The secret to sports betting – part 1

After working over 20 years in the business, both as a punter and as odds compiler, it’s time to give out some of the secrets to being successful in sports betting. I have in my life span analysed a rough estimate of around 500,000 football games, all with percentages and/or odds compiled.

I have split this series into four parts, and I hope you will follow along all the way. The start will be somewhat basic before in the next parts we will go deeply into percentage setting, fund management, value calculations and other odds systems. We therefore start with some basic rules to the secret of sports betting.

The 10 basic rules

1) Only bet for money you can afford to lose

2) Realize that all matches can end with home, draw or away win

3) Place your bets where you get the best offers

4) Don’t make judgement based on your team preferences

5) The fewer games on each coupon, the better

6) Have knowledge about what you are betting on

7) Only listen to experts who can prove they are worth listening to

8) It is allowed to take a break

9) Specialize in something not everyone knows everything about

10) Do the accounting on all bets placed

1) Only bet for money you can afford to lose

Gambling money must never be mixed with household money. You save yourself and your loved ones from many possible problems if you are completely open about your gambling. Consider gaming as a hobby. Some people love fishing and spend 500 euro on a new reel, others have a great time with their new 8,000-euro bike. My goal is to make a profit on odds betting every single year, but should it be a tough year, the loss should be seen as all hobbies cost money. On 1 January every year, I set a budget for what I can afford to spend on odds betting for the next 365 days without affecting anything else, including my night’s sleep.

2) Realize that all matches can end with home, draw or away win

This basic rule is for many the most difficult to accept. When I debate games with friends the response I most often get is: “But, Manchester United don’t lose at home against West Bromwich”. An essential part of odds betting, and something I will come across at many points and in more detail in the next parts of this series, is the value concept. It’s the same for me if it’s Manchester United against West Bromwich or Juventus against Atalanta. All matches have a chance for home win, a chance for draw and a chance for a away win. Our job is to judge the chance of each outcome better than the odds compilers have done!

3) Place your bets where you get the best offers

A very simple rule that unfortunately many sins against. If you are going out to buy a new TV and have decided which model you want, most of us will check the price at different store before making the purchase. If the same Sony costs 800 euro at one store and 600 euro at another, we choose store two. This is also the case with sports betting. If you have decided to bet on Leeds against Arsenal, then you check what odds all serious providers have on Leeds and play where you get the best conditions. You can easily check the odds on a number of websites. Sports betting is difficult enough in the first place to make consistent profit on. If you start playing in worse conditions than you need on purpose, the task becomes almost impossible!

4) Don’t make judgement based on your team preferences

All bookmakers sit every single weekend and hope that either Manchester United, Liverpool or one of the other clubs with huge fan bases will lose points. Reason? Because a number of coupons are delivered in which the most famous teams are combined together to form a quintuplet etc without the customers having taken into account the odds they have been given. They have not analysed the match, set percentages or measured the value against the odds that were offered. Betting on your favourite team, or against them to “win anyway” is not the way to do professional sports betting!

5) The fewer games on each coupon, the better

Evert weekend I see a lot of people trying a betting slip with 10 or more games and 10,000 in total odds and a tenner in stake. It becomes a bit like playing the lottery and really has nothing to do with sports betting, but the problem comes when not all the matches start at the same time. If, for example, the first eight are all wins, you are suddenly in a situation where the last two games are played the following day and decide whether there will be a big win or not. Should you then see if you can use a “cash out function”? Maybe play against what you bet on first to ensure a win? I recommend on a general basis that you never make use of cash out functions for the simple reason that you then no longer have faith in what you actually gambled on in the first place. But, of course, the best thing is never to put yourself in this situation at all. In reality, you have gambled on betting the entire Saturday’s winnings on Sunday’s two matches. Would you really bet 2000 euro on your one home win on Sunday morning in advance? Hardly! Personally, I exclusively play singles. Also remember that the betting companies have their theoretical profit built into each odds. If there is a 5 percent margin on a match, the overview is as follows:

Single: 95 euro back for each 100 euro bet

Double: 90 euro back for each 100 euro bet

Triple: 85 euro back for each 100 euro bet

Quadruple: 81 euro back for each 100 euro bet

Quintuple: 77 euro back for each 100 euro bet

Sextuple: 73 euro back for each 100 euro bet

In part two next week, I will go in depth on the last five basic rules of sports betting before we swap focus to how to find out what to bet on. In part four, I conclude with how you should put these games into your system.