Betting on sport is a very different proposition today to what it was in the 1990s. Back in the 20th century, sports betting meant queueing up at the bookie’s with your betting slip in hand, ready to hand over your money and watch the action on grimy screens in attached to nicotine stained walls. Sure, there have always been casual punters, but back then, they were in the minority and most were serious experts placing bets they expected and needed to win.
Betting for fun
Today, it’s a different story. Anyone can download a sport betting app onto his or her smartphone. There are dozens to choose from and a guide like Bet Boss will help you understand the basics of checking a site is safe, making deposits and withdrawals and so on. These days, far more people bet for fun than profit. So if, for example, you’re a Villa fan, you put a couple of Euros on them to win, not because that’s your predicted result after long analysis, but because it means you will have double the celebration if they do.
That’s probably an extremely sensible way to approach sports betting – a bit of fun, and an assumed expense means any win is a nice bonus. If everyone took that approach, many of the “problems” associated with problem gambling would evaporate. But still, wouldn’t it be nice to get a few tips from those gambling experts and improve your win rate? Here are a couple of pointers to keep in mind next Saturday.
Check the odds
All those bookmaker sites are desperate for your business, and that means you are the one with the power. Back in the old days, you might only have had one bookie nearby and going elsewhere could easily have meant a 30 minute car journey. Now, they are all there on your phone, so take advantage of the fact.
You can use a resource like Oddschecker, which does exactly what the name implies. Select your fixture and the site will list the possible results and the odds that the top dozen or so bookies are quoting. You’ll be amazed at the variation, which can swing by as much as 30 percent. Open an account with all the major ones, just to be ready.
Any bet will do
OK, so if Villa’s your team, you’re betting on Villa no matter what, we get that. But whether it’s football, horse racing or international tiddlywinks you’re into, there will always be betting bargains to be had. We’ll stick with Premier League football for purposes of illustration.
Here, the trick is to look through all the match ups on a Saturday morning and run your eye down the odds on offer. You’ll inevitably see a few outliers where a particular bookmaker is offering far longer odds on a given result than the rest. Grab it with both hands, as it is statistically one of the best bets in football at that moment. Exactly the same applies with, for example, the day’s horse races.
