Whether you’re a gambling newbie or an experienced pro, everyone wants to improve their game. Looking at a set of matchups and predicting which teams are going to win, which players will perform well, and what factors are truly important is an impressive talent. It’s also a teachable skill. In this article, we’ll cover an array of tips for improving your online sports betting strategies that should offer insight to players of all skill levels. We’ve broken this guide into three sections, each representing an important facet of improving your overall outcomes:
- How to Tip the Odds in Your Favor
- How to Tap into the Best Sports Gambling Insights
- How to Develop the Right Mindset
One of the most valuable tips in this article is to gain access to the insights and thought processes of other experienced sports betting enthusiasts and professionals. Our platform, the Whop marketplace, offers an array of Slack and Discord communities where you can gain sports betting insights. But regardless of where you go for advice, getting input from others is critical.
How to Tip the Odds in Your Favor
Making money on sports gambling is a question of small margins. Gamblers need to win approximately 52% of their bets to have a positive return on their play. And even the best gamblers out there only win at about this clip.
Even the slightest edge can be the difference between making or losing money. Here are a few powerful strategies you can use to tip the odds in your favor and produce better outcomes from your sports gambling.
Take Advantage of Special Promotions
Sports gambling sites offer various promotions to encourage people to play more, such as a larger-than-normal payout or a risk-free bet. One of the most drastic examples of this is the free first bets that sites offer to new members. They will typically allow you to bet five dollars to win $500 to make creating an account especially attractive. Savvy players use each one of these offers over time. This is essentially free money. And is especially valuable when you consider that having an account on every sports book is a smart idea, to begin with. After all, this will enable you to shop around for the best line on each of your bets. This brings us to our next point…
Shop Around for the Best Lines Available
Sportsbooks sometimes offer different lines on the same bet. These differences will usually be subtle as sportsbooks are all looking at the same set of games! However, if one site is offering a +115 line for the Cubs to win all the other is offering a +120. why not take the slightly bigger payout for the same bet? Again, these may seem like small amounts, but making this your standard practice across all your bets could push your winnings margin from negative to positive or slightly positive to very solid.
Master the Art of Good Timing
Sportsbooks are constantly updating the line on various bets based on various factors. For example, the line in a Bills vs. Patriots game could be heavily in favor of Buffalo at first but later drop closer to game time upon the news that John Allen is missing the game with a minor injury. Conversely, the sports books could notice that a larger than expected number of fans were fighting for the underdog New England and therefore changed the betting line to offset their own risk of loss. Intelligent betters pay attention to these changes and strive to place their bets at the most favorable moment. Lines are most likely to change close to game time as critical information comes out. So if you don’t like the lines offered on a bet you’d otherwise make, waiting it out can be a viable strategy.
Look for Undervalued Prop Bets
Because the precision of a sportsbook’s betting line has an impact on its bottom line, sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel go to great lengths to predict outcomes as accurately as possible. This is especially true when a large number of people are expected to bet on the game. On the other hand, betting lines for games and events that are not as widely followed are more prone to be less accurate. This creates the opportunity for gamblers to get a good value on an event not paid as much attention to.
Sportsbooks will be extra careful and thorough when predicting who wins the Super Bowl. They will be less meticulous when predicting the odds that Mookie Betts will hit a home run on a random night in July.
Steer Clear of Parlays
A parlay is a combination of events that triggers an eye-catching reward. For example, a sports betting site may offer you the chance to bet on your favorite team winning and the star player hitting a home run. These can sometimes trigger a reward as high as 100 to 1 the problem is sportsbooks know that these types of bets are flashy and highly likely to convince people to make bets based on emotion rather than logic.
Generally, parlay's odds are heavily skewed in favor of the sports book. It is worth noting that some truly valuable parlays offer you an above-average chance at a big prize. You should keep an eye out for these by paying attention to the parlays offered and utilizing a good Slack or Discord group for online sports betting.
Don’t Underestimate the Underdog
Earlier in this article, we mentioned that if the public heavily favors, sportsbooks sometimes skew their line against the favorite to create a better business model for themselves. This can create enhanced opportunities for people willing to bet on the underdog. Because so few people are willing to bet against Clayton Kershaw winning one of his starts, for example, you could earn a nice payout by betting against him.
Understand Sample Size and Variance
One final point worth considering is the old Mark Twain quote, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." This old adage shows that stats can be manipulated or flat-out misunderstood. For example, sometimes people take a small sample size and extrapolate the results they want to believe. Just because a player had a great month doesn’t necessarily mean that their underlying skillset has changed!
