Betting for beginners

Have you reached a point in your burgeoning career as a professional sports bettor where it feels like you are pouring time and energy down a black hole?  If so, you may have reached what Seth Godin referred to as The Dip in his New York Times Bestselling book by the same name.  Godin’s book was about entrepreneurship, but that makes it 100% applicable to you if you are trying to launch a full-time career in sports betting.

If you happen to have a background in entrepreneurship, you may be familiar with a New York Times Bestseller by Seth Godin called The Dip.  You may wonder what that has to do with sports betting, but think about it for a moment.  If you are embarking on a quest to become a professional bettor, one of the sharps, then you are an entrepreneur building a business of your own.  That means that you may face many of the same challenges—and “The Dip” is certainly one of them.

In this four-part series, I have provided a guide for getting started with sports betting if you are a complete newbie.  I have reviewed why it is better to wager online than offline, given you advice for selecting a UK betting site, and also offered recommendations for betting markets and types of bets.  Now I want to share a few more quick tips and tricks and cautions:

If you’ve been keeping up with my guide on Getting Started with Sports Betting, you have already read why online betting is better than offline betting, and what you should look for in the betting sites that you join (and also why you should join more than one).  If you missed it, re-read Getting Started with Sports Betting Part 2 to catch up.

Maybe you have placed a casual wager here and there with your friends while watching football, but have you ever placed a serious bet with a bookie?  Whether you are just curious what the experience is like, or you have won bets against your buddies before and figure you can make good money betting on sports, you have come to the right place.  I am going to help you learn the ropes and get started with our beginner’s guide.

In this installment, I want to talk about where and how you can place wages on sports.

Thinking of getting into sports betting for the first time?  If so, you probably have a lot of questions.  Odds are good you are not a complete beginner, even if you are still a newbie.  Most of us have placed a wager at some point or other, and if you are an avid sports fan, it was probably on the outcome of a match. 

Wondering why you still are getting a really low win percentage as a sports bettor?  If you do not have a betting system, that could very well be why.  In order to profit reliably enough to achieve even a seemingly modest win percentage like 55%, you need to have a system in place. 

If you are going to become a serious sports bettor, you have a lot of work ahead of you.  This is a job which requires you to do ongoing research, analysis, and development of betting techniques and to keep up with sports teams and athletes on a continuous basis.  It can chew up a lot of hours, and if you are doing it on top of a day job, you have your work cut out for you. 

The life of a sports bettor can be profitable, thrilling, and rewarding in every way—but make no mistake, it is not an easy path.  In fact, just trying to keep up with everything you need to do each day can be a real challenge.  You will constantly find yourself striving to find ways to become more productive.  To that end, I have written before about productivity secrets for sports bettors.  Some of my suggestions have included setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, prioritising your to-do list, and knowing when to take a break.

If you are going to become a profitable sports bettor, one thing you need to succeed is a betting system!  The vast majority of punters have no system whatsoever, or if they do, they apply it pell-mell with no real plan and may barely understand how it works.  Still others rely on picks from punters who do have systems, and simply hope that those picks will perform.  The only bettors who win with enough consistency to turn it into a living are those who have a method of their own in place.