Best 8 Sports Betting Hacks 2023
Looking to improve your sports betting skills?
Easy Sports Betting Hacks to help your bank roll grow
Sports betting is extremely popular among sport fans. Often if you are able to predict winners, you gain bragging rights among your friends. This is nice, but even better is to have a fatter wallet by placing a winning bet!
The concept of sports betting is not that hard to grasp. Pick the winner, place a bet and, if you pick correctly, you win. Unlike casino games which can be algorithm driven, there is no doubt as to the outcome and transparency (i.e. you can follow the game live), and it is highly entertaining as the game ebbs and flows.
Though it is easy to play, sports betting has several hacks that you should learn and take advantage of. These hacks aren’t going to make you an instant truck load of money, but will put you on the right path to being successful at sports betting.
If you want to be a better sports bettor, then please read on.
Hack 1. Know which type of Sports Bettor you are
Set your expectations by understanding which category of Sports Bettor you fall into
Now, you may think you fit the bill of what will become a successful sports bettor, but let’s see where you fit in these three types of sports bettors. Once you know where you stand, you can then set your expectations.
The Casual Sports Bettor
You are an avid sports fan who likes to supplement your love of sport with a few side bets. You have a few favorite teams, may bet on them occasionally throughout the regular season, but like to place a few big ones during the playoff.
The Semi Pro Sports Bettor
More than just a sports fan. You not only follow sports news and players closely, but you dabble in the statistics. You don’t mind betting against your favorite team and you have rudimentary calculations which you base your bets on. You also, don’t bet big just because it’s playoff time.
The Seasoned Sports Bettor
You love number crunching, understand how to use Excel, Access Database, Google Sheet. You may even know how to perform coding – VBA – or even be able to scrap data from websites and other sources to feed into your risk based models. You follow the sport news (and probably subscribe to a wide range of sports media and sport analyst reports) and have a way to feed soft factors into the risk based models. The outcomes drive the bets.
By knowing which category you may fit in, you can begin to understand how successful you could be with full time sports betting. To be honest, the majority are going to fall into the Casual Sports Bettor category. And if so, all well and good! It’s ok to have a few bets, but have the mind set that you won’t be able to give up your day job. Inevitably over the long run, losses will arise and accumulate and that’s ok. Because you know that it’s for fun and you have set aside a budget that you play within.
But if you feel that you have the skill set, and the dedication to be a Seasoned Sports Bettor then why not! Go for it. But know that it is hard work, takes time and you are competing against sport books that have their own people crunching the numbers, just like you. In essence, you need to outperform them!
Set your expectation by knowing which Sports Bettor you are.
Hack 2. Have a plan and stick to it
Many sport bettors end in distress and despair when there is no plan or when they don’t have the discipline to stick to the plan.
You have a friend who says “Easy money on the Golden State Warriors to beat the New York Knicks. It’s a sure thing. 5% return on a $10,000 bet. Much better than leaving your money in the bank account.”
Sounds great doesn’t it (OR NOT!) But why? If you have no plan, then this question is hard to answer. A plan will guide you on your risk appetite, it will dictate how much you are willing to place on each bet, and the expected risk return you are willing to accept.
In the example we outlined above, $10,000 for one bet would be out of bounds for many bettors. In addition a 5% return is way too low to risk $10,000. The risk return wouldn’t meet the required threshold. Many would say though that 5% is way better than the interest you earn on your bank account, BUT you can easily lose the entire $10,000!
Now a plan can simply look like the following:
No bets above $50, Only bet if I have performed a team comparison, Don’t bet on a odds return of less than 30%, perform a review of past results, maintain a quantitive analysis model.
For some bettors, this may seem all too much. Overkill and overwhelming. That’s fine. Each bettor has their own style, and many are simply casual bettors. But if you are planning on betting for the long run, are putting in some good interest (i.e. it’s not a few one off bets), then a plan is highly recommended.
Therefore, have a plan and stick to it! Don’t exceed your betting limits, don’t be suckered into the easy money perspective, because it could end up in heartbreak.
Hack 3. Don’t chase your losses
If you suffer a loss, don’t bet big to make up for the loss.
Betting big to make up for a previous loss is a strategy called the Martingale Strategy. Assuming 50% return, Martingale devised a strategy that requires the next wager to at least double in amount after a loss has been suffered. After each loss, the betting amount must at least double. Eventually a win will come along (because you cannot lose forever), and the amount wagered will result in winnings that will be large enough to cover all previous losses. It’s a clever strategy, because if you extrapolate the results over the long term (and I mean for a LONG time) you will win.
This strategy theoretically works, but in reality there are constraints.
First, you do NOT have unlimited bank roll. Chasing your losses by betting big could lead you to financial ruin quickly. A small string of losses with doubling at each loss will aggregate to large sums of money! No one has unlimited bank roll.
Second, with this strategy the mind set may change to betting on any bet irrespective of how good the odds are. Who cares about the odds, because eventually you will win one, right? Wrong! This attitude is similar to chasing your losses. Don’t just jump to the next “easy bet”. If you continually bet on ”bad” bets, you will quickly exhaust your bank roll.
