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Sports betting is hard. Actually, scratch that. It’s not. Sports betting is really rather easy. You simply pick an event to bet on, make your selection, and then put your money down. That doesn’t seem too difficult, does it?
Of course not. Anyone can do it. It’s part of what makes sports betting such a popular form of gambling. Millions of people all over the world regularly enjoy betting on sports events, even though the majority of them lose. Sports betting might be easy, but making money from it isn’t.
We hope that doesn’t come as a big surprise to anyone. There’s a reason why the best-known bookmakers and betting sites are huge companies that make big profits every year. They’re very good at what they do, and most bettors aren’t. That’s the simple reality of the situation.
Want to know the funny part? Most bettors don’t even care about this. They would like to win and many even dream of one day being successful, but for the most part they are satisfied just having fun. They’re not prepared to put in the time and effort that’s required to make money, so they don’t give any real consideration to strategy or anything like that. They bet based on instinct and any relevant sports knowledge they may have.
There’s nothing wrong with this approach at all. We know lots of losing sports bettors who are fully aware that their betting costs them money. They don’t mind though, as they enjoy what they do. They view their losing wagers as the cost of their entertainment, and anything they win is simply a bonus.
On the opposite side of the spectrum are the bettors who DO care about winning, and a few of them are very successful. In fact, there are quite a few wealthy people who have made their fortunes from betting. The majority of people who care about winning still lose though. Why? Because wanting to win isn’t enough. Effective sports betting takes a lot more than simple desire. It takes hard work and commitment, plus you have to be willing to learn about all the strategy involved too.
That’s why we’ve put together our comprehensive guide to sports betting strategy. It’s packed full of useful information and advice that can help anyone go from a losing bettor to a winning one: if they’re prepared to work hard enough that is.
We can say with confidence that this article in particular is one of the most critical articles to read in our entire strategy guide, despite the fact that it doesn’t actually contain any strategy advice. Why is it so special then? It explains the research and analysis required before APPLYING sports betting strategy. No one, and we mean NO ONE, can expect to make money from betting on sports unless they spend time researching and analyzing the relevant information. In this article we’re going to teach you how to do that effectively.
The Importance of Research & Analysis
To be honest, we’re not entirely sure we need to explain that research and analysis is vital when betting on sports. If we assume that anyone reading this article has at least a passing interest in becoming a successful bettor, then we’d like to think that they already recognize its importance.
However, maybe you’re a complete beginner to sports betting who really doesn’t know what it takes to be successful. Or maybe you know that research and analysis is crucial, but you’re just not sure why. We like to be thorough in all our articles anyway, so let’s get on with our explanation. We’ll start by asking you a question.
It doesn’t matter what your actual answer is here. It could be soccer, football, golf, tennis or any other sport. We can be pretty sure of one thing though. The sports you bet on the most are the sports you know the most about. Are we right? Of course we are.
With very few exceptions, sports bettors bet on the sports that they’re familiar with. This makes perfect sense. By choosing to bet on the sports they know and understand the best, their chances of selecting winning wagers significantly increases. We have a much better chance of making solid predictions on sports we know a lot about, then on sports where our knowledge is limited. Agreed?
Let’s think about it this way. If it makes sense to bet on the sports we know the most about, then it also makes sense to assume that we should strive to know as much as possible about the sports we want to bet on. When it comes to sports betting, information and knowledge equals power. The more we have, the better.
To make good betting decisions, we need to have plenty of information at our disposal. We can’t simply rely on our existing sports knowledge. We might have an in-depth knowledge of football and how it’s played, for example, but that in itself doesn’t necessarily help us when we’re betting on the NFL. Not in isolation of other information. Knowing the different factors that affect the likely outcome of a football game is essentially useless information unless we actually research and analyze those factors.
Not convinced? We’ll use another football example to explain. Let’s say you’re a genuine football expert. You understand exactly what it takes to win a game of football. You know which positions are the most important on the field, you recognize that the coaches play a key role, and you know that certain playing styles are effective in some situations and not so effective in others. Great! Now take a look at the following betting market.
Point Spread
-110
Which team is going to cover? Are the Seahawks going to win by more than three? Or are the Saints going to keep it close, or maybe even win?
