The 7 fundamentals YOU must adopt - If you want to make money from Football betting

Sports or Football Betting can be tough to make money consistently. At times it will feel like a lot of unrewarding hard work. Its guaranteed you will have days of utter frustration, but it is possible to succeed with the right attitude and approach.

If Sports Betting was really that easy to make money we'd all be sipping poolside cocktails in our villas in the Bahamas. The stark reality is that it’s not and its estimated that 95% of punters don't make any money from betting, which leaves a very small percentage that do. So how do you put yourself firmly in that minority?

Maybe this is the year you decide that you want to take football betting a little more seriously, or perhaps previous years have been a bit of a mess with a scattergun approach and lack of direction leading to limited or no success?

What are the key fundamental steps you should be taking right now? How do you approach it? Well here’s our guide on the 7 things we believe you MUST do to give yourself the best chance of making money.

 

1. Have a Dedicated Betting Bankroll

We feel this is by far the most important first step you should be taking if you haven’t done so already. For those not familiar with this concept, it’s a pot of money that’s allocated solely for the purpose of funding ALL your sports betting.

It’s essential that this should be money that you can afford to write off totally and should come from disposable income or savings you can afford to dip into.

With sensible staking, a great system and luck you shouldn't lose your bank, but it’s important to plan for the worst-case scenario anyway.

 

2. Use a Staking Plan AND stick to it

Up there in importance alongside having a betting bankroll, is having a staking plan to go with it. Stakes should be high enough to allow the bank to grow but at the same time low enough to protect the bank against the inevitable bad runs that will happen.

We are big fans of only staking between 0.25% and 2% of the total Betting Bank Balance on a bet. If your Bankroll is at £1000, that’s between £2.50 and £20.00 per bet. The lower end should be for Accumulators and High-risk bets, with the larger stakes going on much more confident singles.

 

3. Know When to Stop and Don't Chase Losses

You know the scenario (we've all done it at some point). A bet you were feeling very confident about loses and your immediate reaction is to place another to try and win back the money you just lost. You go In-Play and select a game that wasn't even on your radar before, chuck on a bet and hope for the best. That loses too.

So, slightly irrationally you do the same again but increase the stake to much higher than the original in a vain attempt to cover the 2 lost bets. It loses again and before you know it you've lost a huge chunk on money within a short space of time.

What you should have done was stuck to the original plan, staked sensibly, accepted the loss and moved on. Bets lose, deal with it and don't take it personally. A good habit to adopt is limit a percentage of your bank you can use per day. We like to limit ourselves to 5% of our Betting Banks in a single 24hr period.

If you have one of those bad days where nothing goes right, the absolute worst that can happen is you’ve reduced your bank to 95%, which is hardly cause for panic. It’s a setback and nothing more.

 

4. Pick A System and Stick to It

It doesn’t matter whether you want to bet on goals, or corners, or if you only want to do trebles. You may choose to create the bets yourself or follow certain tipsters.

Whatever you decide to do, give the system a chance to work. Don’t give up at the first hurdle. Too many people place too many bets on every game going, follow a hundred twitter tipsters and swap back and forth depending on their success, which inevitably leads to a huge lack of success long term.

• Pick one or two systems and trial them properly to determine if it’s going to work long term

• Limit the amount of bets you place at one time to a sensible amount (unless your system requires blanket betting - Some people do have systems like this)

• Limit the amount of Tipsters you plan to follow. Pick one or two with a strong reputation and that can prove they are profitable long term. Try and follow ALL their bets.

• Don’t panic and look for a new system or tipster as soon as you hit a bad run. Even the best Systems and most successful tipsters hit bad runs as its part of betting. Protect yourself by ensuring you follow points 1 and 2 religiously.

 

5. Remove Emotion from the Equation

Most sports gamblers tend to be sports fans first and gamblers second. This nearly always means that they are emotionally invested in the game. 

Sports betting combines the emotions we feel when watching sports with the emotions we feel when gambling and this can create a very powerful rollercoaster experience, which isn’t always a good thing when it comes to trying to seriously make money from it. 

The People who succeed in Sports Betting can detach emotionally from the sport as well as the placing of the bets, and this is something that’s essential to at least try and learn how to do, or at least minimize it.

Using statistics is one way to look at sports in a more clinical way, especially using tools such as the #BettingEngine which removes the temptation to look at teams through rose tinted spectacles. Every team is analysed on the form period selected, and nothing else. 

We will be writing a separate article on dealing with the emotions of Sports Betting in the not too distant future.

 

6. Record and Monitor What You Do

There is only one way to this properly; Log it all down on a spread sheet. The bare minimum you will need to record is your daily profit/loss, but keeping records of the bets themselves, odds, bet types, bookie and tipster (if applicable).

Having all this information to hand allows you to filter through it and see exactly where it’s going wrong or (hopefully) right.

 

7. Take Time Out When You Need To

There will be days when things don't seem to work. Maybe results are random, teams not playing to form, you're not focused, and the fixture list is poor. One of the best things you can do sometimes is pull back and have a break for a day or two.

Wait for better games, clear your head and spend time doing other stuff. If you can't do this maybe you need to re-evaluate why you bet.

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