Here are our winning tips for 19th January 2018.
What are you waiting for? sign up on Matchplug.com now and start winning.
Here are our winning tips for 19th January 2018.
What are you waiting for? sign up on Matchplug.com now and start winning.
We continue our series of articles on the best sports betting strategies both new and professional bettors can employ to improve their chances of winning.
In the previous part, we covered Focusing on one team and betting with not more than 2% of your total bankroll.
In this article, we look at two more strategies you should use if you want to boost your chances of winning especially in the long term.
If you take professional sports betting as a career, you may have to use some software like that being sold by Sports Insight and Swish Analytics to help you develop personal winning strategies.
These software come with a huge database of information that would otherwise be almost impossible for you to get to grips with. The information you would get from these databases includes Team vs team, Money Line range, opponents form, opponents rank, and favourite or underdog teams.
With this software, you can put a number of variables together and see how these teams play when they are up against a specific opponent and other trends that would be hidden from the public.
You would also have access to database calculators that would offer a couple of options when you want to bet on a certain match.
Why use Software
Because of the access to several tools today, professional bettors use software to narrow down variables, spot trends and come up with winning strategies.
I can be very tough initially when you begin to use these software programs because of the volume of information you would have to deal with.
However, if you spend some time playing around with it, you would quickly become a professional at using them.
With time, by using these software packages you will become great at spotting trends even without the use of the software.
What using software wouldn’t do for you
While the use of software helps us to gain advance statistical analysis of games, it does not guarantee that your bet would win. It only gives you access to small start that could improve your chances of winning the bet.
Another major flaw in using the software in betting is that it takes some of the fun out of sports betting.
Use ATS Record to Bet
Vegas lines determine one of the most used information about how teams perform against the spread (ATS).
Thus, finding ATS records is easier than any betting tip as most websites worldwide publish them across all sports.
For example, you could look up the Golden State Warriors who have an 18-13 win-loss record. This looks very promising on the eye, but you would be surprised to realize their ATS record is 12 – 19.
If you judge the Warriors only on their ATS record, they would not be an attractive bet.
What’s even better is that you can use trends to back up the ATS record.
But these trends can only be gotten when you work with advance software.
Why you should bet with ATS record
You should be with ATS because the goal of spread betting is to be able to guess correctly who is able to cover the spread.
While it is not advisable to ignore other stats, ATS should be one of the top criteria which determines your betting strategy.
What ATS Betting will not do for you
Looking at past ATS records is a useful exercise, but it doesn’t help much in predicting the future outcome of games. This is because every new opponent has the ability to present new challenges that would not be covered by how a team performs ATS in their previous matches.
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.
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.
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.
Both teams to score is getting more popular as game outcomes continually end with both sides netting. As a matter of fact, in Europe’s top five leagues, 51% of matches over the past five seasons have ended in both teams scoring at least once. So if you have not started betting on both teams scoring, you might want to join now. Read further and you would see exactly why we think so and how this betting type works.
An In-depth analysis of BTTS (both teams to score) betting type shows that it is more than just flipping a coin. It could appear as a simply looking at the 50-50 stat from a couple of games, but it is more about putting together previous match statistics, the style of play, and when a game is taking place between two teams.
Analysis from a BTTS record
A BTTS record analyzed by Pinnacle Bet shows that there was a wide range of BTTS occurrences in 490 team seasons covered. They realized that 26% of Bayern Munich games in the 2014/2015 season ended in the BTTS, while Hoffenheim played BTTS in 79% of their games during the 2013/2014.
It was also discovered in the analysis that teams who were ever present in the Premier League over the past five seasons began to record BTTS in the same fixtures over a long period of time.
What to keep an eye on in Both Teams To Score Betting type
According to Spearman’s rank correlation which assesses both teams to score and other statistics for the last five seasons, goal difference may be in direct correlation with a team’s standings on the league table, but they are both not enough to decide whether both teams would score in a team’s game.
In the 2015/2016 season, the chances of Both Teams To Score in a game based on whether they both scored in a previous game was very minimal.
Also, one of both teams failed to score in 48.2% of Premier League games last season, and at least one of those two didn’t score in 51.1% of their next matches on average.
Is there a BTTS form for teams?
When both teams scored in a previous match played by a particular team, then that team was involved in a BTTS again in their next game 54.8% of the time. Compared that to the overall average score of 51.8% and you would see that having a knowledge of a team’s previous game can offer you a slight advantage, although not all teams would fit into this trend the same way.
That being said, every team in the Premier League had a time when both teams scored in at least three games, and when both teams also failed to score in the same number of games, this makes it easy to predict that they can have such a run at some point again.
For the five years period covered, Everton in the 2012/2013 season had the longest BTTS run with 16 games, and the longest run where both teams failed to score was Burnley’s in 12 games run in the 2014/2015 season.
