have the second. Luck. Everybody who wants to hear you can find out a formula to win will be disappointed. There is no magic formula. You can follow the 10 golden rules of betting and still be losing money. There is one untouchable thing you need to. Luck. As in all other fields in your life, luck is essential to be successful. And you will need the luck in betting too.
Good luck!
Author:
This blog post was written by Mr. Kostrava. Simon Kostrava is a professional tipster and author of the popular book The Betting Industry: Who Makes the Most Money and How?. He also runs two very successful and profitable betting portfolios: Tennis Only and Soccer Soda – Soccer Only.
Want to learn more about the betting industry? Looking for advice on how to be successful tipster in the long term? Read the book revealing betting industry secrets:
