3 Bad Betting Habits to Leave Behind in 2016

I have previously wrote about New Year’s resolutions for sports bettors.  These included betting with a real gambling strategy, getting away from emotional betting, focusing on a single sport, and figuring out what your goals are.  I also suggested you stop betting live with real money if you are not ready.  Here are some more bad habits you should consider leaving behind this year!

1. Quit wagering random amounts of money. 

This is a really common mistake that punters make.  When you are feeling more confident, maybe you put down more money than when you are feeling less confident.  This may sound like it makes sense, but it really doesn’t.  You should only bet when you feel really confident about a wager, so that means you should always bet the same (conservative) amount.  Stop wagering random amounts of money and you will quit suffering from huge, sudden losses.

2. Stop isolating yourself.

Are you going at it alone?  While you will do most of your betting activities privately, you do not need to isolate yourself completely, and doing so is typically a bad idea.  There are many friendly sports bettors you can get to know online and in your local area.  When you put yourself out there and meet others, you can get valuable feedback on your betting strategies.  It is a great learning opportunity, and will also provide you with much-needed emotional support.  It can be a game-changer, and a lot of bettors discover it makes all the difference in the world.

3. Stop starting over.

Do you test out strategy after strategy without settling on any of them?  Do you consistently find yourself going back to the drawing board and starting over at square one?  When your strategy stops performing to perfection, do you toss it out completely?  This pattern is a really detrimental one and can quickly lead to you burning out.  Each time you do this, you undo all of your progress, and you lose sight of the important fact that no strategy is ever perfect.  You move the goal posts out of reach, which actually guarantees that you will abandon your next strategy.

Instead, try to keep working on your current strategy this year, if you have been getting reasonably good results with it.  Once you get an edge, it is much more efficient to keep sharpening that edge than it is to go out and search for a new one.  It will never be perfect, but all it needs to be is good enough to help you win again and again.

If you can leave these bad habits behind you in 2016, you will be in a much stronger place as a sports bettor, and be giving yourself a much better shot at success.  Even if you can just quit one bad habit, you will be in much better shape than you are today.  Just imagine how much higher your profits could be, and go for it!