Betting is not an easy process and most punters fail in their attempt to make money. Even the best punters in the world make mistakes as betting is not something that you can master completely. You cannot avoid making wrong decisions but you can use your experience and try to keep your mistakes to a minimum.
Below you will find a list with the most common mistakes the most punters do and what you can do to avoid them.
Top rookie mistakes on sports betting
- Poor money management.
This is the most common mistake the most sports bettors do. It very easy to have proper money management but yet most punters do not pay much attention to that aspect of betting.
You need to set aside a betting bankroll with money that you can afford to lose. This sum of money should only be used for betting purposes and not for paying your bills or other expenses. After setting the bank you need to decide the staking plan and follow that plan at every bet you place.
Many punters do not have a predefined staking strategy and many times they place a random wagers without giving much thought about the staking. That can wipe out your bank quite easily.
- Chasing loses
Even with the best strategy in the world losses are inevitable. It is how we react to those bad results, that defines our profitability. It is very common for bettors to try to recover those losses immediately after an event has finished. That forces them to make irrational betting decisions that wouldn’t have taken otherwise. So it is advisable to stay away from betting after a losing run if you cannot control your emotions.
- Getting greedy
The opposite of chasing loses is to getting greedy when having a winning run. If you have a solid betting plan you should stick to that. Remember that after a winning run there is always a correction coming on the way. If you are in a good moon, try not to get so excited and follow your plan.
- No bet tracking
This is something the majority of bettors don’t even think about. How would you know if your betting strategies work or where you betting balance stands at every given time if you do not track your bets? Every serious business owner analyzes constantly his profits and expenses. So why not to treat betting the same way?
You can read more about the importance of bet tracking here.
- Betting for wrong reasons
If you want to treat your betting seriously all your bets should be based on the specific criteria that your betting strategy has. If you are betting just for the fun of it (backing your favourite team for example) will cost you money in the long run. Betting without proper analysis and based on emotions is definitely going to harm your betting bank.
- Overbetting
Many bettors have the bad habit to place a lot of bets in a short period of time. That’s due to boredom or to make a quick buck. That forces them to place uninformed bets on sports or teams that they don’t even know. If you want to be profitable with your betting you ‘d better stick to sports and markets that you know and trade only those.
Patience is a key characteristic of a successful punter. If there is not a betting opportunity that suits your style and strategy, do not try to find one out of nowhere. Just sign out from your account and return the next day.
- Backing hot favourites
Everyone can predict that Barcelona will beat Leganes for example. So those teams are attracting the most liquidity on a betting market. If this was a winning pattern what would happen to the bookies? They would be out of business in a day as everyone would be on profit. The odds on favourites are very low as everyone is backing them, therefore they have no value to the bettor.
- No odd comparison
The mistake that majority of punters do is that they are trying to find only the winner of a match and not the right odds. They just make a betting call and place the bet in the bookmaker they have an account with, regardless of the odds available on the other bookmakers. Why take a 1,75 odd when you can find 1,85 for the same outcome somewhere else? You may win that bet but in the long run, you will lose as you are ignoring value.
Betting is not about finding winners but finding the correct odds of every outcome. If you are betting with value the winners will take care of the losers in the long run.
- Accumulators
Do you ever wonder why the bookmakers have big bonuses for betting on accumulators? They win big money from them and they want their clients to have that betting pattern.
Betting on accumulators is a sure way to failure and that’s why the bookies try to lure the punters into them.
Conclusion
No one is perfect and all the bettors in the world have done or will do some of the mistakes mentioned above. It is how you react to those wrong decisions that define your overall profitability. Betting is an ongoing process and you should always analyze your moves and try to make sure that you will not repeat the same mistakes again.
Betting is a numbers game and is not based on luck. So if you are not earning money you should take responsibility and stop blaming the bad luck, the referees or everyone else except from yourself.
I hope that you have found my article useful and informative. If so feel free to share it or leave a comment below. Also, you can share what mistakes you have done in the past that have cost you money in betting.