If you are good at football, tennis or other sports, you too have a chance to convert your knowledge into real money. You only need to register at the bookmaker’s office and start placing bets. Most players make bets via the Internet.
All sports bettors have their own strategy. Even if the player doesn’t try to articulate or define it, it’s still there. A handicapper is a professional player in a bookmaker’s office, who makes bets based on past experience, with his ideas about conducting a competent game.
There are players who bet for the sake of betting. It doesn’t matter to them whether their bet loses or wins; they are interested in the process itself. Conscious people bet not for the sake of playing, but for the sake of earning.
From such a vantage point we can see the betting strategy. The goal of a handicapper is not to guess the result of a specific sports bet, but to make a profitable investment, and as a result, the approach to betting itself changes. It becomes more thoughtful and effective.
Should you use betting strategies? The answer is yes, but not everyone will do. Most of the most popular gaming and financial strategies work not for the benefit of the players, but for the benefit of the bookmaker business owners.
The strategy creates the illusion of a purposeful and consistent game it helps to allocate finances correctly, and reduces the number of impulsive bets. The disadvantage of strategies is that they do not give a tangible profit. That is why bookmakers welcome popular strategies and even advertise them on their sites.
Remember: there is no universal game strategy that will allow you to become a super successful handicapper. Only those who, through trial and error, come to create their own author’s methods, end up in the plus.
But this does not mean that all existing popular strategies should not be taken into account. They must be studied, checked and, if necessary, used. If only because some of them help to understand the mathematical laws of the betting business and develop their own unique methods based on them.
There are 3 types of strategies:
- gaming;
- financial;
- combined.
Many came to the bookmaker business from the casino world. Some strategies are hundreds of years old, but they continue to be promoted on betting sites and forums. Bookmakers use in their interests the idealization of the betting process characteristic of many players.
There is a classification of players by strategic passions – forecasters and mathematicians. The first take into account only game and sports factors, analyse statistics, physical form of players, look for “insider information”.
Mathematicians are not interested in all this information. They focus on coefficients. If the bookmaker has overestimated the probability of this or that event, they definitely take advantage of this and get profit from such bets in the long run.
Professional handicappers know that the main rule of success is to avoid popular strategies and bets on mass markets. Public opinion significantly affects the coefficients and distribution of cash flows. Remember that 95-98% of players play in the red.
What are the sports betting strategies
As already mentioned, there are financial and game strategies.
Some strategies, for example “Forks” or “Catch up” are considered win-win in theory. But remember that theory and practice in the bookmaker business are often diametrically opposed concepts. The same “Catch up” is a quick way not only to win a million, but also to drain an amount twice as much. Let’s consider the most popular examples of those and others.
Strategy 1. Arbitrage bet
The idea of a win-win strategy is very popular. It consists in the fact that the player needs to find in different bookmakers and oppose to each other such bets that will bring profit regardless of their result.
Example: The NBA basketball championship game between the Red Bulls and the Memphis Grizzlies. In the “X” office, the coefficient for the victory of “Red Bulls” is 2.30, in the “Y” office; bets on “Memphis” are estimated at 2.20. Betting on both of these results, you will be in the plus in any case.
To make a real profit with such a strategy, a significant initial pot is required; otherwise, the returns will be minimal. Another disadvantage of this strategy is that they are blocked by bookmakers. If a player is suspected of using it, he can easily have his betting limits reduced. Therefore, he will not be able to put more than a certain amount in the office, which will affect the profit.
Today it is becoming more and more difficult to find “Forks” and use them. Offices monitor each other and adjust the line if there is a danger of arbitrage rates. As a rule, a player has only a few minutes to place a bet. And if he makes a bet in one office and does not have time in another, there will be no sense in such a strategy.
There are cases when the bet was accepted, but after the end of the match, the bookmaker declares that an error was made in the odds, so the bet has been returned.
But progress works not only for bookmakers. There are online “fork” calculators on the network, as well as sites that automatically monitor arbitration situations and issue results Live. Such services are usually not free and require additional costs.
Strategy 2. Catch up
Another theoretically win-win strategy and the most dangerous for the player at the same time. There are many varieties of this strategy, but there is one common feature a progressive change in the amount of bets depending on the result of the previous game. That is, we increase the rate until we return all the money with interest. The simplest option is the successive doubling of the amount. First 1 dollar, if we lose – 2, then 4 and so on until the bet is played. But remember that sooner or later you will not have enough money for the next bet.
Strategy 3. Martingale
A type of progressive strategy, in which the amount of the bet is doubled after a loss, and after a win, it returns to the initial amount. The odds you are betting on must be greater than 2. The problem of this strategy is the same as the previous one – it is not known whether the player will have enough money and limits in the bookmaker’s office for the required number of bets.
Strategy 4. Pyramid
The strategy was originally developed for roulette. In the event of a loss, the amount of the bet increases by 1 conditional unit, and in the case of a win, it decreases by 1 unit. You set the size of this unit yourself to $10 or $100 if you want. For “Pyramid” it is better to play at high odds. The strategy is less risky than the usual “Catch-up”, but in the long run it also leads to losses.
Strategy 5. Oscar Grind
Another strategy that came from the casino. This is a typical example of positive progression. The concept is that wins and losses come in periods. Bets are kept low in the losing lane and increased in the winning lane.
It is used for bets on approximately equally likely outcomes, that is, the odds must again be greater than 2. The game is divided into sessions – consecutive bets are made until a profit of 1 bet is made. After the first game won, the bet increases by 1 unit. With unlimited funds and time, this strategy will bring profit, but it is impossible to predict the number of bets in each session.
Strategy 6. Kelly Criterion
The author of this strategy, John Kelly, suggests that players determine the size of the bet depending on the game pot. That is, in case of losses, the rates increase, in case of wins, the opposite is true. The problem is that there is a risk of a situation where the bet according to the formula will be less than the minimum limit in the bookmaker office. At the same time, the player must independently determine the probability of the event. And it is very difficult to do it better than bookmakers with their analytical departments and expensive software.
Strategy 7. Martingale Betting System
This strategy is a betting system that is one of the oldest types of betting. The idea behind the Martingale system is that the player should keep investing with the hope that things will turn around. That is, the player has a chance to make a profit that will exceed the losses. This strategy is most popular among casino game players because they believe they will win after a losing streak and double their winnings to compensate for their losses. The disadvantage of this strategy is that the player will need a large bankroll to cover the debts and expenses.
The classic Martingale strategy is to double your bet after each loss until you win or have enough funds to double your bets.
If you play in a casino, start with the minimum bet before the first loss. Then ×2 on the next spin and if you made a profit, you simultaneously win and compensate for the previous loss. On the next bet, if you reduce the bet size and start the process again, the same procedure will be used until you win and it will all start over. In theory, you can continue by doubling your losses and returning a small profit on your wins.
But can the Martingale system help a player win big? The system is risky and offers small gains in the short term, but may have large costs in the long term. Therefore, this strategy is considered not very effective. In the long run, after doubling your losses, the martingale system will exceed your total winnings if you lose more than you win.
But for beginners, this strategy is not clear and interesting at first. This is due to the fact that at first they feel its effect, but later they come to the conclusion that they lose more than they actually gain. If you are not ready for constant losses in the future, it is better to abandon this strategy.
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