Can Kick off time affect BTTS outcomes?
The time a match starts can also have an impact on whether both teams end up scoring or not.
Most games are usually played on Saturday just after lunchtime, however, as the above image shows, early kick-off games are usually dull for both the players and fans and as such it is harder for both teams to find the back of the net. Many have suggested that this is due to the away team’s travel arrangements or both teams having less time to prepare for the game.
Interestingly, from the analysis, both teams hit the back of the net in 55.7% of games started in the regular 3 pm kick off on Saturday, with only 48% of matches played at other times ending in BTTS.
Optimism Bias in BTTS
Optimism bias is ubiquitous in betting, but it is very important not to let that cloud your judgment in this betting type.
Usually, you would expect games between teams who struggle to score goals like West Brom, Stoke City and Burnley against the top six sides to not end in both teams scoring, but many times over a refereeing decision or even a defensive mistake would lead to the less likely team netting the first goal of the game, which would prompt the other team coming out to score as expected.
You can get the best tips about BTTS on Matchplug.com.
Despite the simple outlook of basketball, becoming an expert bettor and beating the bookmakers at the game takes a lot of effort and patience. In this article, we discuss some basic rules of the NBA and explain what to look out for if you want to make money betting on the NBA.
Basketball is one of the fastest-paced team sports in the world. Its style of play and high scoring outcomes makes it an exciting sport to watch for both fans and bettors alike.
The betting market for the NBA varies, from the most simple to the most complex, although the rules for playing the game is fairly straightforward.
Understanding the Rules of the Game
Despite the popularity of the NBA, basketball rules are universal whether it is in local leagues like the La Liga ACB, Greek basketball league, or international competitions like the FIBA World Cup.
The game involves two teams of 5 players each competing on a 28m x 15m court in the FIBA Championship or 28.7m x 15.2m in the NBA. Each team attempt to outscore the other by making the basket (offence) or blocking the other teams attempt to make the basket (defence).
Points are scored by putting the ball through a hoop that is 46 metres in diameter, and 3.05 metres off the ground. Points are in form of goals in soccer and are calculated as 3 points if scored from outside the 3-point line and 2 points if scored inside the 3-point line. Free throws are usually awarded after a rule violation and it is worth one point.
Games are usually either split in half or quarters and unlike soccer, no game can end in a draw, Overtime is used to determine the winner.
The NBA is split into Eastern and Western conference consisting of 30 teams altogether, with three divisions in each conference. Each team plays 82 games in a regular season, and the top eight teams with the best win-loss record in each conference go to the playoffs with the winner of the NBA playoffs final being crowned the NBA Champion.
How to Bet on the NBA
Handicap
Handicap betting in the NBA is an advanced form of betting as teams are given a point handicap which would either be negative or positive to counter their difference in ability.
This simply means the favourite team gets a negative handicap while the least favourite gets a positive handicap.
Totals
Betting Totals in the NBA is simply betting if the total number of points scored by both sides would be over or under a certain figure set by the bookmaker.
Quarter and Half Betting
In addition to betting on the full-time outcome of games, bettors can bet on the outcome of a certain half in an NBA game. Money Line, Totals or Handicap can be applied here; the only difference is that the time period is reduced.
Outright Markets
Unlike betting on individual games which leave room for error and relying too much on luck to determine the final outcome. The Outright market covers a longer period of time, which could be the whole 82 games season.
A few examples of outright betting in the NBA include the winner of the NBA Championship, Winner of the MVP, winner of the Eastern and Western conference etc.
Important things to consider when betting on the NBA
Experienced bettors know that betting is much more than finding an in-form team coming against a struggling side and betting that the in-form team would win. Just like in other sports, there are a few factors to consider when betting in the NBA.
Injuries and Squad rotation
Due to the intensity at which NBA games are played and the number of games in a regular season, injuries and rotation are inevitable.
To succeed as an NBA bettor, one has to keep an eye on team news to know if key players are injured or if they are being rested. If a big player is being rested ahead of a game, the odds of his team winning could change drastically, smart bettors that would bet according to this information would benefit greatly.
Team Schedule
The number of games played by each team in the NBA means the impact of games played away from home is higher than in other sports. Formerly a team would have to play four games in five nights, but there has been a slight change although teams can still play four road games in a row.
If a home team plays another on the end of their four away games, fatigue could see the home team get the upper hand in the encounter, while a home team playing a team at the beginning of their away days could see the outcome change dramatically.
Use Statistics to improve your betting
Like in other sports, analyzing statistics is a sure way to improve your knowledge of the game you want to bet on and help you make informed decisions.
