Win More Bets - Increase Your Winning Percentage

Win more bets and increase your winning percentage.

Key Points

– A few easy tasks can help any bettor win more bets.

– Many bettors don’t act on one of the easiest things that will help win more bets.

Win More Bets - Increase Your Winning Percentage

Sports betting has become one of the most popular pastimes in the U.S. over the past few years. Americans see more ads for online sportsbooks, which frequently offer all sorts of promotions to entice prospective bettors.

Understanding how sportsbooks work can help the average bettor increase his winning percentage and win more bets. Sportsbooks profit by charging commission on all wagers. Regardless of winners and losers, the sportsbook is always making money.

People who are new to sports betting frequently commit the same errors. They bet with their emotions rather than their heads. They will make excessive bets on one play and they typically fail to understand the fundamentals of money management and line-shopping.

Want to avoid betting losing streaks and win more bets? Here are a few suggestions that can improve your overall betting situation.

Learn to Find Value to Win More Bets

Sports betting is like making an investment. The same goal is being pursued by professional stock traders and sports bettors. Both are looking to find the optimal investment that pays out handsomely.

Betting on sportsbook favorites all the time is a recipe for disaster. Avoiding big favorites is one of the tips for handicapping baseball.

Professional sports are unpredictable. Yes, favorites win more than underdogs, but in some sports underdogs may win as often as 40 percent of the time. With the way odds work, betting on big favorites will bankrupt a bettor very quickly.

It’s like the trendy stock. Investors stay away from it because they know at some point it will blow up in their faces. Plus, the stock market can be unpredictable as well.

The bottom, whether the stock market or sports betting, is to win more bets you must find value. The sports bettor is tasked with identifying high value teams and players and then placing smart bets on them. That does not mean solely betting on underdogs or longshots. There are plenty of favorites that offer value too.

Keep in mind that determining value is much simpler when dealing with straight-up moneyline bets. When point spreads are included, things become more complicated. You can take a contrarian stance when betting on point spreads that pays off even if the favorite wins.

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Only Make 5-Star Bets

If you have been involved in sports betting for even a minute, you have certainly come across the “Pick of the Year” or “Five-Star Pick of the Day.” Numerous handicappers are out there in the market offering their best college football betting picks, for example.

Just like handicappers, you should bet with the same level of five-star confidence. If you truly want to win more bets, only place five-star bets. All that means is that you can defend your wager. With the amount of information available these days, it’s likely that you will have enough ammunition to defend any bet you make.

For example if you are betting the MLB playoffs, you might consider the team's recent record against their opponent, previous postseason records, and head-to-head statistics for the two starting lineups. All of that information is available online.

Even the risky play can be justified at times. You might bet on a three-team NFL parlay. That’s a bet with a great amount of risk. One leg fails and you lose. However, if you bet with that five-star level of confidence, you can win more bets.

Of course, just because you can defend a bet doesn’t mean you always have to place it. Remember, the bottom line is value. Do the research and evaluate for value. Find the best scores, stats, lines, and odds. Without expertise to support your picks, placing any sports bet is similar to playing the lottery.

Sports betting is a grind. To be successful and win more bets requires putting in long hours, one game and one day at a time. When you lose, learn to accept the losses and draw lessons from your failures. Remember the famous words of the amateur philosopher Bull Durham - “Some days you win, some days you lose, and other days it rains.”

Find the Best Lines

If you have read anything about betting strategy, you have surely come across this. To win more bets, there is likely no advice better than simply shopping for the best line.

Too many bettors read it and comprehend it, but for some reason they don’t act on it. Line shopping will help you win a bet or two every so often that otherwise you would lose.

Like the Pistons +5? What if you could get them at +6? Even at +5.5, Detroit covers when they lose by five or less (or win outright). That half-point could be the difference between a push and a win in this case. A push is like kissing your sister. When you win more bets, you put your stake plus your winnings back in your bankroll.

How to Find the Best Lines

With today’s technology, finding the best lines for your bets is simple. Yes, you can have as many betting accounts as you want. The more you add though, the harder it becomes to manage them all.

As a general rule, you probably don’t want more than three to five open betting accounts. That way, you can easily go to the one with the best line and place a wager immediately.

There are services that keep track of several sportsbooks and post all of the lines for all events. That way, a bettor can simply check the service to see which sportsbook or sportsbooks have the best line for the games they like.

If you don’t have an open account with a book that has the best line, you simply open one and place your bet. It will take some time, but it can help you win more bets.