What I Wish I Knew When I Started Sports Betting, Part 1

When I first got into sports betting, like all newbies, I made a lot of mistakes and lost a lot of money.  Many of those losses would have been avoidable if I knew a few things then that I do now.  If you’re new to sports betting, it is a given that you will lose money through beginner errors.  But maybe some good advice can spare you some of those losses so you can get off to a better start than I did.  Here is what I wish I knew when I first started betting!

• If you take sports betting seriously, you can win.  When I first started betting, I mostly figured it would be something I would do for fun, and that if I was lucky I would make some of the money back.  Many punters start out with no serious thoughts of turning sports betting into a career.  It can be done, though, and if you set out to do it from day one, you will move along toward your goal a lot faster. 

• If you are winning more than half the time, you are doing better than you think.  When I did start taking a serious interest in betting for a living, my next thought was that I would have to achieve a win percentage like 70% or better in order to do it.  But you do not need to aim this high, and if you do, you will never get there.  If you are winning consistently more than half the time, you are probably doing well and are on the right track, so stick with it.  Resist the thinking that you have to keep hunting around for techniques that will get you unrealistically high wins.  All you will end up doing is wasting valuable time and money.

• You can’t be a perfectionist.  This is on the same token as the realisation above.  You cannot be a perfectionist and expect to be a good punter.  It is simply impossible to foresee everything, especially with how many flukes tend to determine the outcomes of matches.  You need to accept that a “high” win percentage may not fit your perfectionist standards, but it may be more than adequate to pay out a good stream of revenue.  That is all that you really need.

Just those three realisations alone were enough to change my situation around.  When I stopped pursuing perfection, I realised that the betting system that was giving me a 55% win percentage consistently was actually doing exactly what I needed.  This stopped me from system-hopping in search of some nonexistent holy grail.

At that point I was able to focus enough to continue getting great results.  If you get focused on winning early, and you hold onto your perspective, you can achieve great things as a punter.  Be sure to check out What I Wish I Knew When I Started Sports Betting Part 2 for more starting advice!