A Beginners Guide to Online Sports Betting

Sports betting is a common hobby for millions around the world. But with the right information and knowledge, most of them could become significantly sharper with a small amount of effort. Online betting in the UK is huge, for example, but employing strategies and or basic research behind the bets is not all that common.

Sports betting basics

First and foremost, for a beginner it’s important to know how betting works. It can be as complicated or as simple as you want it, but we need to now the fundamentals regardless. This means knowing how odds work, and the international ones too.

In the US, money line is used, which is a way of showing how much is required to bet to win $100 or how much you would win for every $100 staked, depending on if it’s positive or negative. +200 odds shows how much they win if they bet $100, whilst a negative number (favorite) of -200 would show how much you need to bet in order to win $100.

The UK uses fractional odds, so 6/1 means for every $1 bet, you win $6. Or the favorite at 1/4 means you need to bet $4 to win $1.

Finally, it’s important to know how different bets work. There are single/outright bets where you bet on the winner or an event or competition, or there are doubles where you bet on two events and the odds are multiplied together. Your winnings multiply together, but if just one of the events loses, you lose the whole stake. This logic extends to triples, accumulators, and so on.

Trixies, Lucky 15, and Yankees are all bets where multiple bets are placed within this “accumulator” style bet. So a Trixie is four bets containing 3 doubles and 1 treble. So, you still get some money back if any two or the three events win – but win all four bets if you guessed all three events correctly.

Placing your first bet

It’s important to choose the right bookmaker. To inform this decision, you need to pick one that offers bets within your favorite markets, has competitive odds, good features, a nice user interface, your preferred payment method, and overall good reviews surrounding things like customer service.

To place your first bet, you must deposit (there will be a minimum deposit amount). This is after having signed up of course, which may require proof of your address and identity depending on your jurisdiction.

Head to the sports section, pick your games and bet types, build on the betting slip if you want an accumulator-style bet, enter the stake amount and confirm the bet.

Budgeting

Before looking at how to inform your bets, the amount you bet is by far the most important thing to learn. You want to read up about bankroll management, which is how to control your betting stake in accordance to the account balance (i.e. never bet more than 10% of the account balance in a single bet). And, set limits to how much you should be depositing each week or month. This can help prevent emotionally chasing losses.

Tips

Knowing how to place informed bets is impossible to describe generically, because each sport is different. But, firstly, it helps to actually watch and be a fan of the sport. Try avoid betting on international leagues if you have never watched them. Secondly, some basics statistics go a long way. Namely, things like form. Take Manchester United being low in the Premier League table the other day, whilst Arsenal was top of the league. It may look like a one-sided fixture, but that would be ignoring United’s previous most recent game, where they held Liverpool to a draw, then beat Southampton and Leicester. Form-wise, they looked great, despite their low position in the league.

You can also get tips from the online community who watch the sport. But, be careful about following so-called tipsters that ask for money in exchange for their recommendations. If they were so successful, why would they need your money?.