Many people will place bets on sports they enjoy. For most, this is a pastime and nothing else other than that. However, regardless of how you view your betting, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to improve it.
To do this, you need to analyse what you do and the only way of analysing is to properly record and assess the bets you place.
You may find out that you lose but knowing where and how you lose could prevent that in the future. This is especially the case if you place a bet on many different sports, you could profit on some and lose on others.
Choosing your bookmaker is also an important step here. Many give you a bonus when opening an account, these are free chances to make a profit, use these in the correct way and you will put yourself in profit without spending a penny of your own cash.
This should be the first step you take if you want to improve your gambling. Recording your bets is simple and can be done on a computer with a basic spreadsheet. This can be any type of gambling, from normal bets to sports spread betting if this is something you do.
Make sure you include fields that will help you analyse which sections of your gambling are working well and which aren’t.
This means things such as the bet type, the league or competition your bet is on, and the sport if you bet on many different sports.
When you place a bet, simply record it on the spreadsheet and when the event has completed you can fill in the result, along with your profit and loss on the bet.
To analyse, you need a spreadsheet full of bets. Using a small sample may send you in the wrong direction, so it is important to only do this when you have a good number of bets for the different elements you want to analyse.
Look at leagues and sports you bet on and see where you are performing best and where you are performing worst.
For example, if you bet on football in Europe you may find yourself making a profit on the Premier League, but making a loss on Serie A.
If you bet on many different sports you may find yourself profitable when betting on tennis but losing when you place bets on horse racing.
If you use the spreadsheet correctly and have the right fields to work with, you should then have data in front of you that can help you improve your sports betting.
How you improve is determined by how you interpret the data and how much you want to change your betting.
The best move, if you are happy to, is to cut out those events and leagues you are losing on, and concentrate on the ones you are making a profit on.
If you aren’t 100% sure on this, you can change stakes instead. For example, keep your stakes the same on tennis that you are winning on, but place half stakes on horse racing because you are losing on it.
This will keep your betting variety intact, but it will limit the damage you are doing to your overall profit and loss by cutting your horse racing losses down.
You can monitor this over a longer period and see how things change, and if there is a change then you can always revert back to your old style if you wish. Having the right data will help you make these decisions, and hopefully it will improve your sports betting.
