Understanding Betting: How To Win For The Long Term
Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder once made the statement, “The sports book never beat me … it just gave me the opportunity to beat myself.” When it comes to understating betting and learning how to win in the long term, Snyder’s words are some of the most important for you to remember. There are plenty of people out there with both the sports knowledge and inherent skill needed to win money consistently from sports betting. Unfortunately, a lot of them are broke. This is because even the most knowledgeable and savvy sports bettor can fall victim to the pitfalls of poor bankroll management and irrational decision-making. In fact, the sports books that take your bets are counting on it. Even though they take a 10-percent vigorish, or juice on each bet, this alone is not enough for them to make a substantial profit. To beat the -110 juice, you must win 52.5 percent of your bets to break even.
For someone with advanced sports knowledge and a willingness to learn, this percentage is easily attainable. What’s more, 60 percent or better is not out of the question. So how do sports books win if you could conceivably beat them 60 percent of the time or more? It’s because you, the gambler, are prone to self-destruction, and they are not. They are counting on the fact that at some point, you will lose your discipline and give back your winnings and then some. As human beings, we are emotional creatures by nature, and for gamblers the natural emotional reaction is to try and recoup our losses when we have a bad run. That’s why discipline, money management, and last but not least, emotional detachment are the most important qualities you need when it comes to understanding betting.
Let’s take a quick look at how failure to master these three factors could result in a swift and instant reversal of fortune in sports betting. Assume for a moment that you are betting $50 per game and you managed to work up a profit of $1,000, or, in other words, you are up 20 units. But suddenly you have a bad run – and this will happen – in which you lose 10 of your next 12 bets. Now, your profit has dwindled to $500. But instead of slowly building up your bankroll as you did previously, the bad beats and bad luck in your recent run have caught up with you. You’re frustrated and upset, and you convince yourself that the sports book now has $500 of what is rightfully your money. Instead of taking a step back and perhaps taking a break of betting, which might be the prudent thing to do here, you instead decide you are going to get it all back in one fell swoop. You bet the remaining $500 on the Monday Night Football game and lose. Now you’re down to zero profit and feel like the sports book has no right taking your hard-earned money. You take out another $500 from your bankroll and bet it on an NBA pick the next night.
Look how quickly your fortunes changed. Just a few days ago, you were up $1,000 and deservedly proud of your hard work and discipline. You suffered through a bad weekend, and then you let your emotions get the best of you. In no time at all you went from being up $1,000 to down $500, and the only way to get back on the right track is start over again with a renewed commitment to discipline. To be good at gambling, no matter your game of choice, the actual value of the money involved has to become a non-factor for you. The minute you consider what you could have bought or what bills you could have paid with money you are gambling, you are in trouble.
Long-term sports betting for profit is a business and should be treated as such. You need to be able to handle five consecutive losses and five straight wins with the same reaction; that is, basically none at all.
Of course, we are not robots so this is not entirely possible. It’s only human to feel high after a winning streak or down after a losing streak. But in order to succeed, you must minimize your emotional investment in short-term results and realize that it’s your consistency over the long haul that will bring you the utmost success.
Learn to treat betting slips as if they were made with play money and as if the ticket is a receipt on a short-term stock. Your stock is in trade while the game is taking place, and you will either double your investment or lose all of it. Now, if you notice that you are having more losing days than winning ones, it might be time to reconsider whether your handicapping and other strategies are up to par. But once you have confidence in your abilities and show a winning record, the next step to winning for the long term is learning how detach emotions from your bets.
Don't continue trying to beat the sportsbooks on your own! Let TodaysPicks.net handle all of your sportsbetting needs. You can start by signing up for our FREE Sports Picks Newsletter and receive free sports betting information in you e-mail!
Read more Sports Betting Tips Articles
