Sports betting strategies may add an element of clarity and logic to your sports wagers, as well as minimise risk. Good sports betting strategies can also encourage sound gambling habits such as controlled bankroll maintenance.
A positive progression system like Labouchere and Paroli will increase your unit bet value if you have a winning spin; on the other hand, a negative progression system like Martingale will encourage a high level of loss-chasing over time.
Straight-up bets
They’re called straight-up bets when you’re betting on the outright winner for an individual team or player. It’s pretty straight-forward, ’cause you’re making a bet on an outright winner without factoring in any point spreads for your team or opponent or Over/Under betting. Some may consider straight-up bets a bit primitive as the profit potential is lower compared to point spreads, teaser and Over/Under betting strategies. These systems rely on negative progression, which means that the unit value of your bets increases with each loss you suffer; this is a dangerous bankroll-management strategy that can rapidly deplete your account. In this way, betting strategies are the closest thing gamblers have to a science: they are educated navigations of reality that improve your odds of consistent success, and help you stick to the view and avoid rash play.
Point spread bets
Betting systems will widen the gap between losses and wins, providing confidence in your wagers, making them more robust against loss streaks and larger wins. Discipline is instilled: they help prevent loss chasing and premature celebration. Betting systems are rules that tell you how to vary your stakes in different situations: whether your chief priority is positive progression (where your stake is supposed to increase with your profits), or rather conservative bankroll management that aims only to limit your losses by NOT betting. However you decide to bet, all should be done after careful research of the sports and betting market.
Over/Under bets
Betting on Over/Under – also called total points bets – is becoming increasingly popular as well, since they are among the few bets, where you can get very high returns on even money, the risk is minimum. Such bets predict, whether the score for any game will be over/under a certain figure (total) given by a sportsbook. The odds on totals bets are normally the same on either side, although the juice – the ‘vig’ (the cost of betting) – may vary between the different betting sites. If you want to make some money, you need to find competitive odds and matchups and exploit in-game situations that may affect game scores.
Parlay bets
Parlay (aka accumulator) bets link several selections onto a single ticket, which is available at most online sportsbooks and casinos, though it carries much risk, because a single winning bet can bust the ticket. But if all your picks clean up at once, the payout could be huge – but you won’t get that if they all lose. Minimise your risk to maximise your winnings. Matched betting is an excellent strategy. Fading the public is another strong strategy that capitalises on imperfections in the odds-setting process, yielding consistent profits over time.
Moneyline bets
In moneyline bets, betting on teams or people to win a particular event, sporting game or competition is by far the simplest. The payouts of moneylines depend on their odds. Odds that are positive are a multiplier representing how much your $100 bet would return, while negative odds represent the amount you would lose. Think about this when making a moneyline bet that all that matters for success or failure is the result of the game (no matter what the score or margin of victory) – the result and not the margin of victory or total points scored have no bearing whatsoever with payout.
Parlay cards
Many sports and casino bets make use of a parlay card, which is a simple, convenient way for casinos to handle novice parlay bettors. Many sportsbooks put these cards right by the counter. A parlay card lists either teams or totals for popular games; the player simply fills in the circles for those teams or totals he wants on his parlay bet, then takes the filled-out card and his dollars to a ticket writer in the sportsbook. It tries to take advantage of winning streaks and flatten potential losses by reducing the amount of your next bet if the next one is a loser. In theory (and if you have a sensible bankroll management policy in place), this will work brilliantly.
Over 1.5 goals
1.5 goals betting tips market. Photo credit: ShutterstockThen, live in-play staking is particularly fulfilling as odds are low and you can win back a lot of small bets in a row, all leading to overall big wins – and this market is often high-liquidity as it is one of the most popular football betting markets. The over/under 1.5 goals market allows us to take quantitative insights further and place bets that exploit weaknesses in bookmakers’ odds based on some basis for team analysis and extrapolation of historical patterns that improve upon their betting lines.
