13 Tips to Improve Your Betting

1. Why is value so important? (Crucial)

The concept of value is crucial for a successful bettor. Read this part carefully!

Definition:

The value of a bet is the ratio between potential profit and risk.

There is nothing like a safe bet. It doesn’t matter how big favourites one side is. If Plateau United plays Real Madrid the odds may be 1.10 that Real Madrid will win and 10.0 that Plateau United will win. Do the odds have a good value? It depends on the risk that Real Madrid will lose.

Are you still with us?

The concept of Value is simple, but few players really understand how important it is. For you as a serious punter, this is great news! Why is that? To understand this advantage, you need to have more knowledge about how the bookies set their odds.

A bookmaker doesn’t care about who will win. They set the odds to make both sides of equally attractive. Take the English National Team for instance. It’s a known fact that the English bet for their own team… (They bet with their hearts, rather than brains,).

When England played Belgium in the World Cup the majority of the English players lay their bets on an English victory. Belgium were favourite to win the game according to global expertise.

The odds told a different story however. When all English punters put their bets on England the bookmakers adjusted the odds. The odds fell on an English victory and increased on Belgium. The skilled punters would immediately take advantage over extra value that was created and betted on Belgium.

High value means that the odds are too high in comparison to the risk. If you can spot this on regular basis you will become an excellent online betting Pro.

Another way to explain Value is to look at the stock market. Have you ever bought shares in a company? When you’re investing in stocks you try to buy them when the price is low, and sell them when it price is high. If you do the opposite, you’ll lose money.

Finding the best values demands patience. You’re looking for odds that are better than the risks they involve. If you can judge the probability more accurately than the bookmaker, you’ll find your high values.

The bookmakers need to put odds on any game in the big football leagues in Europe. You can specialize and focus on one. IF you do your homework you might get better information about that league than the odds maker. Then you can better calculate the odds as well.

Practice your skills in finding value. It will be the key to your success as a upcoming star better.

2. The importance of mathematics

You can’t underestimate the importance of mathematics in betting. If you believe that you can do it by gut feeling you will lose in the long run. Betting is about understanding statistics, calculating odds. You don’t need to a university professor in math. But you need a basic understanding of the principals. Are you comfortable with:

• Addition
• Subtraction
• Multiplication
• Division
• Decimals
• Percent
• Ratio

If you don’t feel comfortable using these terms we recommend you to spend some hours on YouTube to practice. If you’re serious in your ambition to improve your betting, math is a crucial skill to possess.

3. Avoid the bet-by-heart-trap

Many of us has put bets because we want to something to be true. Don’t go in to the bet-by-heart-trap. A professional bettor has to put their feelings aside and focus on facts. Ask yourself these questions:

1. What is the value of this bet?
2. Would I do this bet if another team was playing?
3. Why is this bet important?

What we try to achieve with these questions is to get your brain thinking. We want to you to question your motives. The more questions you ask the more the brain is working and the further away goes your heart.

The goal is to avoid the bet-by-heart-trap and let the logic take over. Create a strict betting process for how you make a bet. Write it down, step by step and follow it like your own bible.

Only when you ask yourself questions and have a clear decision process your logical thinking can take control of your bets. It’s not easy, and it will take time to put this process in play, but trust us, IT’S WORTH IT!

4. Specialize in something

More than 85% of all betting is done on football. The odds setters spend 1000s of hours every year to set odds on the top leagues in Europe. It’s rare to find high value odds in these leagues because the bookmakers are simply too good.

So where do we find good value?

We recommend you to specialize. Find a market where the odds makers are not as good. Our recommendation is to take a closer look at the second and third leagues in one or more countries.

Since most people bet on the top leagues, the bookies and odds makers are focusing most energy there. If you put your focus on let’s say the French Ligue 2 you have a good chance to beat the odds.

Set up a plan for your research into unknown territory. Start watching games, look for trends, read bloggers, and try to get more local information.

Not much happening in Premier League that The Sun or The Mirror doesn’t write about the very same day. The bookies have the information before you do and the odds are adjusted.

In a smaller league is the coverage substantially lower. Here you can quickly start to see value everywhere. The bookmakers have to set odds on more or less all games. We players can play on whichever match we want… TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THAT!

5. Become time neutral

Have you ever fallen in to the trap of keeping to old patterns? Like Elsa sang in the movie Frozen “The past is in the past, let it go… Let it go!”. Don’t dwell on things in the past. We can change anything about it. BUT LEARN FROM PAST MISSTAGES.

Betting is like life itself. It’s a learning process. It’s okay to make mistakes, if we learn from them.

