Becoming a successful punter is a process. You have to take the first step and work your way up through the last one. Starting from the middle is not going to work. Over 90% of punters are long term losers in sports betting and you can be different if you have the betting know-how.
We defined 4 steps of how to become a professional and successful punter.
Please note: We are not going to explain what odds are or what 1X2 means. If you are not familiar with the very basics, you are far away from being recommended to read the following. We will prepare sports betting for dummies in a different article when we get there.
Now the 4 steps to become a professional and successful punter:
- Understand the probability in sports betting
- Understand how the bookies earn their money
- Learn to create your own results predictions and odds
- Create a valid betting strategy
1. Probability in sports betting
The most important thing to realize in sports betting is “You never know how the match ends”. No matter how strong or weak the team is, it can always win or lose to anybody. You have to understand the basics of probability in sports betting.
What do the odds in sports betting say about the chances? Well, everything. If the bookie is giving you decimal odds 2.25 for some result, the chance is 1 divided by the odds: 1/2.25 = 44%.
The important part is that the mentioned 44% is just an opinion. No matter how good the free predictions for football betting are, they are hardly ever correct. This is not a coin toss, in sports you can not guarantee the outcome accuracy.
Please make sure to read the full article about probability in sports betting. There is much more to learn.
2. How bookies earn the money
Years ago I considered the bookmakers being in a risky business – and I was wrong. Another thing to realize is that “bookmakers do NOT take the risk”. They basically make the odds work to their favour.
Indeed, bookmakers might lose money on a certain match, but there are hundreds of games per day and the statistics play in their favor. However, understanding how bookies make money will help you to step out of the circle and make the process work towards your own advantages.
There are 2 major ways of earnings from the bookmakers point of view:
2.1 The payout is not 100%
If you are betting on the 3 way result (1X2) in a fair market environment you would have to have the sum of chances being 100%. But indeed, this is never the case. The market margin is always added to the odds. From my experience bookies keep from 8% – 3% as commission and the rest is the payout. Please look at our bookmakers profit calculator to get an insight to the topic.
2.2 The stakes get spread
It would be too dangerous to keep 100% of the stakes on one result. In that case, it doesn’t really matter if the odds are 1.8 or 2.2. If all the stakes will be placed on a winning result you will lose. All the bookies try to motivate punters to bet on all the results. If a big crowd is backing the favourites, the odds go down.
3. Learn to create your own results predictions and odds
As we mentioned in section 1, all the probabilities and odds are just an opinion. If you manage to do it better and come up with more accurate football betting tips for tonight, you did the most important part of the process. We call it “spotting the value”. The difference between the odds given by the bookie and the real odds is called value bet. Value is crucial in sports betting, so make sure to know what I am talking about.
To spot a value bet, you have to be able to quantify the chances. This means that you have to create your own predictions and translate them into numbers of probabilities. We are providing you 3 powerful tools for creating your own odds.
3.1 Odds creator
We are providing for free the powerful betting odds calculator where the whole process is under your control. Please read the manual, before you use it.
3.2 Football predictions model (Forebets)
We have worked hard to provide a powerful tool. Our own free predictions for football scores. You can compare our results with the odds provided by the bookie and your own criticism. The math we used is based on a valid football prediction theory, we however still strongly advise you to be critical towards it.
3.3 Value bets based on historical data
Value bets based on historical odds is a completely new tool we are providing for free. It is based on comparison of the odds. When one of the dozens bookies gives too much in odds, we list the fixture.
4. Create a valid betting strategy
Creating the best football betting strategy has its own steps to be followed. The basics indeed overlap with our steps to become a successful punter, but there is some extra to it. Make sure you understand the concrete example of betting strategy we are presenting. And one more thing… Make sure to use only your licensed and safe bookmakers, we however have a solution if you got screwed by a not licensed bookmaker.