These questions are practically impossible to answer, since you have absolutely no context for the game. You might be tempted to assume that the Seahawks are going to cover based on the fact that they’re typically the stronger of the two teams, but that would essentially be guessing. You’re using general football knowledge rather than considering the specific factors that are going to affect this game.
Let’s now imagine that the Seahawks are without their star quarterback, their starting tight end, and their best running back. All three of these players are injured, and won’t be playing in the game. Suddenly, we have some context for this game. Seeing as how the Saints will be without three of their key players, we have good reason to believe the Saints will cover.
This is a slightly more informed judgement, because we’re working with relevant information. However, it’s still only a limited amount of information. This data alone doesn’t tell us everything we need to know in order to make a good betting decision. What if the Saints are also missing some key players? Or what if the Seahawks have been missing those players for the last two games and have still posted comfortable victories?
If you don’t know very much about American football, then what we have just discussed probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to you. There’s no need to worry. It all serves to highlight the main point we’re trying to make. Don’t expect to make properly informed judgements unless you’re actually properly informed. This SHOULD be obvious.
Even if you knew everything there was to know about a sport, you’d still need to understand the specifics surrounding the game or event you’re betting on. Otherwise, you won’t be able to consistently make accurate predications. Not to mention, you won’t be able to properly identify where the value lies.
Recommended ReadingIdentifying value is absolutely vital if you want to make money from sports betting. If you’re not familiar with the concept of value as it applies to betting, you need to be. Please read our article on probability and value in sports betting for a detailed explanation.
Now, how do you think you get to know the relevant specifics surrounding a sports event? You guessed it; you need to do some research. After that, it’s time to analyze your findings. Then, and only then, are you in a position to make an informed judgement about what’s likely to happen.
So, let’s go back to the football game between the Seahawks and the Saints. We’ll assume that you follow the NFL closely and that you’re already familiar with the two rosters and their relative quality. That’s a good starting point, but there’s a lot more you’d want to know before placing a wager.
We recommend looking at the key statistics for the two teams to see how they’ve been performing in the season so far. Identify their respective strengths and weaknesses, and think about how they’ll affect things. Look at recent form, injuries, and anything that might impact the outcome of the game. The end goal is to take a range of different factors into account so that you can form a balanced view on the likely outcome of the game.
We could obviously go into a lot more detail about what you need to research and analyze before betting on a game of football. Then we could do the same for soccer, tennis, basketball, and any other sport you’re interested in. But that would take us a VERY long time. And you can find all that in our sports specific betting guides anyway.
The goal of this article is to provide you with some broad insight into why research and analysis is so important (which we’ve hopefully just done) and how to do it effectively. In the next section we provide some useful tips for carrying out research and analysis, and then we look at the different types of sources you should consider using.
Our Top Tips for Your Research & Analysis
This might surprise you, but there’s no “correct” way to carry out the necessary research and analysis. The only definitive rule is that you should actually do some. Beyond that, it’s really down to you to work in whatever way suits you the best. Obviously you need to research and analyze different things depending on what sports you bet on. The type of wagers you typically place, and the strategies you use, will also play a part in determining what information is most relevant to you.
For these reasons, we can’t provide you with a perfect guide to exactly what to do and how, as it really depends on your betting preference. Instead, what we can do is offer some useful tips that can be applied in a general sense. None of these are especially complicated, but they’re still solid advice. Follow them, and you’ll definitely be on the right track.
We’ve listed our top tips below, and then explained each one in detail.
- Dedicate plenty of time
- Have a plan
- Be flexible
- Value facts over opinions
- Get balanced views
- Watch games/events
- Always consider context
- Find good sources
Dedicate Plenty of Time
Our first tip here couldn’t be any more straightforward, but that doesn’t make it any less critical. In fact, it’s arguably the most beneficial piece of advice we have to offer. The quality of our research and analysis will ultimately determine how successful we are when betting on sports. We’re not exaggerating here. If we don’t gather enough relevant information and properly assess it, then we just simply won’t be able to consistently make good betting decisions.
