“How in the world can I consistently win at sports betting?” is a question that a lot of people have when they first start out in this tricky field. Some people ask similar questions, but all of them are about getting a new source of income with almost no experience, which isn’t, or shouldn’t be, the first thing you learn. This article will talk about things like how to learn to bet on sports as a beginner and how to play on Bet9ja—one of Nigeria’s most popular bookmakers, with tips from people who have been there and done that.
Betting on Sports the Right Way
First, let’s get something out of the way: if you’re new to the activity, you need to go through a few basic psychological steps. After that, you can start thinking about how you can make a lot of money. You can get pretty consistent with your wins, but it’s important to have the right mindset and the right information to get there. We recommend that you get off on the right foot!
What Is Sports Betting
It’s a battle of wits between you and the betting platform: you make a prediction about an event, and your money says that your prediction is going to happen. If you’re right, you get your money back plus a pretty big profit. If you’re wrong, though, that money is obviously gone.
Before you place a bet, it’s best to learn and understand as many of the ideas and terms that bookmakers use as you can. Types of bets don’t just include simple outcomes like a win by one team, a tie, or a total over/under. There are also a lot of other bets with lots of traps for new players. If you don’t get the hang of it and just try things out without the right knowledge, you might end up very disappointed.
Every bet that can be made has a coefficient that tells you how likely each outcome is to happen. On top of that, there are different types of odds and different formats, but that’s a story for another time.
Has your bet won? Congratulations! Now, the amount you bet is multiplied by those odds, which means you’ll get a big payout.
The bookmaker pays the player the size of the bet multiplied by the coefficient. The player’s actual profit is called “net winnings,” which is the payout minus the size of the bet.
Keep in mind that bookmaker odds may be subject to change, so always double-check exactly what odds you’re placing your bet on.
Can You Win When You Bet on Sports?
Obviously, you can win at sports betting. If you’re interested, there are lots of documentaries, articles, and other real-life stories about people winning in a big and consistent fashion, but it all depends as not everyone can make good predictions and pick winning bets. And that’s knowing that almost all of them are fairly well-prepared when they come to place their bets.
Even if you know a lot about a sport, that doesn’t mean you’ll always win. In fact, nothing is a surefire way to win over and over again. That’s just not how it works. Still, you can make money from your bets if you meet a few key conditions.
Condition One: Working with Data
You have all the basic tools you need to choose a bet if you can process and use enough relevant information, connect facts, and get up-to-date information at the right time. Just believing in your team or athlete isn’t enough. You also need to know how they’re doing right now, if they’re motivated enough to win, how good the lineup is, and so on.
If you don’t want to learn from your mistakes but rather right away, it’s best to set aside time for it and carefully study the betting rules and any subtleties that might come up when figuring out the bet. Also, make sure you read any other rules that the platform you’re using might have. The coefficient that the bookmaker offers is also important. It’s very important not to bet on outcomes that are overestimated, since these bets won’t pay off in the long run. Most of the time, the favorites are given too much credit, but that’s not always the case. Experience is the only way to learn how to best judge an event, but you should keep that in mind from the first time you bet.
It can be hard to keep track of everything, so many betting sites let you pick a match from a list and get all the information you need about it.
Now, there are some players who can look back at events and judge them better than bookmakers, then win with an underdog option, but this is rarely true for new players. This is something that only comes with experience, and even then, not everyone can do it. At first, beginners can use whatever little detail they know about the sport to help them make smart choices about what to bet on.
Condition Two: Being in Charge of Your Money
The advice is simple and true for everyone: only bet what you can afford to lose. It’s not a good idea to double your bet after a win. Even worse is trying to win back after losing. Experienced players know how our brains work: one win for a new player, especially if it’s a big one, can often “eclipse” many losses from the past and future. If you want to master the art, or science, of sports betting, you should start keeping track of every bet you make and every win and loss.
This all also means that it’s necessary to set a limit on betting each month, and not go over that limit at first. Even if it seems like you have the best bet of your life, you shouldn’t make it bigger. If that bet turns out to be a winner, don’t be mad at yourself because you could have bet more. If you want to learn how to bet on sports, you have to realize that the most important thing is what you end up with in the long run. This hard-to-accept truth also comes with time.
Condition Three: The Right Perception
Bets should be fun, and this is the most important thing to keep in mind when learning how to bet on sports for the first time. You should expect that some of your bets will lose, but you shouldn’t let that ruin your fun.
There are a few great things about sports betting as a game and a hobby:
- It lets you keep your cool and not risk a lot of money. In this game, your attitude is everything.
- It helps you focus on getting better at making predictions without any other distractions.
- You get what you might have been missing: that drive, that healthy excitement, and those extra feelings when you watch a match.
Picking the Right Platform
Look into the best places to bet on sports. When betting, the odds and the event you choose matter a lot. Each bookmaker has its own odds, so you need to know what sport, tournament, and type of bet you are interested in. After deciding which way you want to go, you choose a bookmaker. It’s worth pointing out that the market is now so competitive that the possible winnings are naturally getting better and richer. So, many people focus on the coefficients that look best—the odds of the same events can vary from at different platforms and this can make a difference over time.
Going from Amateur to Semi-Pro
Most people start their “careers” in betting by focusing on their favorite team and/or athlete. This is a huge mistake that many experienced players still regret years later. When you think about it, these bets are based more on feelings than on facts, which is a problem in this case no matter how you look at it.
Professional players never let their emotions and the stakes be on the same level. New players should learn this as soon as they can. This isn’t just about frustration, like when you want to win back and have to bet on Malta in curling because there’s nothing else going on. Even more importantly, if you take your game too emotionally, you will get very upset very quickly when you lose or don’t do well. This will ruin all the good feelings that sports betting can give you unless you play responsibly and have fun.
So, if you’ve already decided to try betting, we hope this information will help you stay in the game and feel the thrills it can bring. Here’s to your success!