How to Tap into the Best Sports Gambling Insights
Every individual no matter how intelligent brings to the table their own set of biases, presuppositions, and perspectives. To form a holistic understanding of any issue, it’s essential to seek various opinions. By seeing the thought processes of others, you can more easily break down and analyze your line of thinking. Here are a few tips for tapping into the insights and experience offered by the broader online betting community.
Learn More About Sports Statistics
The Internet has made sports statistics more readily available than ever before. Advances in technology (as well as the way we think about sports statistics) have also opened up a whole new level of analysis that never existed before. Everyone can be a sabermetrician in the modern age.
If you aren’t using the latest and greatest in statistical analysis of your favorite sport, you’re missing out on the chance to improve your betting game.
Join a Sports Betting Community
Joining an online community of people who are also trying to improve their sports betting game can work wonders on your ability to make money by placing bets. The Whop marketplace offers easy access to dozens of the best Discord and Slack groups on the Internet for people looking to improve their sports betting.
You can discuss your picks, debate the best strategies, share insights from experts you follow, and critique each other’s thought processes. It’s hard to overstate the value of joining a group of like-minded individuals to improve any skill, which certainly goes for sports gambling.
Follow Some Experts
It’s also a good idea to pay attention to the pros. Many people make a living by sports betting, and by sharing their topics. This includes handicappers, subject matter, experts, sports betting podcasters, etc. By taking in content from a wide variety of creators, you can gain access to a wide variety of expert opinions and better form your picks, day in and day out.
How to Develop the Right Mindset
While it might seem like sports, betting is a purely statistical and analytical endeavor, any experienced gambler will tell you that governing your mindset and emotions is another crucial aspect of being successful. Someone who plays purely on instinct and allows the highs and lows of sports betting to influence their decisions will ultimately fail. These tips will help keep you grounded and focused on achieving your goals.
Establish a Budget and Bankroll Practices
Before making any individual bet. you should have a strategy for how you will manage your bankroll. Simple rules, like knowing you will never bet more than 1% of your bankroll on any individual outcome, can help you avoid making mistakes that you will regret down the road. It can also ensure that your strategy is one built around long-term success and not simply short-term whims, excitement, or frustration.
Leave your Fandom at the Door
There’s nothing wrong with placing a casual bet on your favorite team to add to the excitement or up the emotional stakes of a big game. However, if you’re trying to make money with sports gambling, it’s not a good idea to let your fandom dictate your picks. And finding the best value available across all the major sports books requires a degree of objectivity and openness to new ideas. If you’re just hoping to find an excuse to bet on the hometown favorites, you may find yourself disappointed with your results.
Keep Records of Your Gambling
Professional handicappers know that their past performance is the main selling point for their services, and they keep meticulous records of the vets. Even as a gambler, it is valuable to keep track of your wins and losses so that you can take note of what strategies and approaches have truly served you well and which ones sounded better on paper than in reality.
Take Breaks
Even superstars sometimes spend a game on the bench. This goes for gamblers just like athletes. Taking a break from time to time will allow you to take a deep breath and relax. Gambling sites are required by law to encourage their players to game responsibly, and even if you were doing well, it’s still a good idea for your mental health to occasionally take a short break. You may even find that you have a new perspective, new ideas, and better outcomes after taking a few days off
Avoid Getting Swept Up By Emotion When Losing (Or Winning)
One of the biggest mistakes that gamblers make is to get caught up in a winning streak, or a losing streak, and allow the strong emotions of that situation to influence them in illogical ways. Sometimes this comes in the form of trying to win back your losses and one fell swoop rather than with a series of carefully planned bats. At other times, this might look like getting carried away in a winning streak and deciding that you will pass your normal bankroll limit to take advantage of an especially great streak of luck. While these decisions might work out once, making this your go-to strategy is a surefire way to lose money.
Conclusion: Always Improve Your Game!
While sports betting might seem like a game of chance to the uninitiated, those who dedicate their time to learning and sharing strategies often come out ahead. Learning more about sports analysis can be a fun hobby in and of itself, and it can definitely make sports gambling a more enjoyable (not to mention more lucrative) process.
The Whop marketplace makes getting access to exclusive sports-gambling communities simple. Handicappers and gambling discussion group leaders set up Slack or Discord groups that sports gamblers can shop around for with ease. Check us out and start taking your sports gambling skills to the next level today!
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