A win in sports betting is nice, but a huge win can easily burn a bettor. The reason is simple: no one makes a profit on every bet they place, not even professional bettors over the long haul. Here are a couple of basic tips to help bettors stay profitable:
1) Keep track of your wins and losses. Use a standard spreadsheet or simply a piece of paper to keep a running tab on your net wins and losses. This will help you understand what bets are working and which ones are not. This also feeds into our second tip, which is to only bet on teams and games that you see a positive return on investment on or are innately more familiar with.
2) Watch out for shaded lines. If you are watching ESPN pump the tires of Seattle all week, then it is likely that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other bettors have also heard and seen this coverage and will jump on the Seahawks bandwagon as well. This will push the line further toward the popular side. To avoid this, many bettors cover up the names of teams when analyzing a game and only look at the numbers themselves to diagnose the matchup.
3) Stick to your budget.
A common mistake made by sports bettors is to spend more than they can afford to lose. It is important to set aside a fixed amount of money and only bet a percentage of that on each play. This will allow for variance and will prevent you from going broke if you have a bad run.