Sports Betting Strategies – How do they work and do you need them?

What are sports strategies? How do they function and should they play a role in your sports betting? These are very interesting questions and in this article, we shed some light on sports betting strategies.

There are plenty of them around and while some punters never touch them, others are big fans and many create their own.

Sports betting strategies are a fascinating topic, not only because of the premise and to a degree, the promise of them, but there is a lot of fine mathematical and statistical reasoning happening behind the scenes.

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What is a sports betting strategy?

A strategy is a plan of action. The first thing you need though is a goal to work towards. In betting, that would, of course, be trying to make some profit. Having a sports betting strategy won’t guarantee such a thing happens, but having one can provide structure.

A sports betting strategy will provide steps to follow when certain situations happen. A simple example would be doubling your stake on your next bet after a loss. But if the current bet wins, then you half that initial stake on the following bet instead.

Having a plan to follow allows a punter to have clarity and direction. It’s a betting blueprint.

Pros and cons of a betting strategy 

As with everything in life, there are pros and cons of things. One of the pros of a betting strategy is the structure. You know exactly what steps to take so you are not left puzzling or panicking over what to do next in a situation. While there are some complicated ones out there, most betting strategies are easy to follow.

A big issue with betting strategies is that they often assume an unlimited bankroll. If you look at any betting strategy like the famous Martingale the mathematics indicate that at some point a win will come.

However as the plan involves increasing the stake after every loss, a losing streak will quickly mean that bigger and bigger chunks of money have to be staked to get to the point of a winning return to cover all of the previous losses.

Pragmatic elements of betting strategy

When it comes to sports betting, a strategy just doesn’t necessarily mean the Fibonacci, Martingale, D’Alembert or Paroli. There is another, more pragmatic way to think about what a sports betting strategy is.

What we mean by this is looking at the very simple basic elements of the practice of betting and again, following some kind of blueprint. Among this, you will want to consider what your bankroll is before playing anything. Set it and stick to it.

Studying statistics is part of a betting strategy as well because then you are not blindly wading through bets trying to use guesswork of what is value and what is not in markets.

Then there are betting emotions and only sticking to what the statistics are showing you and not wavering because you have a gut feeling or get panicked and start emotionally trying to start chasing losses.

How to create sports betting strategies

Betting is a very personal thing to a lot of punters. At the end of the day, it is an individual versus the bookmaker. Punters will normally fall into patterns when they are betting and this just happens naturally.

A particular punter may only bet on over/under markets in football, another just handicap lines in rugby or pick only second-favourites who are bigger than 4.0 in horse racing. People find their little favourable niches to bet on, whatever the sport it.

• Which is the Best Sport to Bet On?

Familiarity with bets is a key component of building your strategy. That’s because you will understand the variables, risk and value in a market that you play often. From that then you can set achievable objectives.

At the end of the day, any betting strategy should be dictated by the bankroll. That is such a vital step in the process. Nothing matters more at the end of the day than the money and it’s necessary to stay in control of it. Never play more than you can afford to lose is the golden rule.

Another point to make when you are planning out your betting strategy is to keep records of what is happening with the bets that you place. Keeping track of all the action will allow you to see if the strategy that has been put together needs tweaking a little bit to better suit your objectives. 

The 2% rule of betting strategies

An unwritten rule of playing a betting strategy is to bet between 1% & 2% of your bankroll. That seems like a low number of course, but it is something that a lot of professional gamblers will abide by. 

This is a conservative approach to betting and requires patience, especially when playing market options at short odds. But the point is that because sports outcomes are so unpredictable and as a gambler you will have losing streaks, playing lower stakes will mitigate the risk of losses. 

It’s the long term goal of a profit as opposed to throwing 25% of your bankroll on one outcome. Also, playing only a small percentage of your bankroll, you are not likely going to face the stresses and major concerns of losing when those smaller stakes are in play.

Betting strategy summary

A betting strategy can bring something valid to the table, because of the structure and discipline that it can give a punter. A betting system will usually exist with the underlying premise that it will maximize winning streaks. 

It’s important to remember at the end of the day when approaching any kind of betting system, that a betting strategy is not a “hack”. The skill of understanding markets, odds and statistics are the keys to betting.