Avoid These Common Mistakes When Betting on Sports

 

Avoid These Common Mistakes When Betting on Sports 

 

When you bet on sports, you want to win and create a valued return on your investment. However, if you follow the wrong advice or just chase the best odds, you could end up losing a lot more money than you need, or anticipated to. While you may experience a learning curve when it comes to sports betting, if you can avoid these common mistakes, then you have a good head start on making the most of your sports bets.

Overdoing the Parlays

Parlays are a type of bet that is essentially a “combo bet” where you group several bets together as one. Parlay sports bets can be a tempting bet because you don’t have to put up too much money, yet you still have the potential to win big. However, since you have to win and get every single bet in the parlay correct to win anything—which often means 8-10 games—the odds of winning a parlay are so high that you will probably end up losing most of the time. If you want a higher ROI over time, your better bet is to stick with the straight bets.

Betting Only on the Lowest Odds

On the other side of the spectrum you have the bets with the lowest odds: the favorite teams that all of the experts think are going to win. These may seem like the easy bets, but they are never guaranteed, and since they are the favorites, you won’t win as much even if the favorite team does come out ahead. Your better option is to look for the best value on the spread. What bet will give you the most in return for the lowest amount of money? 

Choosing the Over Bet

Another popular sports wager amongst beginners is the over/under bet, which allows you to bet on the combined scores at the end of the game. This is a common bet because you don’t have to pick sides—you are just saying how many points will be scored between both teams. While this bet may be more fun, it is hard to win because there are so many different factors you must be knowledgeable about to make an educated guess. If you really want to bet on the total points, just stick to a first-half or second-half total to give yourself better odds.

Skipping Personal Spending Limits

When betting on sports, you have to make sure you set guidelines for yourself and stick to them. If you just haphazardly place bets without keeping track of how much you are spending, you could end up way over your head. Set your own daily wager limit, and then set a certain percentage of that bankroll that you are willing to wager with each bet. For many bettors, they wager five percent of their daily bankroll per bet, only upping that percentage on games that they feel especially strong about.

Putting Money Behind Your Favorites

If you are like most sports enthusiasts, you have your favorite teams, but you are doing yourself a great disservice by only betting on them. While you can still root for your favorite team personally, you will want to pay attention to the odds, expert picks, and other stats when determining what team to put your money behind. Here at Oskeim Sports, we offer many different sports betting packages and even free sports picks with the best advice in the industry on which teams to wager on!

Expecting to Quit Your Day Job

Just because you know a lot about sports and you have studied the science of betting, you don’t want to go into it expecting to make sports betting your full-time job. It is one of the most complex forms of gambling out there, and while there are odds, trends, and analytics, there are also injuries, bad refs, weather, and an abundance of other variables. Go into sports betting as a hobby or as a form of entertainment, then you won’t be disappointed if you don’t win.

Drinking While Betting

A lot of sports betting takes place in a casino or bar, which can be a recipe for disaster. You should never mix sports betting with alcohol. Alcohol causes you to lose your filter in all ways, so you can easily end up spending far more than you wanted on a bet. So, when you get to the sportsbook lounge, always make sure to place your bets before you start drinking beers.

 

Sports betting is a lot of fun, and it can be a great way to make some extra cash if you are lucky—but remember that there is a lot of luck at play. You can read the stats and analyze the players, but stuff happens. The only thing certain about sports is that any team can win on any given day. So have fun, make smart bets, and make sure to keep tabs on your bankroll, and sports betting may just become your new favorite pastime.