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If you want to make money as a bettor, you would realize sooner or later the role psychology plays in your chance of winning any bet. Do you know or believe that your mindset can affect your chances of winning? Is there a relationship between how you think and how profitable you would be as a bettor? Read on to know if you are in control of your actions or if they are in control of you.

We humans believe we are superior to other animals because of our ability to think rationally. As a matter of fact, the rational choice theory is what our whole economic theory is based on. This theory which states that in all situation people try to minimise their losses and maximise their gains only makes sense on paper.

Testing the rational choice theory

In Economics, alternatives are ordered by preferences based on the satisfaction derived from consuming them. For example, if we know that John loves pawpaw more than mangoes and loves mangoes more than apples, we can easily predict that he would go for a mango when asked to choose between mangoes and apples.

Now imagine a situation where John goes for the birthday party of his 8 years old niece. His sister takes a healthy approach to feeding their guests and decides to serve fruits instead of candies. The kids love the fruits so much that when John approaches the table to serve himself he realizes there are only two bowls of fruits left, one filled with sliced mangoes and another with an apple. As soon as reaches for her favorite, two kids come for the mangoes on the table.

John decides to teach the kids that it is good to always share what you have and divides the mangoes into their two bowls for them before taking the apple.

It is an irrational assumption to believe that because you told yourself you are going to make money betting means you would act accordingly.

John is an adult, and because he prefers the mango fruits, he could have kept them for himself while giving the apples to the kids. The behavioral scientist makes us understand that the satisfaction John derives from giving the mangoes to the kids is more than he would get if he had consumed them himself, so he decides to make the “irrational choice.”

Let us look at a different context. John is an over-spender, and two weeks before payday he has already overdrawn his pay. On his way to the library, a friend offers him a bowl of freshly cut apples, topped with Cinnamon.

His sweet tooth is urging him to accompany it with mango and vanilla ice cream, the problem is he would have to buy it himself. He decides to take just the offer albeit in frustration. What if this same scenario plays out on payday, John is now able to buy the mango and vanilla Ice cream he craves, do you think he would settle for just a free bowl of apple?

How Irrationality applies to betting

Behavioural scientist claim people do not act consistently with their rational axioms, but are they right? This question would require a long discussion, but the point to note here is that because you say you want something doesn’t mean you would act accordingly.

Context, available alternatives, goals, and timing are what choices are dependent on in real life. This makes blindly believing that you would act accordingly because you have told yourself that you want to make money in betting an irrational assumption. As a matter of fact, rationality has become a superpower because it is so rare.

Do you believe that it makes sense to bet over 3.5 goals on a team because they scored 5 goals in their last game against a bigger team and now face a smaller team? If you believe so, you are a victim of availability bias.

If you have ever found yourself increasing your stake after a series of losses because you feel is time for your luck to change, you have fallen victim of the gambler’s fallacy which is one of many mental flaws that bettors usually suffer from.

In fact, psychologists have discovered that there are many cognitive biases that are responsible for bettors losing money.

The only way to remedy this situation is to forget about overcoming these biases and focus all your energies on betting based on expected value rather than on unproven assumptions.

If you bet for entertainment purposes, you can go ahead and place bets based on assumptions, but if you want to make a living out of betting, don’t place another bet without first calculating its expected value.

Sports’ betting is one of the few forms of betting that gives you a chance to win big in the long haul and that’s what makes it unique.

Additionally, sports bettors get the privilege of watching the teams they bet on entertain them, although you would only enjoy watching a game when the team you bet on wins you the bet.

Regardless of whether you watch the game or not, to win in sports betting you need a good strategy, in this article we take you through some good strategies that would guarantee you winning most times.

1. Focus on a Single team

Every single day there are several sports teams playing, and you would easily be tempted to bet on every one of them. Betting on any and every team is fine if you have a large bankroll and you are betting for the purpose of entertainment, however, if you want to make a living out of betting, you cannot learn what you need to succeed in the long term by betting on every team.

If you are a new bettor, we would advice you to choose one team and one sport to start betting on. This would allow you to learn more about that team and reduce the time you would otherwise use to research about them before betting on them.

Closely watch your chosen team to understand their players and managerial tendencies, as this would help give you an edge over the average bettor.

You would improve your chances of winning in sports betting when you choose a team in a sport and bet only on them until you have done the same research on another team.

Why focus on one team

By learning a lot about a single team, you give yourself a good chance of correctly predicting their game outcomes and even managerial decisions like substitutions.

Another advantage is that you would have more information about that team than most bookmakers which would make it easier for you to beat them at their own game.

Why you may not want to focus on a single team

Although it is exciting to win in betting, sticking to just one team can be very boring, it would take a lot of resistance to avoid the temptation of betting on other teams.

You would also miss some winnings from other teams that are not your focus and that could be frustrating.

However, the long-term benefits of betting on a single team outweigh this short-term benefits of drifting towards every other team.

1. Don’t Bet More than Two Percent of your Bankroll

One of the biggest mistakes bettors make is to put a large part of their bankroll into a single bet. Perhaps they think they won’t lose so much money, or when they eventually win, their winnings would be large.

However, if you want to become a successful bettor in the long term, you would need to put a limit on the amount you spend on every single game you bet on.

The major reason is that even the best bettors endure some run of loses at given points in time, so it makes no sense to bet $25 on a single game when your total bankroll is $100.

Professional bettors would only bet 2% or less of their total bankroll.

If you have a small bankroll say $200, you should look to bet about $5 or $10 per contest which is about 2.5% to 5% of their total outlay.

Why You Should Bet with Less than two Percent of your Bankroll

If you are betting 2% of $1,000 you are surer of greater wins in the long run than betting $200 per game.

With good betting skills and patience, you would more likely win more than you lose with this conservative strategy.

Also, you would suffer less anxiety when the game is not going your way if your bet is just 2% than when it is as much as 25% of your total outlay.

Why you may not bet with less than less than two percent

The major issue with betting 2% or less of your total bankroll is that most people have very small sum as their total bankroll. This makes it difficult to be conservative because there is usually a minimum you can place on a bet and a win with a small bet would usually amount to a small or insignificant winning.

Just like in life without a good strategy, it would hard to be successful and happy, it would also be very difficult to win as a professional bettor if you don’t have a strategy for winning.