Ins and outs of sports betting for beginner punters
The simplicity of sports betting is what made it one of the most popular pastimes in the world. Sports fans have enjoyed it since ancient history and it just keeps getting easier and more rewarding as time goes on. Despite this, there are many ways to make one’s experience of sports betting differently by adding complexity through a strategy.
Punters worldwide use a sports betting strategy for a higher chance of winning profit. There’s a wide variety of them available but the objective is the same and anyone can learn this trick. Learn how to use a sports betting strategy to ensure profit per game and add more fun to your experience.
What is a sports betting strategy?
A sports betting strategy is a laid out plan telling you which market to place your bets on and how much to stake. Some plans are intricate step-by-step guides while others are general if-and-then sets of rules. You can learn some of them and try them out at Sportsbet.
All outcomes are random as far as spectators are concerned because even underdogs can win against the favourites sometimes. However, punters will always try to find patterns that can consistently yield big payouts and often share this on community sites like forums or social media.
No strategies are guaranteed to win. Most of the time they were effective isolated cases but there are repeat results that raise confidence in them. You’ll have to try them yourself in sports betting Japan games and see how effective they are for you.
Factors to consider in a sports betting strategy
Unlike betting straight up, following a strategy makes you play with consideration. That means keeping an eye on a few factors and allowing circumstances to influence your next decision. Every strategy comes with its own nuances but the following factors are universal.
Your budget
This means the amount of money you have in your bankroll left for spending. Most of the time, a bankroll should only be a fixed limit every session, not all that is left in your Sportsbet account.
For example, a casual player would usually only use 100 Tether (USDT) or less but a high roller often spends up to 1000 USDT per week. It can even reach more than that for high stakes competitions like the World Cup. These fixed rates are best kept consistent for the best experience possible.
Market diversity
All of the types of bets you can make are called markets which include winner bets, score bets, and prop bets. The first two are as their name suggests referring to ‘who will win’ and ‘how many points will accumulate’ respectively. Prop bets are situational events that can happen in a sports event but are inconsequential to the result of the game. An example of this includes ‘who will get the MVP award’ or ‘who will score the most in a match’.
The bets you choose from each market are your options. There are usually only 2 to 3 per market but some will have more options depending on the nature of the market. More betting options mean more chances to win and many strategies account for several of them.
The betting odds
This refers to the numbers indicated in the bets of every market in a bookmaker like Sportsbet. Each one is the payout multiplier you are expected to win if it wins and it is the option you backed. It follows a simple rule where the favourites (option with the most bet and stakes) pay less than the underdog (the one that is less likely to win). Bookmakers follow this to reward punters who are betting against the odds.
Odds dynamically change for every modern sportsbook because they are based on how popular they are relative to other options in the same market. Thus, the more people bet or the higher the stakes accumulate on one side, the bigger the potential payout becomes for the other options.
The best sports betting strategies to try
Every punter in the world can come up with their own strategy and share them online. You can take inspiration from them in the making of your own or you can look for the best ones available. A good sports betting strategy is referred to by many fellow gamblers because of how effective they are.
Here are some of the best sports betting strategies you can try at Sportsbet:
Basic bankroll management
This is the most beginner-friendly of them all. A bankroll management strategy is mostly associated with table games but they are applicable to all even-money bets. Sports typically come with asymmetric matchups where one club is expected to be stronger than the other. It’s also applicable to sports betting where you simply play the game by choosing whichever option.
Bankroll management mostly revolves around deciding how much you stake in a bet then deciding how much to do the same on the next. It’s great for sports with multiple segments per match. Football only has two, basketball has four quarters, and baseball has nine innings, making the last one the best example to use in this context.
One of the most popular bankroll management strategies is the Martingale method where you double the stakes every time you lose. That means if you lose a 2 USDT bet on the first inning, then you place 4 USDT on the same market for the next one. Reset back to the minimum bet for the next inning if you win the previous one. Reverse Martingale does the opposite where you double down after winning then reset to minimum stakes after losing.
Bet hedging
This strategy can be expensive but it minimises risks. Bet hedging involves placing more than one wager in a market, typically only revolving around the winner. Initially, you choose which of three outcomes (team A, team B, or a tie) is your initial wager. This is where you place big bets, sometimes 10 USDT for casual bettors. Then, you place another bet (called ‘a hedge’) on one or both of the other options.
The initial bet is where you expect to get profit if it wins and the hedge is where you expect to cover your overall expenses if it’s the winning bet. Thus, the former is usually a bet on the underdog while the latter is on the favourite.
Middling
This bet (also called ‘betting the middle’) is a betting strategy for over/under markets or any kind of bets where there are several lines of threshold. Lines are often an arbitrary number of points predicted by the sportsbook with an additional 0.5 increment to prevent tied outcomes.
For example, lines in football start at 1.5 and you can guess if the total score from both teams of the game will be over (2 points or more) or under (1 or 0). This market will also feature other lines namely 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, and so on but it usually ends on 4.5 because it’s rare to score more than 6 in football.
If you are confident that the game will end with a total score of 2, then you bet on over for 1.5 and under for the rest of the lines. You can take advantage of Sportsbet dynamic in-play betting to keep up with the live scores. Bet on each line as the score count comes closer to that line the bet on ‘under’ for the rest before the game ends for an easy win.
Fading the public
This betting strategy is simple but it’s a risk-chaser by nature. Fading the public is often called ‘betting against the majority’ which means you are always backing whichever is the least popular outcome. It’s not as simple as betting on the underdog because the bookmaker also adds an assumption on which of the two clubs is stronger. Thus, most odds are already skewed in favour of one of the two before any punter even places their bet. The best way to fade the public is to listen to pundits’ predictions then choose the opposite.
Zig zag betting
This strategy involves following a team’s campaign throughout the season rather than betting on different team matchups. Zig zag theory is assuming that they will bounce between winning and losing at some point.
If they win the last game, then they are likely to lose the next regardless of matchup. Thus, you bet on them if they lost last time or against them if they came from a victory. Zig zag betting can be paired with the Martingale bankroll management. Even if you’re on a losing streak following the same club, you are bound to win eventually.
Conclusion
Some strategies are so effective that they stood the test of time and became fundamental to the beginner bettor’s experience. However, sporting events are random where miracles can happen all the time. Thus, no strategy is 100% fool-proof and you should still follow your instincts or understanding of the matches when in sports betting Japan games.