Our research and analysis obviously won’t be particularly high quality if we only spend five minutes on it. This is something we need to dedicate a significant amount of time to. This doesn’t mean we’ll need to spend hours upon hours poring over every little detail, but we certainly need to do more than the bare minimum. Consider this simple equation. More time spent doing research and analysis equals more informed judgments. More informed judgments typically lead to making more money.
Have a Plan
We find it very useful to have a defined plan for our research and analysis. We like to plan which sources we’re going to use, what information we’re going to look for, and how we’re going to factor that information into our betting decisions. By having a plan, what we do becomes a lot more effective.
As part of our plan, we also like to have some kind of schedule. We try to allocate some fixed times to work on our research and analysis. This approach is much more effective than simply trying to fit it in whenever we have a spare moment or two.
Be Flexible
This tip may seem a little contradictory to the one we previously mentioned. It IS important to have a plan, but it’s equally important to be able to deviate from that plan when necessary. There will be times when we need to use slightly different methods, or apply different strategies, depending on what we’re betting on.
If we’re too rigid in the way we do our research and analysis, we can end up being too rigid in our thinking. This is bad news for sports bettors, as it will only harm us to always look at everything in exactly the same way. We need to adjust our thinking based on new information and different circumstances. If we don’t do that we can end up making a lot of bad decisions, or missing out on some good betting opportunities.
Value Facts over Opinions
This tip is extremely relevant when betting on mainstream sports. Sports like American football, soccer and basketball get a lot of media coverage. Let’s face it; the media is full of people who like to offer their opinions. While their opinions can be very insightful, there’s also a chance they may be complete nonsense.
That’s why we need to be especially careful about overvaluing the opinions of others. Our goal should always be to form our own opinions. That’s the whole point of doing our research and analysis in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with considering other people’s opinion and factoring them in, but it’s FACTS that ultimately tell us a lot more.
Get Balanced Views
This is a continuation of the previous tip. We just got done explaining why there’s nothing wrong with considering the opinions of others, but we must warn you. This CAN be dangerous if we’re exposed to views that are too one-sided. The main advantage of considering other opinions is that it helps us ensure that our own opinions are balanced. This advantage is lost if we’re overly influenced by any kind of bias.
For example, let’s say that there’s an upcoming soccer game between Liverpool and Manchester United. As part of our research, we decide to visit an online Liverpool fan forum. We figure this will give us some insight into how the team is playing and what their chances are of winning. This is a perfectly valid thing to do. As you’ll discover later, fan forums are one of the sources we recommend using for research. Here’s the problem though.
Obviously, a Liverpool fan forum will consist of mostly Liverpool fans, who aren’t going to have an unbiased view of the upcoming game. This is especially true considering they’re going up against Manchester United: their most fierce rivals. Their judgments on the outcome of the game will be completely clouded by their love for Liverpool and their hatred for Manchester United. What we’re trying to explain here is that their opinions really won’t help us at all.
Instead, we should look into a different fan forum. One that’s used by fans of various different teams to discuss soccer in general, as well as upcoming games will be the best option. We’d be much more likely to find some unbiased insight here, which would be far more valuable to us.
Watch Games/Events
An excellent way to carry out research and analysis is by actually watching the games/events. There are certain things that we can only really discover from actually watching teams and players in action. Plus, it helps us to form our opinions about how good they are and what sort of form they’re in. It will also help us identify their strengths and weaknesses, see how they react to certain situations, learn about their preferred style(s) of play and all kinds of other things.
We try not to bet on anything if we haven’t seen the relevant participants in action recently, regardless of what sport we’re betting on. We genuinely believe that seeing them play/compete is that valuable. We’re not suggesting that you need to be as strict as us, but never overlook the benefits of watching games and events.
Plus, this is actually a very enjoyable way to spend your time!
Always Consider Context
We mentioned earlier that facts are far more important than opinions. We should also point out that facts can be misleading. Certain facts don’t always tell us everything we need to know. Even worse, they can sometimes paint an entirely false picture.
For example, let’s say we’re about to bet on a basketball game between San Antonio Spurs and Sacramento Kings. As part of our research, we take a look at the recent form of the two teams. We see that the Spurs are on a streak of five consecutive wins, while the Kings have lost their last four. The obvious assumption is that the Spurs are in the better form.
