In a world where you can bet on sports online, it’s a question that a lot of people ask themselves.
The first thing to do is decide what kind of bettor you want to be. There are basically three different bettors:
1) The recreational/hobby bettor – this ‘weekend warrior’ is happy with betting on football in their local area and maybe the odd wager on the premier league or Champions League when an attractive enough price comes up. He is happy to stick at around £50-£100 per bet, perhaps with only two or three bets over £500 in total per season.
2) The low-volume pro – This guy will have bets worth between £3,000 and £5,000 in total in a season. He will usually have around fifty to sixty bets per season with no single bet over £1,000. He doesn’t play every match when the odds are right but he does make sure that he plays at least three games on most weekends.
3) The high roller – This is the guy who likes to gamble big time! An average month might see him putting down six-figure sums on just one or two bets of £20,000 or more each. His ‘big wins’ can be anything between £100K and £500K although his losses, of course, can be much bigger than this too. His ability to predict which games will produce goals is second nature, so he very rarely has to wait long before his price will be right.
Some of the high rollers are proper players who make their living betting for a living, but some are simply businessmen or business owners with cash to burn. If you want to become one of these top bettors, then you need to keep your wits about you and be prepared for many hours of hard work per week, because if they can do it then so can you!
The three different types of betting outlined above all require different levels of commitment from their respective bettors, so choosing which type is best suited to you also depends on how much spare time and money you have available too. The recreational bettor can afford to spend less time watching matches than the pro because s/he bets only on games that are either part of his weekly routine or else are meaningful to him in another way. For example, s/he might support a local club playing in the second tier of English football, so if they are at home, then he will follow this game quite closely each week even though it isn’t one of the ‘top’ matches. The low-volume pro has developed an interest in betting on other games too but unlike the recreational bettor, s/he can afford to watch them more carefully because not every match is worth his or her time and money. The pro is after all very serious about what s/he does and needs to be totally focused when it’s time for action.
The high roller sometimes watches games but only when it suits his or her purpose i.e. when there is a genuine chance that he could be laying a bet on the game in question. S/he isn’t interested in supporting any particular club but will only settle down to watch the match if it looks like there is money to be made from doing so, and this of course excludes lower league matches where the odds are far too short to justify his time.
When you go to place your bets online, for instance, at N1 bet, you will quickly discover that you can choose from many different types of bets such as:
- Match result – This is by far the most popular type of sports bet and usually pays out whether your selection wins, loses, or draws.
- Handicap betting – The favorite team has a points advantage before kick-off which helps their chances of winning. Think of this as being similar to the handicap system in golf.
- Spread betting – This is a bet on the number of points or goals that will be scored during a match e.g. over 2.5 goals or under 1.5 etc.
But before you go ahead and start backing your favorite teams, try to understand why people are betting on them in the first place! The more knowledge you have about every team’s strengths and weaknesses, their form book and injury list, etc, then the better placed you will be for placing your bets with confidence at any given time i.e. If Arsenal is playing Reading at home then it would not be wise to expect either side to score fewer than two goals because both sides can score plenty when at their best. You will also work out that the majority of goals are usually scored during the second half, so if you see a team go a goal down early on in a match then either hold your nerve and wait, or else get your bet on quickly before the price drifts out too far.
Understanding how to read a football form book is the first step to success for any sports bettor, but it’s also important that you learn how to adapt your strategies on the go. Even the very best form books are only guides that will work in some situations and fail in others, so you need to steer a sensible course between caution and recklessness when deciding what action to take. The best bettors are those that have the discipline to check their progress as often as possible and then use these insights to guide future bets or else abandon the current plan altogether if the odds are not stacking up.