Although many individuals bet just for the fun of doing so and some others bet for entertainment purposes, there a few people who are serious about betting and would like to make a fortune from their betting career. In this article we share what you need to know about becoming a professional in betting.
Anyone who wants to make it as a bettor professionally knows that it requires a lot of patience and dedication to the goal. Beating the bookmakers as a career would require more than getting enough funds to invest and building a knowledge base for a sport you want to bet in.
You might have the information that is unknown to others, have a refined staking method that you feel has been tested and proven, yet still not be a professional bettor yet, read further to see what it takes to be a successful betting professional.
Your staking method is very important
Betting for a living does not mean you would make money at all times. Even the most successful and “skilful” bettors still place losing bets at some points. What you can do is to use a staking method that would see your money being used in the most efficient way.
Without the right staking method, you could create the best model and maybe start getting good results even, but with time you would lose your edge.
Understanding the value of information
Bookmakers usually buy information before setting their odds, and make adjustments accordingly also when information changes. Betting professionals may predict the outcome of games based on their skills, but they also make use of information that is at their disposal which no one else may have. Information like key players missing, weather condition, or previous records at a certain stadium could affect the outcome of games. Professional bettors use a combination of their skills and these information to place their bets.
Betting is not just about knowing how to predict
Although having an edge and the right staking method may maximise your profitability as a bettor, you would need to be able to predict the outcome of a sport event and determine if it has a potential positive value, before your staking method would be of any good to you.
The biggest mistake amateur bettors make is trying to bet on any and everything because they think it is all about being able to predict. Rather than betting on every sport, you would do better if you focus on one game. Most times niche markets like under/over market in soccer, and the NBA betting is very profitable despite bookmakers thinking they have a foothold on the market.
Choosing the sport to bet on
As we have stated before, becoming a betting professional requires finding an edge over the bookmakers in any sport you decide to bet on. But the truth is some sport would be easier than the others for any individual who hopes to forge a career in betting. With the information on Matchplug blog like understanding how Handicap betting works in different sports, you would be able to decide the best type or sports to bet on.
Measuring success in betting
The best way to know if you’ve been successful in betting is to compare your betting endeavour with the closing line – the closest odds to your calculation before an event. When you continually test the outcome of your strategy against the closing line of your bookmakers, you’d eventually eliminate the place of luck. Analysing your own results over time, cannot be overlooked if you want to be a professional bettor.
Betting with the right bookmaker
It may be hard to become an expert in a particular market, using the right staking method, and developing a good betting strategy, however it is also just as difficult to find the right bookmaker for you.
To become a successful bettor who makes enough money to bet full time, you need to consistently use a bookmaker who offers the highest odds. You would also have to be betting as much as you want, so using a bookmaker that gives the highest limit is also important as you would not want to be limited in any way. You would also do well to bet with a bookmaker that has no restriction on those who make too much money betting.
Some other rules that you should abide by after the above include: Don’t let your emotions get in the way of your betting, don’t fall for randomness, and don’t ever bet with any cash that you would not want to lose.
People typically feel all that it takes to be a successful bettor is to stake more money in more games so that you can increase your chances of winning.
While that may be true in some cases, it is far from the whole truth. To become successful, bettors need to work hard, stay disciplined, and learn as fast as possible.
Patience is also required, even though it is an underrated part of betting. This article explains why it is important for bettors to be patient.
Why patience is a virtue for bettors
Patience which is the capacity to tolerate delays is one of the most overlooked parts of becoming successful in betting.
However, in an activity like betting that is prone to random outcomes and luck, being patient can only be overlooked to the detriment of a bettor.
The Law of Large Numbers is the best way to explain how vital patience is to betting, because of its principle of the probability distribution.
In betting, this is merely the probability that a coin would land on its head or tail. At some point in time with continual tossing, the coin toss would even out.
It is the same situation with betting because at some point the random nature of betting and luck would even out if the bettor has a more significant edge than the margin of the bookmaker.
The key now is to be patient enough not to restrict the sample size.
The role of cognitive bias
Even if bettors are well versed in the common traps other unsuccessful bettors fall into, and know that they can make money if they wait long enough, cognitive bias can still interfere with their reasoning and ruin their chances of winning.
However, with patience, bettors can refrain from making rational and impulsive betting decisions, and make more calculated and informed betting decisions.
Long-term success vs. Short term gain
Hyperbolic discounting is one of the significant cognitive biases that patience can help bettors control. This cognitive bias is the tendency of a bettor to choose quick payoff over a bigger gain that could take a more extended period to achieve.
The best expression of this notion is looking at a bettor’s staking method.
Most bettors would usually favor betting with all their money at once to get a huge instant win, even if there are obvious risks to them losing all their bankroll.
These bettors would use staking methods that would see them continually lose money betting, with the hopes of recouping all their previous stakes.