This would be a mistake. While betting on the Spurs might be the best decision, we can’t come to that conclusion based on that one small piece of research. Not only do we need to consider a lot more than recent form, but we also have to remember that simply looking at results doesn’t necessarily tell us the whole story. We have to also consider the context of those results.
If we did our research and looked into the details of these games, we might discover that the Spurs had actually been a little lucky to win in three of their last five games. They didn’t actually put in great performances, but the bounce of the ball just seemed to go in their favor. When we dig a little further, we realize that their last five games also happen to have been among the easiest in their schedule, and two of the teams they faced were missing a couple of key players due to injury or suspension.
When we then look at the Kings results in more detail, we see that they’ve actually had some pretty bad luck. Even though they haven’t been performing poorly, they just weren’t getting the kind of results they deserved. They’ve also been facing some tough opposition, and have been missing their star small forward who typically scores a lot of their points.
This is an entirely hypothetical situation, but it highlights the importance of looking at the context. Once we dug into the detail, the form of the San Antonio Spurs wasn’t as impressive as it first seemed. And the form of the Sacramento Kings wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
Find Good Sources
Our eighth and final tip is a big one. The quality of the sources we use for our research will ultimately define just how much we gain from our analysis. If we’re analyzing information that isn’t especially accurate or useful, then our conclusions are likely to be flawed. If we’re analyzing information that IS accurate and useful, then the conclusions we reach should be valuable to us.
We are blessed to have a TON of reliable and useful resources available to us. There’s simply no need to use poor resources. We just have to be willing to put in the necessary effort into finding suitable ones that will give us the information we need.
Chances are, you probably already have your list of preferred sources. We encourage you to ask yourself these questions. Do you have quality sources? Do they provide exactly what you need? Do you use a large selection of different sources? Or do you limit yourself by relying too heavily on just one or two sources?
With this in mind, the next section of this article looks at the various types of resource you should be using for your sports betting research.
Useful Resources for Sports Betting Research
We could simply provide you with a list of recommended resources here, but that’s not we’re going to do. Although this would be useful to some extent, we’d have to keep it constantly updated. A good resource today might not be so good in the future. Some resources, for whatever reason, let their standards drop. Meanwhile, other resources improve and new ones come along that have a lot to offer.
So what we’re going to do instead is suggest a few different types of resource that you should consider using. Here’s our list.
- General Sports Media
- Official Websites
- Stats Websites
- Fan Websites, Blogs & Forums
- Sports Betting Websites, Blogs & Forums
- Social Media
Now, we’re going to do our best to explain each one of these resources in detail to give you a better understanding of why they are useful and why we recommend using them. Where appropriate, we’ll also list some specific resources that we know are useful. Please note that not everything we discuss here is relevant for ALL sports. Most of it applies to mainstream sports though.
General Sports Media
This should be your first stop as you begin your sports betting research. General sports media includes any of the many sports channels on TV in addition to what’s found on the written press. These sources are both useful, but the most valuable sources of all are the websites operated by the big sports outlets.
You’ll find all the major news you need to know on these sites, and plenty of interesting editorial pieces too. They’re great for keeping up on the changes that teams are making during the close season, and great for keeping track of injuries and suspensions once the action starts. They typically publish insightful previews of upcoming games and events, and detail reports on past games and events.
In short, these websites contain a lot of useful information. Most of the major ones cover a wide variety of different sports too, so they’re good resources regardless of what sports you bet on.
Here are a few sites that we consider to be especially valuable sources.
- ESPN.com
- SkySports.com
- CBSSports.com
Official Websites
Official websites of the appropriate leagues or competitions that you’re betting can also be useful sources of information. You’ll only find bare facts here, but sometimes they’re all you need. There are details of schedules and fixtures, for example, as well as league standings. Some official sites also have sections for the news or stats.
Here are the official sites for some of the most commonly bet on leagues and competitions.
- NFL.com
- NBA.com
- PremierLeague.com
- NHL.com
- MLB.com
- ATPWorldTour.com
- PGATour.com
Most sports teams have their own official sites too. They won’t provide a wealth of information, but they can be useful for researching certain facts.
Stats Websites
For a lot of the sports we can bet on, statistics can be very powerful information to have, assuming we’re able to analyze them properly and interpret our findings of course. If we do that well, then stats can really help us make good betting decisions.
