The secret to sports betting – part 2

Part two of the secret to sports betting continues with a review of our basic rules. In part one we went through the first five. We then talked about the importance of having a separate gambling budget so that the betting does not influence the household money. In addition, we began to accept that all matches can end with home, draw or away and that you must never bet with your heart. Finally, we warned against combining many objects on one coupon and made a strong recommendation to always bet where you get the best conditions.

The secret to sports betting is a series over four parts and I hope you will follow along all the way. Today we review the last five basic rules before in the next parts we go deep into percentage setting, fund management, value calculations and other odds systems.

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

6) Have knowledge about what you are betting on

You can learn a lot from reading a table and looking at the results, but nothing beats actually following what you are betting on very closely. The whole starting point for odds betting is to find value, i.e., that your percentage differs from how the betting companies assess the object. To find this, any information that “not everyone else knows” is very valuable. When you watch matches, you get information that you can't easily see in the results list or the table and you can note teams that have looked better than the results suggest – or that have had the margins on their side. This way you can pick up changes in trends before everyone else.

A well-known example of this came back in the Barcelona Open in tennis in 2018. Then Rafael Nadal played against Fabio Fognini and stood at 1.10 odds. This match was used by many who put it on their coupons as a “sure winner”. However, those who follow the sport of tennis closely could note that Fognini had beaten Nadal on the same clay surface a short time earlier and at the same time always overperformed against the best. The 9.00 odds were thus played by those with tennis knowledge. The result? Fognini won 6-4, 7-6!

Knowledge of what you are betting on does not only apply to sports. There are often up to 1,000 side bets on a single football match, and you constantly see examples of players who do not understand why their bet is set as lost as they had not read the rules. This applies in particular to goal scorer games, the number of corner kicks where betting companies use different sources and the difference between half-time/full-time bets and that a team must win both halves.

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

It is easy to be convinced by friends or so-called “experts” when the odds coupon is made. “United will never lose this” you can easily hear about a 1,25 odds. We avoid this problem as, according to rule 2, we “recognise that ALL matches can end with home, draw or away” and according to rule 5, we do not extend the coupon to increase the odds with our rule: “the fewer objects, the better”.

We only play when the odds have value in relation to our assessment and thus know that we have to put a percentage on Manchester United – West Bromwich before we know whether any of the odds are playable. Unfortunately, you constantly get input from TV-experts who are shocked every time a big favourite does not lead 5-0 at half-time. But when you know how odds betting works, it's only positive that the majority do not play for value! If everyone followed how to bet, there wouldn't be many betting companies left in the world!

Odds betting is math, so don't listen to those who don't understand why home win or a away win can be placed in the same match depending on the odds offered. When it comes to expert tips, the rule is simple: Check their results! Is this a pundit worth listening to in the long run? If the tips page/newspaper does not publish their yield, there is most likely a very good reason for that and you'd better scroll on quickly!

8) It is allowed to take a break

Odds betting should be entertaining and a healthy hobby, not something that affects your night's sleep or the household economy. Celebrating a big win by raising bets or, even worse, seeking revenge after sour losses by going “all-in” on the next game is not the way to run a healthy hobby. The only thing that can be guaranteed is that you will lose several big wins on a hopeless referee's decision in the 95th minute and remember them far better than when the overtime goal went your way!

If you feel that your weekend is being ruined by whether or not there was a win on Saturday's game, it's time to take a break. Our way of betting eliminates some of the dangers of betting. We have a long-term plan for the whole year that applies regardless of individual results and we know that the games we bet on have value. Thus, the profit will come in the long run, even if individual weeks can go completely wrong. We also don't hunt for the big single wins where you went for the jackpot with adding an extra match on the quadruple etc. Odds betting in a proper way is long-term thinking with a fixed betting economy and simply a marathon – not a sprint!

9) Specialize in something not everyone knows everything about

We are back here on finding value, which is the basis for all betting. Here you have a huge advantage if you know something about a market that not everyone else knows anything about. On a Premier League match, all information is available, and the bookmakers know weeks in advance exactly what odds they are going to offer for the match. It is still not impossible to find a value bet, but a far tougher task than for a punter who, for example, watches everything from MMA or e-sports. There is tough competition among the betting companies to have the biggest possible offers and often they will offer odds on something they do not have as good control over as Manchester United and Liverpool.

A well-known example is UFC193 in 2015 where world champion Ronda Rousey met boxing champion Holly Holm. Here the betting companies started with 10.00 odds on Holm. Those who follow MMA closely pounced on this as the game of the ages and Holly Holm ended up being played down to almost half the odds. After only two rounds it was over, Holm had knocked out the champion. There are also opportunities within the world of football. How about specializing in over/under bets in various leagues? Or which teams where it pays to play “both teams score”? The possibilities are endless as long as you familiarize yourself with it and gain knowledge that not everyone else has!

10) Do the accounting on all bets placed

We have previously mentioned that odds betting is math, and it also comes into play when it comes to accounting. We always recommend to set a maximum for what we can afford to lose over the course of an entire year if everything were to go wrong. We do not hunt for the “big win” and rather use the money sensibly. Those who say they don't bother playing singles because the odds are so low with only one match haven't really understood it. The scheme is simple. We will slowly but surely increase our account by placing good value bets.

To maintain control, all bets must be entered into a spreadsheet. Here we know exactly what our losses or gains are at any given time. In addition, we can go in and check which sports we have made a profit on, which leagues we have struggled with, which odds intervals we have done best on etc etc.

In part three, the full focus will be on how to find out what to play on. In part four, we finish with how you should put these games into your system.