However, the patient bettor would use any of the fixed or proportional staking methods that reduce risk, and could even eliminate it entirely, despite having to wait for long to win.
Technology and its impact on our patience
Technology has many good sides, but its ability to make us acquire our needs and goods quickly may not be all positive.
With the touch of a button, we can now order a pizza or a taxi, we no longer have to leave our houses to shop, and so we can spend more time in our comfort zone while still getting things done.
These advancements in technology have created a desire for instant gratification that has also found its way into the world of betting.
Bettors are now provided with endless ways of placing a bet without breaking a sweat, and more importantly, for bookmakers, they can now take advantage of the minimal thoughts most bettors put into their betting decisions and offer curated bets in the form of “best bets,” and “most popular bets” etc.
Wait for what you know
In conclusion, bettors who want to be successful cannot afford not to be patient and see the bigger picture.
If you bet with a positive expected value, but find out you are suffering some losses, just know that this is just a progression of losses in a larger sample that would ultimately be profitable.
Betting is all about detecting favourable expected values, having an understanding of margins, and having an edge over your bookmaker so that you can tell how much your bet is costing you.
But you have to combine your winning strategy with patience if you want to get your desired result.
Unlike the lottery, in betting, you don’t become rich overnight.
Most bettors avoid handicap betting due to its complicated outlook.
However, Handicap betting offers an excellent opportunity for a bettor to win by providing balance in the chances of either team winning a game with a positive or negative number, known as the handicap.
Handicap Betting Explained
A handicap is a figure that a bookmaker sets in other to even up both team’s chances of winning a match. A negative handicap is usually set to the favourite team for them to overcome before they can win, while a positive handicap is set to the underdog, acting as a head start.
Handicap betting has the same premise across all sports, however, because of the differences in rules, and the way each game is played, knowing how it applies to each sport is critical.
Handicap betting in soccer
Because of how low scoring a sports soccer is, it requires a very refined predictive skill to predict the winner correctly in handicap betting. Rather than just betting on which team would win a match, soccer handicap betting is a bet on how the two sides would perform.
Goals are used to present handicap figures, so if a team is -2.5, they would need to win by more than two clear goals for the handicap bet to win. On the other hand, a stake of +1.5 on their opposition would win if they lose by one goal, drew the match, or won.
One wise thing to do is to track handicap performances over the course of a football league season, but when it would become beneficial to bettors is when historical handicap performance data is being compiled.
However, many teams could fail to cover the handicap in their games, which shows that both the public perceptions and bookmakers’ estimations could be wrong.
Handicap betting in NFL
Handicap betting in the NFL is popularly called “the spread”. When a team is said to have covered the spread, it means the handicap on them has been won.
In NFL betting, the handicap is the most famous form. It is usually the market choice for most NFL bettors because, although bettors have to be more accurate to win, it offers the highest odds for the favourite team winning or a higher chance of an underdog getting a win.
Some key numbers are very crucial when it comes to handicap betting in the NFL; this is because of the scoring patterns and points system.
A field goal and a touchdown which both carry extra conversion points (seven and three respectively) are the most common winning margins, which makes any negative or positive handicap below or above these marks invaluable.
To help make more informed NFL betting decisions, bettors can use the Pythagorean Theorem or yards per play rankings to develop strategies.
Handicap Betting in MLB
Run Line is the term used to describe handicap betting in baseball. The handicap in baseball is consistently set at 1.5 at all times, and this is unlike in other sports where it varies.
If a team is -1.5, they need to win by two runs, and if they are +1.5, they can lose one run or win the match. In baseball, bettors do have the luxury of an alternative handicap which helps them increase or decrease the Run Line.
Handicap betting in baseball is also significantly affected by stadium dimensions and the weather. If a team is a favourite to win and weather conditions suit a high scoring game, the favourite team may win by more runs. In the same vein, a lower-ranked side could match a better team if the conditions favour them.
Handicap Betting in Basketball
Just like in the NFL, basketball bettors prefer to bet in the handicap over Money Line. There are no key numbers in basketball as in other sports, because of the low-value points system and high scoring frequency.
Things to consider when betting in basketball include the impact of injuries on the team’s strength, how much impact scheduling can have on performance and statistics that can help identify mismatches. You could also use ATS records to determine which teams are undervalued in the betting Market.
Handicap Betting in Tennis
Tennis handicap is unique in that there are two options within a game. Although they can bet in Totals or Money Line, bettors have the option of betting in a set handicap or a game handicap.
A game handicap is calculated using the total number of games each player wins, while in the sets handicap, bettors can bet on a player to win the set or not.
While handicap betting in sports is relatively simple to grasp, bettors need to develop a more specific knowledge if they want to have the edge over the bookmakers.
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