Finding the stats we need on the internet is not hard at all. As we just mentioned, the relevant stats are often displayed on official websites. The NFL website, for example, publishes extensive statistics for its teams and players. Many others do the same.
There are also lots of “unofficial” stats sites out there that provide even more detailed statistics than official websites. The top quality sites provide accurate data that’s regularly updated. We won’t list any here simply because there are so many of them, for a variety of different sports. We are positive you won’t have trouble finding them yourself though; a simple Google search will be proof of that.
Fan Websites, Blogs & Forums
Sports fans can be very passionate about the teams (or individuals) they support and follow. Some are passionate enough to launch their own websites and blogs dedicated to their favorite team or athlete. A lot of the websites and blogs are pretty useless for any kind of meaningful research, but that’s not the case for all of them. Some of these resources can be very helpful for getting some alternative points of view, or even real insight, from someone who knows a lot more about a specific team or player than we do.
The same principle applies with fan forums. We mentioned these earlier. Most of the professional sports teams we’re likely to bet on will have at least one or two dedicated fan forums. These can be very useful for picking up some information from people who are more knowledgeable and up to date about a particular team than we are. Just remember what we said earlier about being wary of biased opinions!
There are also lots of other general sports forums that can be useful too. Again, we’re not going to list any here for the same reasons as before. There are too many of them, and they’re reasonably easy to find.
Sports Betting Websites, Blogs & Forums
Expect to uncover countless sites dedicated to sports betting on the internet. These include informational sites (such as ours, which you’re reading right now), as well as blogs and forums. As in the previous category, many of these sites will not be very useful. Others (like this one!) are excellent, and provide lots of valuable information.
These kind of sites aren’t necessarily the best for researching specific events you’re planning to bet on, but they’re great for researching sports betting in general. This is something worth investing your time in, as you should never stop trying to improve your sports betting knowledge and learning about all the strategy involved.
Also, some of these sites ARE useful for researching specific events. Take our gambling blog for example, or our news section. We write a wide variety of different posts and articles for these, including previews for sports events. These previews not only provide an overview of what to expect in the relevant event, but they also feature at least one or two recommended wagers.
Social Media
Social media is full of sports betting tipsters. Especially Twitter. Most of these tipsters barely deserve the label, as they’re not very good at what they do. Some of them, however, are worth following. It wouldn’t be wise to just blindly follow their tips and picks, but it doesn’t hurt to take what they say into account when it comes time to make your own decisions. The best tipsters will thoroughly explain their reasoning for choosing to pick what they did, so this is also a great way to gain more perspective.
An especially useful social media site to use is Reddit. There are lots of sports and sports betting related sections on here, many of which feature very interesting discussions. We definitely recommend taking some time to explore this site.
More Research & Analysis to Consider
Before we finish up this article, there are two more pieces of advice we want to offer. The first is that you should spend some time analyzing your own betting performance. If you keep detailed betting records (and you should), there’s a lot to be gained by regularly reviewing those records and looking for ways to improve. This is a great method for enhancing your betting skills over time.
The second piece of advice is that you should research the various different betting sites you can use, and make sure that you’re betting with the right ones. There are numerous benefits to using the best betting sites, some of which can directly help you make more money. Want to learn more about this subject? Read our article on choosing where to bet. Or for an even quicker solution, check out our list of recommended sites we have provided below.
The Best Sports Betting Sites
Ranked & Reviewed by Experts
Anyone who wants to bet on sports will be forced to make some difficult decisions. Here’s a couple that need to be made before you can even get started.
- Which sports you should bet on.
- How many sports you should bet on.
These decisions will be easy to make for those who are sports fans first and bettors second. They usually choose to simply wager on all of the sports that they already follow and like to watch. This approach is entirely logical really, as those are the sports that they know and understand best. They’re more likely to enjoy betting on those sports, and their knowledge of those sports will give them a better of chance of winning money.
For a lot of people, however, these decisions are NOT easy. Some people follow a lot of sports, and are not sure if they want to bet on them all. Others only follow a single sport, and aren’t sure if they want to limit themselves to just that one sport. Then there are those who want to try to sports betting but don’t really follow any sports closely.
