Betting guide

Following statistics may seem like a given to you if you are a sports bettor, but maybe not.  While many bettors take it for granted that they need to learn about and analyse statistics in order to succeed at betting, there are actually a surprisingly large number of articles that advise bettors to ignore statistics entirely.  Is there a foundation to the claim that stats don’t really matter?

There are perhaps several reasons why some bettors prefer to avoid statistics.  I would say that two of the three of these make some degree of sense:

In-play betting or live betting is a major growing trend in the world of online UK sports wagering.  In-play betting is exactly what it sounds like.  It refers to wagering that takes place while an event is in progress, as opposed to a wager put down before the event begins.  If you are betting on horse racing, it is called “in-running” betting, but it is the exact same thing.  The growth of online betting sites has made it easy to wager in-play.  Mobile technology in particular has fed into the growth of this trend.  When you can bet anywhere, you can bet anyt

Most of the time when you bet on sports, you are betting on a team, player, or horse to win.  Sometimes, though, you may actually bet that a team, player, or horse won’t win.  This is known as a “lay bet.”  Lay betting is an excellent option when you know enough about an event to have an idea who will not win, but you are unable to make a solid call as to who will win.  Maybe you know that a particular participant is unlikely to win a tournament, or that a particular horse is never going to make it to the fin

When you start betting on sporting events online, you will doubtless discover there are a lot of odds comparison tools out there.  These tools usually take the form of charts which list events on one side and UK betting sites on the other.  This allows you to scan down the chart to see what prices are being offered by different bookmakers.  While these charts may list obscure events, they generally list the more popular online betting sites. 

When you decide how much money to put down on a bet, how much do you choose?  Do you pick a certain amount, whether it be £5 or £5,000?  How do you set your minimum and maximum bets?  Bettors are often advised to think in terms of pounds when they set their betting units, but you may want to think in terms of percentages instead.

Have you ever seen a line open for a game and then rapidly and drastically swing the other way?  If so, you have already seen the perfect setup for a middling opportunity.  Middling is a very popular strategy, used by novice and experienced punters alike.  If you “middle” a game, you essentially are betting on one side, waiting for the betting line to move the other way, and then betting on the other side.

I have talked in the past about the importance of keeping a betting journal.  In a betting journal, you can write about your wagering experiences, including not only your outcomes, but also your emotions, your strategies, and more.  A betting journal is a valuable tool since it allows you the chance to go back over your past and analyze the decisions you have made.  The insights you get from your journal can help you to come up with smart changes to your strategies, which in turn can lead to greater profits.  But a betting jour

These days, it seems like just about everybody owns either a smartphone or a tablet.  If you do, you can take advantage of your mobile device while betting on your favourite sports.  There are a number of different ways your device can be useful to you.

One term you will hear often when you are gambling on sports is “handicapping.”  You probably intuitively know what handicapping means, because odds are you have encountered the concept somewhere in your life before.  A lot of people became familiar with handicapping in America thanks to Jimmy Snyder on CBS (“Jimmy the Geek”).  Jimmy was a famous handicapper.  Because he was on American television, he couldn’t bluntly talk about sports betting, but he could predict the scores of future games. 

Do you usually sit down on Friday nights to do your research before NFL weekends?  Do you then wonder why, despite your best efforts, you continue to lose your wagers?  While you may think you are ahead of the game because you are putting in several days of effort, the reality is that you are still behind the sharps and the real professional handicappers.  Even if this is your part-time job, you have to treat it like a full-time job in order to be successful.  And that means taking the whole week to keep up with NFL teams.&nb