From the outside, it could seem that betting is one thing that you can’t work on being good at, or getting better at. After all, this is by definition one of those situations where you can’t control the outcome; you can make an educated guess, but once a bet is placed it’s in the lap of the gods. However, if you hope to bet successfully, there are ways and means to get yourself in the right mindset to be a more successful bettor.

Let’s be clear about this: as good a bettor as you might become, there is still always going to be the immovable fact that you can’t be perfect. You’ll have good and bad spells. That’s betting for you – you’re not going to have a reward without risk here. If you want a pastime in which you will always be successful, you might need to start learning card tricks. But you certainly can make changes that will make you a better bettor.

Emotional control

As we’ve made clear, you’re sometimes going to lose when you’re betting, and how you react to this is instructive in filtering out people who simply shouldn’t bet. The inexperienced and naive bettor will instinctively want to make up for that loss with a win, which can set a series of rash bets in motion. You’ll recognise when temptation is too strong and place limits on yourself, only looking at CNOG when you’ve calmed down from a previous run of unsuccessful bets.

Patience

As a sports bettor, few things are more cheering than when a lucrative wager comes in. It’s better yet, though, when you know you’ve got the best price. When you have a hypothesis in mind for the best bet you can make, it’s a good idea to check it at as many different sportsbooks as you can, and make the proper judgment on which offers the best value. Sometimes at least one book will have odds out of kilter with the consensus. When those odds are in your favour, finding them and taking advantage is a skill worth learning.

Willingness to learn about sports

It’s fairly simple to bet on a sport you regularly watch. If you’re a football fan, you’ll know which teams usually beat which. If you follow horse racing, you’ll know your form guide and where to make the smartest bets. Sometimes the value is going to arise on sports you don’t watch so often. It makes sense, these will be the sports on which the bookmakers are also likely to have less experience in setting odds. So if you’re prepared to spend some time reading about, or watching less popular sports, it can work in your favour.

Long-term thinking

There are various strategies that you can apply to betting which, though they can’t guarantee winning, can improve the success of your overall planning. In some cases, you will have some early losses while using the strategy and at that point it is easy to become discouraged. However, if you’re managing your bankroll and sticking to the plan, the idea is that you will be successful in the long term. Stay disciplined and don’t make rash bets, and you’ll be well placed to maximise success.