All of these people need to put some real thought into which sports to bet on and how many. Even if the decision seems easy, it’s going to be something they’ll really have to think through. As logical as betting on all the sports they already follow might seem, this isn’t necessarily the right approach.
So what IS the right approach then? What are the best sports for betting? And how many sports should you bet on? Unfortunately, there’s no one right answer to these questions.
You see, although this article is named “The Best Sports for Betting,” there’s really no such thing. There are definitely sports that WE think are better, but not everyone is going to have the same opinions. The best sport for one person to bet on might be a terrible sport for someone else. It depends on several different factors. A similar principle applies to whether it’s best to wager on one sport, a couple of sports, or a variety of sports. There’s no “optimal” number of sports here. Again, there are a lot of factors that come into play.
What matters most is finding what’s best for YOU. And we can’t tell you that without knowing your own situation and personal preferences. We can, however, give you the tools you need to discover that on your own. That’s the purpose of this article.
We start by looking at the most popular sports to bet on. We admit that there are good reasons as to why they are so popular, while there are also good reasons as to why they’re not necessary the best options. We cover both in this article.
Then we look at the advantages and disadvantages of betting on a single sport as opposed to betting on many. We finish up with some advice for making your decisions about which sports to bet on and how many.
We repeatedly refer to “value” throughout this article. If you’re not familiar with this term in the context of sports betting, we suggest taking a look at this article which thoroughly covers it.
What are the Most Popular Sports for Betting?
The answer to this question actually depends to some extent on what part of the world we’re talking about. There are certain sports that are popular in some regions, but not so popular in others. However, there are a few sports that are popular with bettors all around the world. In terms of the total number of people who bet on them, the following sports definitely rank the highest.
Other popular sports for betting that are NOT on this list include baseball, darts, rugby and horse racing. We didn’t include baseball because that doesn’t get a lot of betting attention outside of the United States. Darts doesn’t get much attention outside of the United Kingdom, and rugby is only popular in a few countries. Horse racing DOES get worldwide attention, but horse racing betting is typically categorized as its own unique form of gambling.
We doubt that any of the sports on this list came as a surprise to you. After all, these are the sports that regularly attract large viewing audiences. It stands to reason that the most watched sports in the world are also the ones that people wager on the most.
Obvious logic aside, there are four other good reasons why these sports are so popular among bettors.
- They provide many opportunities to bet.
- They’re widely shown on television and/or the internet.
- Information on these sports is widely available and accessible.
- Bookmakers typically offer lots of betting options on these sports.
Please note that each of these reasons can be applied to virtually any mainstream sport, not just the eight we listed. Let’s explore each one of them in more detail.
Mainstream sports typically offer many opportunities to bet. There are games and events taking place on a regular basis, and in some cases the whole year round. This appeals to a lot of people, because many of them enjoy placing lots of wagers. They love having plenty of opportunities to get their money down.
Most bettors place lots of wagers because they think it will improve their chances of making money. We can see the logic in thinking this way, but the opposite is actually true. It’s the QUALITY of our wagers that improves our chances of making money, not the quantity of them. And the more wagers we place, the less likely we are to place good wagers.
No matter how much we know about a particular sport, we’re extremely unlikely to make consistently good selections if we try to predict the outcome of every single game or event. But if we’re selective, and carefully pick the best opportunities, our chances of making good selections increases dramatically.
The more opportunities we have to bet on a sport, the more selective we can be. Take a sport like tennis for example. Even a bona fide tennis expert wouldn’t be able to correctly predict the outcome of each match in the first round of a grand slam tournament. But he wouldn’t need to. Since there are so many matches, he could focus on finding a few matches that offered genuine value. As there are tennis tournaments taking place virtually every week of the year, he’d ALWAYS have plenty of matches to choose from.
So having a lot of opportunities to place wagers IS a very real advantage of betting on popular and mainstream sports. It’s just not for the reason that most people think.
Anyone who wants to watch any of the mainstream sports we listed can easily do so, as they are widely broadcasted on the television or internet. Watching sports becomes even more exciting when you have some money at stake, which is why so many people choose to wager on the sports they are already watching.
