Betting for beginners

If you casually attended Cheltenham Festival or other big horse racing festivals this year, you undoubtedly had an awesome time. Did you place any wagers? If it was your first time doing so, maybe you won, maybe you lost—but you probably discovered one thing for certain, which is that betting on horse racing really ups the ante when it comes to excitement.

It’s hard to believe that Cheltenham Festival and all the other big horse racing events have already come and gone.  This year’s event was as thrilling as ever.  If you had the chance to attend in person, you probably had a grand (and hopefully profitable) time wagering.  If not, you probably bet online from home. 

Earlier this year was Cheltenham Festival 2016, one of the biggest annual events in horseracing, and one of the most exciting to attend.  If you were lucky, maybe you had a chance to grab tickets and wager from the racecourse.  If you were there, you could have placed your bets at the teller window, or you could have used your mobile device and wagered online from the stands. 

It is a common mistake for sports bettors to ignore new golfers who are joining a tour for the first time—or who are coming back to a tour after a long time away.  Sometimes these players are among the strongest in the tour, especially in the beginning when other veteran golfers may be reserving their energy and focus for later.  How can you evaluate a new golfer to determine his likely value?

If you want to make consistent profits from sports betting season after season, you need to have a system.  A betting system is based on real-world patterns in performance.  It helps you to profit off of those patterns going forward, reducing your exposure to uncertainties. 

Match play golf is one of the most exciting sports formats to follow because you get to watch such an intense personal game.  That is why it is also so much fun to wager on.  But match play golf also tends to get hyped up a lot in the press, and it is easy to be swayed too much by public opinion.  As a result, there are a number of mistakes you will want to take care to avoid.

As with any sport, it can be a challenge to bet on golf early in the season.  When the season opens, you don’t have as much information as you do later on.  What are some specific cautions to observe while you are wagering to make sure you don’t fall into common traps?  Try to avoid these mistakes:

If you follow golf, you may follow both the European Tour and the PGA.  While the European Tour is obviously a high-profile event here, the PGA Tour is much more famous worldwide.  PGA players switch to the European Tour for a lot of different reasons.  Sometimes it is to embrace a new challenge, other times it is to pursue courses that better fit their playing style, and still other times it has to do with a change of pace.  The European Tour is usually considered easier than the PGA Tour, so some players will switch if they are injured or tired.  What should you k

Most professional athletes retire when they are still relatively young—but that is a matter of perspective.  What is considered “young” or “old” in the world of sports is quite a bit different than it is in the rest of the world.  A 35 year-old man who might be in the prime of his career in the business world could very well be considered well past his prime in the world of sports.  From an outsider’s perspective, he is young to retire, but from within his sport, he may actually be thought of as old.

Losing a game is never good, but some losses are more devastating than others.  When a team goes into a game fully expecting to win, and all the hype is on their side, and then they lose, the clash of reality against expectations can be crushing. Any time a team gets trounced, losing by 20 or 40 points, it can have a lasting impact on the rest of their season.