For you to be a profitable punter, it will take more than knowing how to place a bet and how to manage your bankroll.
In sports betting, your emotional side can have an enormous impact on your decisions while you place a bet. This is where an analytical approach comes in the picture by providing a way for you to control your bankroll.
We know it’s hard to ignore your emotions towards your favourite team. Sometimes, you can even bet with your heart on your sleeve.
That’s why we will show you the biggest psychological traps you can fall for in sports betting. This way you will manage your emotional side and place successful bets.
Sports Betting Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind. By analyzing how we behave, it is clear that our emotional side affects different aspects of our lives. Our mind needs to be strong enough for us to achieve success. This applies to our career, relationships and even to how we place bets.
In sports betting, we need to overcome emotional challenges all the time. Even if you feel that you’ve learnt it all, it requires mental strength to go a long way.
Look at the examples of Balotelli, Ronaldinho and Adriano. They were such big promises with exceptional talent. Unfortunately, their gift wasn’t enough to make a big career.
Ibrahimovic, who played with Adriano in Inter Milan, says he was a brilliant player. It is a shame Adriano’s career wasn’t as promising as his skills.
In his words,
“In everything we do, 50% is psychological“.
Our mental state can also affect how we place our bets. There are two factors that contribute to this alteration: betting requires an emotional investment and a financial investment.
When we combine them both, our mistakes can make this entire process a bit frustrating. There’s money on the line when we bet and pride can get in the way when we lose. This is where we need to call discipline into action to learn from those mistakes.
A successful punter will always keep this in mind.
Common Emotional Mistakes
Before improving, it’s best to first recognize where we fail. Some of these traits are common to everyone.
Here are some of the most common mistakes made by punters:
- Betting on your favourite teams
- Making efforts to compensate for losses
- Betting with no rational analysis
These mistakes lead to more losses than winnings. And the more you lose, the harder it is to maintain clarity and focus while placing bets – it becomes a negative cycle.
This is really what separates good punters from the best ones. The greatest punters will not be lead by their feelings and always keep a methodical mind.
To avoid this negative free-fall, we gathered some tips for you to put in practice. This way, you won’t be your own worst enemy.
The first step you can take is to choose a betting site with good odds Winning in sports betting can be hard. This way you make sure that when you win, you earn more money.
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Tips for Emotional Management in Sports Betting
1. Be realistic
Even if you have amazing talent, it’s very hard to make big winnings in a brief period. It is possible to make fast earnings but focus on building a strategy first.
Consider this as a long-time process and use this mindset to control your urge to speed up your earnings. By investing in your knowledge, you will see more profits in the long run. Consistency and patience are the keys to improve your tactics and win more.
2. Avoid the Gambler’s Fallacy
Let’s look at this example. Imagine you are in the middle of a roulette game and the ball keeps scoring the colour black 7 times in a row!
Is it more likely for the ball hit red next time? No!
Experts call this event the Gambler’s Fallacy. This comes from a mistaken belief that past results can influence future events. It’s clear the emotional side of how we see this game of luck can affect our next move.
In reality, the results don’t depend on one another and they are not related in any way.
SCIENCE SAYS THAT SITUATIONS THAT INVOLVE MONEY CAN HAVE THE SAME EFFECTS on the brain AS CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES.
In the roulette example, you can feel that it is the right choice to choose red for the next event. Actually, there are no facts supporting that. It is just our gut telling us to go for the other result.
According to statistics, each round is an independent event. This means that each result is not influenced by the previous round.
Even though sports betting is statistically more complex than roulette, this proves we have a natural tendency to act irrationally during gambling. Games that involve money lead to unnecessary mistakes for those who are not aware of them.
With this case, it is easy to show that emotions take a big toll when we bet. You should really avoid them taking control over you and your decisions.
3. Accept your loses
The undeniable truth is you will lose some bets. It’s inevitable. And you must accept it before you sabotage your own game. When you revenge bet, you irrationally try to make up for what you lost.
That is REALLY not the right move.
The secret is to balance it out by trying to even your losses and winnings. On one hand, you should not be extra confident if you are on a winning spree. On the other, you can’t let the negative results throw you down if the opposite happens.
Losing is part of the game. Even professionals can have consecutive losses for weeks. It’s their analysis and cold blood that makes them come back to green results!
Being too proud is a sure way to stay in the reds. Remember that you have to be rational to have success.
You can prepare yourself by asking: “If I lose 3 bets in a row, can I deal with it and bet with reason?”
4. Persistence
Winning your bets consistently is difficult. The hard part is to win enough times so that you are profitable.
Most people can’t do it because they give up too soon. This is because they expected to win too much too early. Know that you will achieve your goals after some time.
Some professional punters make a living out of their bets, but it took a while for them to improve their game up to that point. Just imagine: if it is difficult just to win, how hard it must be to look at this as your job.
Therefore, it is so important to follow these methods.
You will lose sometimes, but you should not give up! If you feel too stressed out, take a break. Then come back to betting a week later.
Financial success in sports betting is a process where you can improve constantly. The more persistent you are, the better is your reward.
5. Keep Searching for Information
A great way to get better at betting is to keep an open mind. When you tell yourself you don’t know everything, a new and exciting door of knowledge comes your way.
Try to find where you failed and see it as a new opportunity to learn new skills.
By doing this, you will understand which ones are the right markets to bet. Maybe you are better at pre-games or at live betting.
If you do this, you will have an advantage over the bookie and over other punters.
Conclusion
As you can see, you shouldn’t underestimate the power that emotions have on you while placing a bet. They interfere with our judgement and can be the reason some bad decisions are made. To avoid this, it’s better to control your emotional side and focus on rational thinking.
For you to be the best punter, it’s crucial you develop a long-term plan to achieve big winnings. One step to accomplish this is to manage your feelings so they don’t overtake all the knowledge you have on sports betting. You don’t want all to go down the drain just because you acted on your gut instead of being logical.
Having cold blood about your sports betting helps you improve your strategy and stick to the plan. You must dedicate some time to develop this distancing towards triggers like betting on your favourite teams or acting upon consecutive losses.
If you do this, the money will come along the way.
Discipline and persistence need to be your key focus during this process. Soon you will win more if you follow our tips. And we are sure you have what it takes to be the master of sports betting.