The widespread coverage of mainstream sports also gives us a distinct advantage in terms of making good decisions. Actually watching games and events provides us with additional insight that we just can’t get in any other way. Team sports are the best illustration of this.
Consider a sport such as football for example. We can read game reports and study various statistics, and they can definitely tell us something about the strengths and weaknesses of the various teams and players. But watching the games tells us far more and helps us to form solid opinions about how these teams and players are performing. Those opinions are invaluable when it comes it to making predictions about future games.
Availability of information
For most mainstream sports, there’s a wealth of information readily available. Some sports have TV channels dedicated entirely to broadcasting all the latest news, and most newspapers cover the popular sports extensively too. And then there’s the internet. The internet is full of useful sports resources where we can find out pretty much anything we could possibly want to know about any of the major sports.
Best Sports Betting Advice Sites Reddit
Latest results, injury news, game reports, expert opinions, various stats, and much more are all available online. With so much information to work with, it’s easy to see why so many people prefer to wager on mainstream sports.
The more information we have at our disposal, the better our chances are of making good decisions. We have to know how to interpret it all if we want to be truly successful, but there’s no doubt that simply having more information on hand helps.
It’s no surprise that the sports that receive the most attention from bettors also receive the most attention from the bookmakers. They have to give their customers what they want in order to keep them happy. And what the customers want is a good variety of betting options. This is why the bookmakers typically offer such an incredible range of different options on mainstream sports.
This is a major advantage. More options equal more opportunities to get some money down. As we explained earlier, this also makes it easier for us to be selective and pick the BEST opportunities.
All things considered, it’s clear why so many people choose to bet on the mainstream sports. There are notable advantages. However, there are two major disadvantages to betting on these sports too.
- The odds and lines on popular and mainstream sports are typically very tight.
- Any value in the markets usually vanishes pretty quickly.
We mentioned earlier how the popular sports get more attention from the bookmakers. While this can be a good thing, it has its downsides too. Because the bookmakers take so much action on these sports, they dedicate a LOT of resources to making sure that they don’t give away any value easily. They hire genuine experts who are exceptionally skilled at pricing up the betting markets. They make it very difficult for us to find any value in the odds and lines they have to offer, which means it’s difficult to make any money in the long run.
When there IS some value in their odds and lines, there are so many other people betting on these sports that it soon disappears. A good price will see lots of money coming in very quickly, and when that happens the bookmakers adjust their odds and lines accordingly. So unless we’re also very quick, we can easily miss out on the best opportunities.
Now, we’re not trying to say it’s impossible to win money from the popular sports. It definitely is; it’s just one heck of a challenge. There’s a strong argument that betting on other sports is substantially easier.
It wasn’t that long ago that the popular and mainstream sports were all we could bet on. Finding a bookmaker willing to take wagers on the “minor” sports was nearly impossible. This is no longer the case though, as these days we can bet on virtually any sport that’s played professionally: even the most obscure ones. Although these don’t offer the same advantages that we’ve outlined above, one big advantage they have is that the bookmakers don’t give them the same level of attention.
In theory, this makes it easier to make money on these sports. Note that we said easier, not easy. It’s still a challenge to beat the bookmakers even when betting on the obscure sports. But it’s very possible to know more than the bookmakers do about these sports, and that can give us a real edge.
So, one of the first things you need to consider when deciding which sports to bet on is whether you want to bet on the mainstream sports or the minor ones. There are pros and cons either way, as we’ve just explained. You also need to consider a few other things too, and we’ll get to those later. Before that, let’s look at how betting on one sport compares to betting on many.
Betting on One Sport vs Betting on Many
To decide how many sports you should bet on, you should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of betting on one sport compared to betting on many. We’ll start with the three main advantages.
- Possible to become a genuine expert.
- More time to spend on finding value.
- Can work with a smaller budget and/or be more aggressive.
The first advantage here is a significant one. If you devote all your time to one single sport, it’s entirely possible that you can become a genuine expert. This will greatly improve your chances of beating the bookmakers. Remember, they have experts working for them. You really need to match the knowledge of their experts to be able to win money consistently. If you can actually learn MORE than them, then you’ll be in a good position to beat them.
