How Often Should You Bet?

We often think in terms of productivity quotas, especially when it comes to making money.  Sports betting is not a gig that pays hourly; it pays based on how many bets you actually win.  You may even have already sat down and crunched numbers and determined that you would need to place X bets a year at your current win percentage to make X amount of money.

How often should you bet?  The problem with quotas is that they often push us to make wagers when there are no good opportunities.  This just results in losses.  That does not mean you should not set goals, but it does mean you need to choose a betting method which actually generates the bets and wins you need.

Is it better to have a higher win percentage and fewer bets, or a lower win percentage and more bets?  This is a somewhat confusing topic, and the answer is not all that intuitive.  Say you make 100 bets and you wager £100 on each.  You win 65%.  You win £6,500, and lose £3,850, for a total of £2,650. 

Now imagine you make 1000 bets and you wager £100 on each, and you win 57% of the time.  You win £57,000, and lose £47,300.  Your total profit is £9,700.  That is a big increase from £2,650.  You can see how you could be more profitable even if your win percentage is lower, and how even though 57% does not seem like a lot, it can be. 

Of course, this map is simplified, and it will not always come out in favour of betting more at a lower win percentage.  A lot depends on how much more, and on how low the percentage actually is.  Past a certain point, you obviously are going to start losing money.  A higher win percentage has certain advantages as well; something that proves itself accurate 60% of the time is more reliable than something that proves itself 57% of the time.  Still, this percentage difference is not that great, and demonstrates the complexity of getting all these statistics to work together.

My recommendation is to create a betting spreadsheet where you can keep track of your wagers.  This works great in demo or when you are betting real money.  Keep track of how much you bet, and teach your spreadsheet to calculate important numbers like your win percentage, the number of winning and losing bets you take each month, and other key statistics.  This will help you run comparisons.  Also be sure to calculate the actual pound amount you are winning.  This is how you ultimately determine your profitability. 

Get all your stats as strong as you can and you will get the best results.  Accept though you may need to give a little in one area or another to improve your overall outcome.  Take other factors into account as well, like your schedule and personality.  Never take on more bets than you can handle.