Don’t Scam Yourself

Newbies to sports betting online often worry about getting scammed by disreputable betting sites or purchasing picks offered by less-than-savory dealers.  There certainly are online betting scams out there, but there are also plenty of reputable and very well-known websites you can bet on.  What most new sports bettors don’t realize (or don’t want to admit to themselves) is that the most likely scam isn’t going to come from anyone else—it’s going to come from yourself.

Why would you scam yourself?  Well, you would hardly do it on purpose.  A scam, by definition, is a form of deceit.  But most sports bettors ultimately fail at betting, and the reasons generally come down to their own betting decisions.  Here are some common ways that bettors deceive themselves right out of winning:

• Betting when you are too emotional.  You can never entirely leave your emotions at the door with betting; that’s a myth.  But you should never bet in a wildly emotional state, whether it’s an optimistic or a pessimistic one.  Never tell yourself you have things under control when you know you really don’t.

• Betting without a strategy.  If you are telling yourself that you can win based on your gut instinct, you are scamming yourself.  Nobody has the power to know for certain how events will unfold, and certainly not based on a feeling.  You have to have a solid basis for every bet you place, and not simply because you “think” that a team will win. 

• Believing any betting strategy or team is infallible.  No matter how great a team is or how well a strategy is working, you should never convince yourself that you are invincible.  What goes up must come down, and sooner or later, even the best teams and players will lose, and so will the best betting strategies.  Be prepared to adapt and make changes when necessary. 

• Betting big instead of betting smart.  One of the absolute worst things you can do to yourself is put all of your money on one big bet.  The day you start wagering arbitrary amounts of money (instead of the same small, consistent percentage on ever bet) is the day you start deceiving yourself.  If you are telling yourself one bet is better than another, why are you placing the sub-par bets at all?  Question your logic now and again, and you are bound to spot inconsistencies.  Always be on the lookout for these.

All of these are major ways you can scam yourself into the ground without the help of any fraudulent betting sites or services.  But perhaps the biggest scam of all is the idea that sports wagering is “nothing but gambling.”  Yes, you are risking money when you place a wager, but you can win regularly and consistently at sports betting, and there are people who make a living doing it.  You can stand right alongside them if you are willing to do the hard work and carefully monitor your own activities for inconsistencies.  Bet smart, and you will succeed!