Sports betting is now considered to be not only a recreational, entertaining activity that is done by people just to have fun or simply to raise their adrenaline to the top while watching a sports event. It is not just being able to engage with a basketball game, let’s say, when placing wagers on NBA betting sites in PH. It is also a viable, professional activity implemented by more advanced and pro bettors, for making money and for the pursuit of long-term profits.
Every amateur and recreational bettor, whether a casual or a more regular one has a prevailing perception in his mind about what is a professional bettor and what are the characteristics and defining behaviours that accompany professional sports betting.
And every bettor who wants to turn into a pro bettor or who generally seeks to adopt a more professional approach to sports betting, has some landmarks and some benchmarks in his mind in order to be able to do so.
In many cases, amateur bettors’ perceptions are that professional bettors have that unique thing, that invaluable knowledge, that exceptional skill and competence and that critical approach to wagering, that it is not only difficult for them to develop but too often unattainable as a goal in the first place.
They believe that becoming a pro bettor is a long-term process, a complex one most probably and a very demanding pathway as well. They see pro-bettors as being like the gurus of sports betting, the absolute ‘knowers’ and as such they often feel that they can’t really make it if they are stuck with their own developed and adopted approaches to betting.
But all these are not truly reflecting the reality and they are very far from what is actually happening in pro sports betting. Professional sports bettors were once recreational punters who eventually developed and evolved into more systematic punters, who wanted to make a living out of something that they really love or something that they are really good at.
There are some key aspects, features and attitudes of professional sports bettors that set them apart from the amateur ones or from the occasional punters, but this does not -in any way – imply that an amateur can’t turn into a pro bettor.
Here are the top tips for getting into professional betting. Every bettor that wants to experiment with the more professional ‘pinch’ in his betting experience, should seriously take them into consideration and follow them.
1. Don’t be short-term oriented
As a bettor you like to win of course. This has nothing to do with being a recreational bettor or a pro bettor. Betting means predicting and when you make a prediction – either based on your gut feeling, your intuition or your thorough analysis of a game let’s say – you always want it to come true. This, by definition, means that you always want your bets to win.
But you should keep in mind that if you want to become a professional bettor you will need to be able to embrace the fact that there will be losses as well and this is part of the game.
It needs a long term strategy to pursue long term profits and if you are short-term oriented or focused entirely on the win of that one bet that you have placed, then you will not be able to take this pro bettor perspective.
Professional sports bettors are looking at the greater picture and they are more interested in the long-term results of their betting strategy. Accepting that some losses are part of the game – an unpleasant, though almost certain ingredient of their betting plan – is the key to detaching from short-term orientation and developing a more long-term orientation.
2. Manage your emotions while betting
You’ll be surprised to realize that our emotions are almost always getting in the way of our decisions over betting. Even if you believe yourself to be a very rational, logical, calculative person, it is quite impossible to distinguish your emotional perspectives from your rational choices in sports betting.
This is only natural, because people develop affective responses for sports, for specific teams, particular athletes and so on. So, it is just too difficult to exclude what you feel when you wager on a specific sport event. But it is not unattainable!
Professional bettors have learned and have been trained to get their emotions as far away as possible. Although this may not sound like an easy thing to do at all times, it is very important to try at least, if you want to get a more professional approach to sports betting.
Focusing on making data-driven choices, reading and analyzing games, training yourself to use statistics and information to your advantage in making informed bets and generally developing the ability to tell the difference between an emotionally-based decision and a more rational decision in betting, are all very critical things that you need to do if you want to be more of a pro sports bettor.
3. Have a plan and a strategy
Professional betting can’t really be, without a plan and a strategy in place. Maybe as recreational punters, you don’t need to have any systematic approach or strategy in the way you are placing your wagers, even if you do so regularly. But for becoming a pro bettor, this is totally wrong and ineffective.
Lacking a plan or a strategy is like lacking a direction and how can you be a pro bettor without a certain direction or a particular goal that you want to achieve? A plan is important because it gives you a context in sports betting and a certain aim. A strategy, now, is important because it helps you get where you want to go.
Professional bettors never leave something to chance. Everything they do (or it is better to say, most of the things that they do) is based on systematic analysis, it has a purpose and it targets a goal. So, you need to go past the more ‘goofy’ approach to sports betting and embark on a planned and deliberate betting strategy.