Focusing on a single sport also allows you more time to concentrate on finding value in the markets. You can analyze every opportunity in great detail, giving you a better chance of identifying where the very best value lies. This is much harder to do when betting on several sports, as you have many more opportunities to look at. It’s simply not possible to analyze them all in the same level of detail.
The third advantage is perhaps not as significant as the previous two, but it’s an advantage nonetheless. When betting on several sports, you ideally need a pretty sizable budget. This is simply because you’re likely to be placing more wagers. You can get away with a much smaller budget when betting on just one sport though. Plus, you can be more aggressive with that budget, as the quality of your wagers will typically be higher. This can potentially increase the rate at which you win money.
There are two notable disadvantages to focusing on one sport.
- Fewer betting opportunities.
- May only be able to bet at certain times of the year.
The first disadvantage is somewhat obvious. When you’re betting on just one sport, there aren’t as many opportunities to place wagers as when betting on several. Although you’ll have more time to find the good opportunities, there’ll be fewer good opportunities to find. This could potentially harm your chances of identifying value.
The second disadvantage only applies to a few sports, so it might not be relevant to you. It’s worth bearing in mind if you’re planning to bet on sports such as football or basketball though. The football season is particularly short, running from October through February.
Note that neither of these disadvantages are significant enough that you should definitely NOT focus on just one sport. They’re definitely worth bearing in mind though.
We should also point out that your choices are not limited to betting on one sport or betting on many. There’s a middle ground too, such as betting on two or three. This is actually a good option for a lot of people, but don’t decide just yet. We have more advice to offer for deciding how many sports to bet on, and which ones.
We’ve given you plenty to consider so far, and now we’re going to help you to make your decisions. At this stage you should ask yourself a very simple question.
There are two main reasons why people choose to bet on sports. A lot of people are what are known as recreational bettors, and they bet primarily for fun. They obviously want to win money if they can (who doesn’t?), but that isn’t what really motivates them. They don’t put any real effort into making good betting decisions, and they don’t take things very seriously. Betting is basically just a form of entertainment for them, and they enjoy it because it makes watching their favorite sports that much more exciting. They also enjoy the challenge of putting their sports knowledge to the test.
These recreational bettors account for the majority of people who bet on sports, but there are also plenty of people who bet primarily to make money. This doesn’t mean that they don’t still enjoy themselves, it’s just that their motivations are different. They generally put a lot more thought into the wagers that they make, and dedicate some time to researching and analyzing the various factors that can affect the outcome of games and events.
We’re not saying to just make a decision without putting any thought into it. Take everything we said into consideration, but don’t stress out. All that really matters is that you enjoy yourself, and gamble responsibly with money you can afford to lose. It makes sense to start by focusing on any sports you already follow, but don’t be afraid to try out others at some point. If you don’t follow any sports, start with the popular ones and see how it goes from there. Once you get a hang of it, you might want to try a couple of the more obscure sports.
If making money is more important to you than having fun, then here are two more questions you need to ask.
- How much time can I dedicate to my betting?
- What will give me the best chance of making money?
In order to make regular and consistent profits, you are going to have to be willing to dedicate a lot of time to sports betting. You can make money without it become a full-time job, but don’t expect to be successful if you just spend a few minutes choosing your selections. If your time is limited, you should probably focus on just one or two sports. Stick to the mainstream sports when possible, as it doesn’t take so long to research and analyze the necessary information for those.
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If you have a more flexible schedule, you can think about betting on a few sports. You don’t HAVE to do this, but it’s a realistic option at least. You can also consider betting on the more obscure sports where the research and analysis is likely to take longer.
The second question is ultimately the most important one though. Really, this is what your decision should come down to. It’s easier to make money right now from betting on sports that you’re already familiar with, but you’ve got to think carefully about whether other sports might offer better opportunities in the long run. It’s probably best to focus on just one or two sports to start with, but you might want to start betting on more once you’re getting consistently good results.
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This is just some broad advice, and you don’t need to follow it to the letter. Remember, we can’t actually tell you explicitly what to do here. There’s no right or wrong decision, as you’ve just got to consider what’s best for you. The information and advice we’ve offered will hopefully help. If you’re still not sure what to do, then just take some time to experiment with the different approaches. Eventually, you’ll find one that works for you.