Lastly, you do not have an infinite amount of time. I love my basketball. I love to watch and follow the NBA and I to play it and of course, I love to place a bet on it. But you know what, I just don’t have enough time to be able to always be on top of the next betting opportunity. I have to let some go and be selective in betting on good bets. However, I do now, if I had all the time in the world, I could increase my good bets and can wager more knowing I would have a higher percentage return. But alas, this is not the case. So, I pace myself, and I don’t simply continually increase my wagers to cover up for previous losses. I have experienced a string of losses in the past, and fortunately by keep to the plan, I minimise my losses.
Do your homework and bet with confidence. Don’t respond with a knee jerk reaction to a loss. If you throw caution into the wind and want to make up for a loss quickly, just don’t do it. Step back, regroup and make sure you bet within your limits.
Hack 4. Develop a betting approach
Have a betting approach that suits your style
Broadly speaking, most betting styles are based on the following structure:
a) Formulate a group of teams you would like to follow which would represent good betting opportunities for an upcoming season.
b) Project out scores for these teams. Some bettors use a rating system which allows comparison of teams. If you are familiar with how sport analysts write, they often have “power rankings” for teams throughout the season. They describe in their opinion why each team sits towards the top through to the bottom. Naturally, the sports analyst do not display their modelling in their articles (because it would make it the most boring of reads), but this is something that you incorporate into your betting approach.
c) Apply available betting odds to games that you see an opportunity. After applying the odds, you may find a handful of games that generate opportunities that you would like to delve into further.
d) With these opportunities analyze them in depth and apply a risk based model that can accept inputs. For example: travel, home and away records, location, morale, motivation, and player injuries.
e) If the outcome is a good betting opportunity, bet within your limits and keep to your plan.
The above betting approach can be tweaked for each individual. Some bettors like to develop and highly complex risk model (in excel and other sophisticated databases) whilst others like to put pen to paper and apply simple maths.
A good bettor has developed a betting approach that suits their style and is regularly reviewed and tweaked.
Hack 5. Understand the betting allocation
Optimize your betting allocation, bet more on winning bets and less on losing bets.
This may sound obvious, but it always gets lost upon bettors who are looking for quick and easy wins. Guess what, you may suffer more losses than wins, but come out in front with a fatter wallet. Why? Because on the lost bets you had bet a small amount, whilst on the few wins you have bet a larger amount.
This means, skew your betting size to the high confidence bets (which should result with more and higher return wins), than low confidence bets.
Remember, high confidence bets does not mean bet BIG. It means to bet with a little more weighting than the lower confidence bets.
Hack 6. Keep Good Records
Keep track of your sports bets and review them.
It is extremely important to keep good records of your bets. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it helps with keeping within your plan. It allows you to review your betting limits and evaluate your discipline (or reinforce your discipline). Second, it gives your data to review your performance. Reassess your betting allocation and tweak your betting approach and/or models.
Analyze which bets have better outcomes, maybe they align to a particular sport, a team or event. If you can find which bets you perform better at, you can recalibrate your betting allocation, and adjust your betting approach to improve your betting odds.
Hack 7. Choose a sport that you love
Enjoy sport and sports betting – if you don’t then it will become a chore and will be a painful experience.
Yes, we understand that currently times are difficult economically. And maybe you are looking for a side gig to supplement your current income (or even have sports betting as your sole income). If you are turning to sports betting as a means to becoming a stable income AND you don’t enjoy sports then we strongly recommend NOT to take up sports betting. It will be painful, boring, and you won’t understand many aspects that needs to be part of a good betting model.
The ideal scenario is that you are passionate about the sport(s) that you bet on. We do point out again, that there downside of being too passionate is that you be beyond your betting limits, because you believe that you can predict correctly every outcome.
Hack 8. Love your Sexy Model
Have a model that you can use that can be refined
Have an interest in the sports that you bet on. Don’t make it a side gig, that becomes a chore. It will only end in disappointment.
Yes, that’s right! You need to love your model (ok, so I may have spruced up the excitement a bit). If you are serious about getting into sports betting, then you will need to develop an appropriate betting model. Now, it doesn’t need to be flashy, but it does need to be able to be reviewed, refined and adjusted. If it can’t, well then, you don’t really have a model (let alone a sexy one).
Build a model, and love it. It is the key component to success in sports betting!
Conclusion
Sports betting is a simple concept – You pick the winner and bet on it.
Though easy to understand, there are many sports betting hacks that can be helpful to those who are starting out with sports betting.
- Be prepared to put in some hard yards if you are planning on taking sports betting seriously.
- Look at putting in a good plan and being disciplined in keeping to the plan.
- Don’t bet beyond your limits and chase for losses. Build a good betting approach, one that suits your style of betting, something that works for you.
- Keep good records so that you can review and re-calibrate your betting approach.
- And finally enjoy sports betting. If you are not, that why are you doing this?
Good luck and bet wisely!
