I like to have a good bet when I can spare the money, I’d probably like it even more if I was earning enough money from these blogs to do it more frequently.
Betting is something you shouldn’t really do if you can’t spare the money, and requires a large degree of self-discipline both not to blow too much money on it on the path to becoming a gambling addict, and also to focus on what is a realistic prospect to stick your money on and not get taken in by something with long odds that only stands a chance of winning if something really weird happens that screws-up the event – like a freak weather event, or someone having an epic fail that takes out a chunk of the most likely winners of an event.
This article is mainly intended to be a rough guide to sports betting noobs looking to stay out of trouble in their early days of having a dabble rather than a serious guide to becoming an expert master at it.
The first step is learning to understand the sports you’re thinking of placing money on, at the very least to learn who’s good and who sucks. You can do this by regularly reading the sports news either in an old fashioned newspaper, or a variety of websites & TV stations such as:
- Daily Mail Sports section
- Daily Telegraph Sports section (£)
- The Sun Sports section
- The Times Sports section (£)
- Daily Express Sports section
- BT Sport
- Sky Sports News
- BBC Sport
- Racing Post
- Fox Sports
- Sporting Life
- Breitbart Sports News
- NBC Sports
There’s also many other options out there, including the websites of the various betting companies, and via feeds on social media websites such as Twitter.
After that it’s mostly a matter of having the self-discipline to not spend more than £5 to £10 a week on it, or not spending on it at all if you can’t spare the money.
Have the sense to only place bets on the top 4 or 5 options on odds list for participants in the event, and where possible go for an e/w (each way) bet – that way even if the horse doesn’t win, you still get something back if they finish in the Top 3 (or Top 4 in larger events such as the Grand National).
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Run your betting like the profit/loss account in a business, and list:
- Money Spent on Bets (including date/time and on what)
- Result of bets (winnings or money lost)
- Difference between money spent placing the bets & what you’ve won back (profit/loss)
Which may go something like this…..
Money spent on bets = Balance at £0 – £5 bet = -£5
Balance at £0 – £10 bet = -£10
Balance at -£15 less a £5 bet = -£20
Winnings of £25 added to a -£20 balance = +£5
Winnings of £35 added to a +£5 balance = +£40
It sounds a pain in the butt to do, but it’s the only way you’ll keep track of how good or bad your efforts are going unless you rack up a win in 3 or 4 figures, which is a bit of a long-shot.
For more in-depth betting tactics, check out these reads in the Amazon Kindle store:
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Horse Racing: Discover How To Achieve Consistent Monthly Profits: Betting Against The Crowd by Frankie Deglory
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Back a Winning Horse: An introductory guide to betting on horse racing (Teach Yourself) by Belinda Levez
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Betting on Horse Racing For Dummies by Richard Eng
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Armchair Profits: A compendium of horseracing systems by Anthony Gibson
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The Football Code: The Science of Predicting the Beautiful Game by James Tippett
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Enemy Number One: The Secrets of the UK’s Most Feared Professional Punter by Patrick Veitch
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Loading ...And finally don’t forget that while it’s possible to make money betting, it’s also more so possible to get your arse handed to you on a plate doing it and losing shedloads of money in the process, and losing everything.
