While there may not be much sport taking place at the moment, we do all have lots of free time, and so I thought that the next few weeks would be a great time to re-visit some articles I wrote back in the day which are still valid – in some cases they’re even MORE valid now than they were then.
Enjoy and, as ever, if you have any feedback or questions you can reach us at clients@thebetchat.com.
A lot of rubbish gets written and spoken about sports betting…
‘It’s a mug’s game’ they say, ‘You never see a poor bookie’.
Or ‘If he’s making that much money, why would he sell his selections?’
So I thought I’d expel some of these myths and explain exactly why the real mugs here are the ones writing off an opportunity that they know next to nothing about.
Ignorant Reason 1: It’s a mug’s game
Football attracts hooligans but that doesn’t mean that all football fans are hooligans…
You see what I’m trying to say here?
Just because betting attracts mugs, doesn’t mean it’s a mug’s game.
You get mugs spread betting, buying options and buying shares.
There are smart and stupid people in all walks of life. Betting is no different.
It’s our job to know what the smart people are doing…
And I’d like you to be a little open minded and listen close.
For starters, the majority of the people that give bettors a bad name have no real interest in sports betting.
In fact, I’d go further…
Those who dismiss it are actually ignorant. They know nothing.
They more than likely believe you can get an edge in the stock market with spread betting, options or dividend strategy but they pooh-pooh the idea you can get a profitable edge in sports betting.
They think a head and shoulders pattern, or knowing the right metric on Price to Earnings (PE) ratio, is a proven way to buy shares.
It can be but so can the sectional times of races, the judgement of a handicap weighting and a horse’s blood line.
Those are all key metrics when it comes to making money from horse racing – just like technical analysis or company analysis when looking at share investing.
It’s using the available data to make an investment decision.
In betting there are many ways to throw away your cash…
Simply betting on a Fixed Odds Betting Terminal in your local bookies or casino is a sure way to the poor house.
Indeed, in pretty much any casino, lottery or virtual game the odds are mathematically stacked against you…
If you play long enough you WILL lose.
But with sport that can never be the case – animals and people are far from infallible and therefore there will always be a big slice of opinion involved when it comes to pricing up a bet…
Therefore if your opinion is better skilled and better educated than that of the bookmaker you WILL make money in the long term.
Ignorant Reason 2: You never see a poor bookie
So what?
Bookmakers make their money from two main avenues and neither of them need affect us.
The first is from mug punters – those who bet on the fruit machines, only back wild 20 team accumulators or, dare I say it, become addicted and lose a fortune on desperate, nonsensical plays…
To avoid that fate, just don’t be a mug punter – stick to a strategy within sports betting, do your research and if you don’t have the right mentality then don’t bet.
The second is from an in-built margin – this has slightly more effect on us but it’s certainly not insurmountable (and in some cases, as with Football Index, there is no margin!).
When betting on fixed odds, how the margin works is that races are priced up so that if you back every horse in a race with the same bookie you will make a small loss – that might not sound ideal but you’re never going to back every horse in one race are you?
Just because they make a profit overall on the race, football match or whatever, it doesn’t mean you can’t ALSO make a profit…
And that’s not even considering the fact that if you shop around and get the best odds for each horse using a variety of different bookies, you probably could make a small profit from every horse and, if not, certainly come extremely close to a break even.
Ignorant Reason 3: If you’re making that much money, why would you sell your selections?
Although this is asked of tipsters regularly, the answer is a simple one: why WOULDN’T you sell them?
Now I could talk about this subject all day, so much does the question rile me, so I’ll use bullet points to keep it brief…
- Selling tips has no ill effect on the tipster’s betting profits – with so many bookies available, he or she can easily get their bets on in addition to their members.
- If the tipster works with a publisher, such as Bet Chat, it will be no extra work for the tipster beyond typing their selections out and hitting send – they’d have spent time researching selections for themselves anyway.
- While sports betting can undoubtedly be lucrative, who’s going to turn down some extra money when they get the chance to make it?
- And lastly for those that take issue with that last statement – good tipsters put a lot of work into their selections, so why shouldn’t they be paid for them? You wouldn’t begrudge paying a baker money for a pasty or a carpenter money for a table. This is no different.
So, there you have it…
Hopefully if you were previously sceptical of sports betting as a means for a long-term income then this has made you think a little bit…
Of course, it’s not for everyone, but for those that are willing to either put the hard graft in and learn the trade or find themselves an excellent external source of information, sports betting can be extremely lucrative.
One such source is our Football Index expert Adam Gibbs, and you can try his service risk-free for two whole months by clicking this link.
