Betting Strategy – Best Sports Betting Strategies

A solid betting strategy will allow you to maximize winnings and minimize losses. To consistently make money you need a little luck along the way, but by preparing with a solid strategy, you give yourself the best possible opportunity of making a profit from online betting.

In this article, we’re going to look at a range of sports betting strategies that you can easily apply to your bets. We’ve included basic principles that you need to engrain and advanced betting strategies that professional sports bettors use.

Why Use a Betting Strategy

A betting strategy allows you to apply logic to your bets. It’s easy to look through scores of games and markets before making picks, but without any logic applied, you’re going to lose money a lot quicker than you win.

The best betting strategies will create value from your bets and hopefully, ensure a profit. Sports can be hard to predict and it’s this unpredictability that makes them so popular. But from a betting perspective, it makes it hard to be profitable, which is where a betting strategy comes in.

One thing you need to note before we dive in is that you aren’t going to win every bet you place. However, a solid strategy will allow you to give yourself the best opportunity to make a profit. The same concepts are applied throughout sports and the classic “fail to prepare and prepare to fail” is very much applicable here.

Basic Sports Betting Strategies

Before we talk more about advanced sports betting strategy, there are a few basic principles that we want to address. These are as many rules as strategies and are imperative if you want to consistently make money from sports betting.

1. Bankroll Management

Sports betting should be seen as an investment. You invest your time (research) and money (stake) to try and win more money (ROI). Your bankroll will determine the amount you should place on each wager and sticking to these limits is imperative as it means that when you lose (and you will lose from time to time) you can soak up the loss without a worry about finances.

The amount you wager on sports betting sites should be on a points system. For standard bets, this might be 1 point, for bets that deem have increased value, anything up to 5 (based on how much value the bet has) is fine.

An easy to work this is by using 1% for 1 point. For example, if your bankroll is $1,000 then 1 point would be $10 (1%). This can be adjusted based on how easy it is for the bankroll to be replenished, but as a rule, this is a safe place to start.

2. Learn How Odds Work

You must know how betting odds work before placing whatever type of bet. Odds represent the payout based on the probability of that result. So, a coin toss would be 50/50 or even money (+100) for heads or tails.

You also need to know why the odds change. There are generally two instances of this and that’s based on the amount of money wagered or something that would affect the chances of the result, such as a star player getting injured or a change in the ground for horse racing.

3. Find the Best Betting Lines

You need to spend time searching for the best possible betting lines for your picks. All the best bet online with ecopayz will have different lines for the same bet and by not taking the best price, you’re losing huge sums of value on the table.

The example above covers an NFL game between the Denver Broncos and the Kansas City Chiefs. The odds or lines for each of the markets are different between the two. If we just take the straight moneyline bet for this and wanted to bet on the Broncos to win, the payout would be as follows:

• BetOnline – $100 @ +460 = $460 profit
• BetUS – $100 @ +450 = $450 profit

So, this shows that for every $100 we wager, we make $10 more betting with BetOnline over BetUS.

4. Avoid Parlay Bets

Although popular, it should be avoided despite the fact that you can win huge sums of money for a relatively small stake. However, if you want to profit long-term from online betting, you need to avoid this bet type like the plague.

The reason is that they rarely win and will lose you a lot more money in the long run than they will make. If you’re starting out, especially with a small bankroll, they are going to drain you faster than you can keep up with. Stick to straight wagers and futures bets.

5. Embrace the Data

Data is key when choosing potential picks, it’s great using a service like BetIdeas which provide AI-powered predictions. You need to have more than just a hunch or feeling about a bet and instead, back that up with data that can be applied to ensure you’re on the right lines.

There are tons of sites that offer free and paid data services. You can use the home sites of the NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA to pull huge scores of data for free. Paid sites won’t necessarily have access to more data, but they will help you translate the stats into bets, which saves a lot of time, especially when starting out.