Concocting a game-plan for sports betting

Concocting a game-plan for sports betting

Cooking up a game-plan before you get your money into the middle wagering on sports is a must. Most people never really consider anything remotely reminiscent of a game plan. They just gather up the dough and post it on a bunch of various games especially when it’s a shorter stretch of betting opportunities we’re talking about. After all, it is a game of chance anyway, why bother researching and spending time on anything? Right? Wrong. While sports betting is indeed an activity centered around the luck factor, there are certain measures one can take to force Lady Luck’s hand, that is to stack the odds onto his side of the match-up. Without thorough research and time spent handicapping and reverse handicapping games, this is of course impossible. When talking about a general battle-plan though, I’m not talking about finding ways to locate and to take advantage of value. I’m talking about a bigger picture which has more to do with bankroll management than with actual strategy.

We all aim to become winners, even recreational bettors do: that’s the only way people are ever going to get any kind of kicks out of playing. Sadly though, few people know what course of action to follow when they do get lucky and manage to pile up a nice stack of winnings.

After a sustained winning streak, people almost always get greedy and start dreaming about how they can take their roll to further heights, completely forgetting about and ignoring the variance factor. Mathematics based only on run-good times are always deceiving and if you make decisions based on such flawed calculus, you’re guaranteed to run your bankroll into the ground before you know it.

The first thing you should do in your perpetual battle against the odds and the bookie’s juice, is to set yourself some realistic goals. You should always assign a payout day every week, that way even if you do not have funds to withdraw, you will at least think about withdrawing. When you do have the money, you should fetch about 25% of it only, so you have enough left to continue betting. Not withdrawing anything is not a good choice because that way you risk running out of funds completely at the end of a nasty downswing.

Last but definitely not least, you should find a way to keep track of your bets, wins and losses. Just write everything down on a daily basis. Only this way can you hope to be able to spot mistakes that you make (like wasting too much money on parlays) as well as your good investments. Don’t look at each of the daily stat sheets separately, or rather, do, but don’t forget to take a long hard look at the big picture too at the end of the week. If you realize it that a certain type of bet you love is costing you too much money, don’t hesitate to cut it off your list.

Do research matchups and do reverse-handicap the games you bet on. Try to keep your money away from square bets and track the lines: they’ll clue you in on whether or not there is value in a game and on which side it is.

Exercise proper bankroll management. Even if you do manage to secure EV+ through proper straight and reverse handicapping, it needs time to kick in and to show an actual result. If you run out of money before it happens, you have not only wasted money and time, you’ve side-tracked your entire effort.