How to Choose a Winning Team for Sports Betting

Online sports betting can be an incredibly fun and profitable activity – either adding an extra layer of excitement to the games or padding your bankroll. It can also be intimidating though, particularly for beginners. That’s why we have put together a few tips and tricks to get you started.

At first glance the world of online sports betting can be confusing at best. Sportsbooks show lists of numbers with plus and minus signs, other players speak using phrases and words you’ve never heard of, and, depending on how much you know about the game, there might be a lot about the teams that you simply don’t know yet. You need to arm yourself with as much knowledge about the game as possible because winning can be somewhat challenging – even for experienced players. If you think that just blindly picking last season’s champions or your favorite team as a winning selection is a recipe for success, think again.

Playing to Win

Before even getting into what to look at for picking the best teams to place your bet on, we need to make sure that we have a clear idea of our goals when we’re playing to win. What we are talking about here is preparing you to make picks that will give you a higher statistical chance of winning over simply logging into your account and just picking your favorite teams or randomly making a selection.

Betting just for the excitement and fun is fine too though, and you should bet however you want to, but betting to win takes a lot more effort and can be even more enjoyable. Becoming an experienced and successful sports better is not an easy task though, it requires a well thought out and intelligent strategies coupled with keeping yourself informed and up to date on the teams and their statistics.

So, if you’re looking at getting into online sports betting simply for the fun and the rush of it then by all means jump in, because it’s fast and it waits for no man. But if you are hoping to become a winner and go from beginner to expert in a few easy steps, then you’ve come to the right place.

Educate Yourself

The more you know about what you are betting on, the better your chances of spotting a winning strategy and pick. While you might be an avid fan of a sport and know everything about your favorite team, you’d do well to have that same level of knowledge of all the teams that are competing across all leagues. Knowing when a bad team, who are typically an underdog, have a tendency to beat a team who are typically favorites could have serious value when placing your bets. This is where a lot of the effort that goes into becoming a winner is put in. Studying players and teams and their match histories is how you learn to spot trends and potential upsets. Absorb everything you possibly can and stay as up to date as possible with all the latest news and information relevant to the sport.

One massive area of information that you should be paying attention to when picking the best teams is personnel moves and roster changes. This strategy covers offseason, preseason and in-season moves. Staying up to date with this information will give you an edge in your online betting. Did a team hire a new head coach? If so, is he a good or a bad coach? Did a team lose their star player to a free agency? How does that effect a team’s new roster? Was there a key injury that could impact future games for a team? These are all important questions to be able to answer about the teams you are following, and the more you know about each team and their players, the more confident you will be able to be when making your selections when betting on your favourite sport.

The next thing is to associate with winners. There are plenty of great sports betters who are playing constantly, and they have made all the mistakes that you might make and have learned from the process – they were also beginners once upon a time. Strike up conversation and pick their brains. They will not likely give up any of their secrets or methods, but they may offer a bit of guidance and a nudge in the right direction if you ask for it.

 Specialising in One Sport

This is particularly good for those who are new to online betting. Narrowing your focus on what sport you are betting on can give you an edge in your betting by since you won’t have to research as much about teams and their game history.

Keeping up with all the information on professional cricket and football teams, not to mention the hundreds of club or amateur teams, can be incredibly overwhelming. Even the oddsmakers know that it isn’t possible to win at everything, so go with what you know best and study as much as you can about every player on every team so you can be as confident as possible when making your selections.

 Pick Value Over Winners

This probably doesn’t make much sense the first time you read it, but this is a crucial part of online betting to profit. This concept is one that is easy to miss for players who are new to online betting and think that a high percentage of wins over losses means that you’re guaranteed to be making money. The truth is that you can have a winning record with more wins than losses, placing the same amount of money on each bet, and still be losing money. You can also have a losing record with fewer wins than losses, placing the same amount of money on each bet, and be making money. The key to this concept is that all bets don’t pay out the same winnings or risk the same losses.

Let’s use an example: If you make four bets that are all on a (-500) favorite for £100 each and you win three out of the four bets, that then means that you have won £20 for each of the winning bets, but you lost £100 for the last losing bet. So, despite having a winning betting record, you have actually lost £40. So constantly betting on favorites can make for a good-looking win/loss ratio, but in order to make money you should be focusing on your return on investment. So keep in mind that the amount you are profiting or losing when betting is much more important than your record.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t bet on favorites or that it is impossible to make money by doing so, the trick is to bet so that you have the highest statistical chance of making money.

How and Where Do I Bet?

A world of online sports betting is just a click away. Simply visit our sports betting page, sign up and you’re good to go. At Grosvenor Casinos there are plenty of promotions to take advantage of, as well as the best fixed odds and live online betting for all of the biggest games. 

We’re here to help you keep it fun – remember to set your deposit limit. Click here for more details on the safer gambling tools available including reality checks and the ability to take a break from your gaming.

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