In poker it’s called TILT when you make an illogical bet because feelings, or disappointment of a just lost hand. TILT is the worst thing you can do in Poker. The same action concerns for sports betting too.

By become time neutral we want you to learn from your mistakes, but not let them affect your judgement negatively today. OBS! We have the same concern for WINS. Just because you won “this way” last time, doesn’t mean it works the same way now.

Be cautious to yourself. Make sure that every decision you make is because of today’s facts, not because you had some experience yesterday. Never try to chase losses.

6. Keep a long term perspective

Wanna go pro? Then you need a long term perspective with your betting. You will face periods with ups and downs. Nothing is better than a winning streak… But you’ll also have losing streaks.

No gambler has ever had a linear positive curve on their bankroll over a long time. It will be like a bumpy road. (Hopefully is an uphill road). It important to keep this in mind.

A rule of thumb is to never bet more than 1% of your stack in one bet.

If you stick too maximum 1% bets you can afford to lose for some time without threatening your entire bankroll. If you have €100 on your bankroll you can make €1 bets.

If you see sports betting like a type of investing your money and time. Then it’s easier to keep a long term perspective. You’ll not build your fortune over a night (if you don’t win a Million Dollar jackpot in the casino).

Place your bet according to your plan. A good punter has around 5% profit on average per bet. It might sound much, but the more bets you do, the more profit you’ll do.

When your money accumulates over time you can bet higher amounts per bet. This will lead to even faster accumulation of money. In a few years you can start withdrawing money from your account as semi, or real professional punter.

7. Don’t bet to make things interesting

In betting it’s important to make good bets, where the value is high. It’s just as important to don’t bet when the conditions are not right.

Today you can bet on over 150 things in one single Premier League match. There is no chance that anybody can predict so many things in one game. Most of these bets will make the game more interested to watch:

• How many corners will one team get?
• Who will make the next goal?
• Who will win the coin flipping before the game?

These bets might be fun. Live betting is an important part of betting. But it’s very difficult to make money from it. Few professional bettors care about these kind of odds. It’s simply too much luck involved. The value of the bets is low compare to the risk (from a math perspective).

Stick to what you’re best at. Remember that each bet counts. Make sure to keep track of all your bets so you later can go back to analyse the results to find trends and patterns.

8. Compare odds to find the best value

Do you have more than one sportsbook? We recommend you to open an account will at least 10 naija sport books on this site. Some of the strongest brands are:

• Unibet
• Betsson
• LVbet

If you have more than one sportsbook you can easily compare the odds between them for any given game. The odds can differ as much as 30% sometimes. This is a great way to improve the value of a bet with very little extra work!

An advantage with choosing a sportsbook from our list is that we have checked so it’s available for Nigerian players.

9. Join a community

Have you read the book Seven habits of Successful people? Like the title says, the book is about how successful people do things. The key point of the book is that if you do the same, you will eventually get the same results.

We have created a community here on NaijaBetting.org. Join our forum and start talking with people about their experiences. Share and discuss ideas. Find somebody that can mentor you. A successful punter which can work as role model for you.

Your interest and enthusiasm for learning makes you a perfect candidate for the forum. We believe you could benefit tremendously from being part of a community.

A good complement to the forum would be to find a good tipster to follow. Some people share tips for money. There some like that in Social Media and they are not too hard to find.

The key thing we want you to take with you from this section is:

If you do and mimic what successful bettors do, you will become successful too!

10. Bet on a level that suits your personality

Some people have nerves of steel. They are calm as millpond. These people don’t get stressed when they bet on high odds. They are born risk takers they enjoy hard action.

Most people are in fact risk evasive. We try to avoid risks and get tense as soon as there are uncertainties around. So which is the better bettor?

The truth is that both can be good punters. They just need to adjust their bets to their personality. If you’re a person that try to avoid risks, then you should specialise in lower odds. Perhaps dodge multiple bets.

The risk taker on the other hand might get a kick out the extra risk a multiple give.

What personality type are you?

11. Set Goals for your betting

You can’t hit a target you can’t see. In order to measure your progress, you need to collect data about your bet. You also need to set clear goals to what you want to achieve.

The truth is that most sportsbook players lose money. In the beginning there are a lot of things to learn. When you set targets for your game, focus more on what you should do in order to improve than how much money you want to make.

You will not become pro over a night. Set realistic goals that you will be able to achieve.

12. Choose a Sport you love watching

This is perhaps the most important tips of them all. Sports betting is entertainment. Make sure that you choose a sport that you enjoy watching. The more you watch, the more you read and the more time you spend on checking data… The better you will be at betting!

If you should spend 1000s of hours doing something – Isn’t the most important thing that you enjoy it. Isn’t the dream to do live from something you love doing?