Advice for a newbie to gambling

foxylaydee

Thinking about getting into gambling.

Any advice you could offer? Apart from, "don't start a bad habit"...

I don't really follow sport that much. Which would be the easier type of sport to get into, follow and bet on?

diomed

If you don't know much about sport you must lose.
I have been betting on horses for 40 years and make a very small profit.
I study horses a lot and only have a proper bet half a dozen times a year. Other times I just have small bets.
Ask yourself "Do I know something important other people do not know?"

eric hoone

Tennis is a 2 horse race, but in the news lately with suspicions of match fixing, doubt it happens at the highest level though, snooker has also had these issues. You can even bet on table tennis these days.
I'd say get into a sport and see if you can pick a winner now and again to make it more entertaining, don't take it too serious and don't lose more than you can live with

byronbay2

foxylaydee wrote: »

Thinking about getting into gambling.

Any advice you could offer? Apart from, "don't start a bad habit"...

I don't really follow sport that much. Which would be the easier type of sport to get into, follow and bet on?

Don't bet on horse racing, unless you are involved in the industry and have good inside info.

Don't do "fun" bets and only bet in singles i.e no patents, yankees etc.

Only bet on sports that you are already interested in, watch and enjoy. Use your knowledge and expertise to try and beat the bookies - it's fun! If you have any high-level contacts or inside information, that is invaluable in giving you an edge.

The most important quality of a good gambler is patience - only bet when you think everything is in place for your bet to win. If you have any doubts, just leave it. The one advantage the punter has over the bookie is that he never HAS to have a bet.

You shouldn't be having more that 2 or 3 bets a week, in my opinion. Make sure you keep a record of all bets placed, along with profit and loss analysis. You will quickly see what sports and bets you do well with and what isn't working - you can refine your strategy from there.

The best sports to bet on are (top level) soccer, rugby and golf. There is a lot of competition between the bookies on these sports so you can usually get books that are close to 100%. Once you choose your bet, it is VITAL to get the best price available - that is the difference between winning and losing in the long run.

diomed

byronbay2 wrote: »

Don't bet on horse racing, unless you are involved in the industry and have good inside info.

Not true. I make a profit from flat racing. I have no contacts and no inside information.
But I have an edge. My interest is thoroughbred pedigrees, and I've been working on it for 23 years.

diomed

My advice:

• Do not back with bookmakers. Open a Betfair account. You get better odds and you can sell out in running if your selection is doing well.
  e.g. I backed €4 at 170 Leicester to beat Manchester City 3-0 today.
• Back in long timeframe events: 72 hole golf tournaments; soccer World Cup; Premier League outright; English Derby and Oaks (if you know what you are doing).
• If backing horses do not back jumps racing. Back on the flat and do not back low grade races: claimers; sellers; handicaps. Stick to Group races.
• Do not back horses antepost. You will get similar odds on raceday, and the horse will be running. Longer races are more predictable.
• Back at big odds. They pay more than small odds.
• Do not listen to tips, or use newspaper selections. You can read the racing papers, but you should have enough knowledge to have made up you own mind.

byronbay2

diomed wrote: »

Not true. I make a profit from flat racing. I have no contacts and no inside information.
But I have an edge. My interest is thoroughbred pedigrees, and I've been working on it for 23 years.

Yeah - it can be done alright but very few people can do it! It takes an awful lot of study and, even then, there is no guarantee of success. I just think you are better off avoiding horse racing in general (although I do bet at Cheltenham, Royal Ascot etc where the market is strong and I can be sure my horse is trying) and sticking with sports where the odds are more in the punter's favour. I would certainly have saved a lot of money if I had never gambled on horses, or seen sense earlier!

jamecorbitt

The main advice for beginners in this situation is to read various articles on how not to lose at the start, in fact, while you are learning.

DubCount

You firstly need to set up a bankroll. This is a fixed amount of "investment" . Once set up, thats your lot. Constantly leaking money from your real world money to your betting world money is a sure fire way to end up with a problem.

Next split that bankroll into say 100 segments. Your biggest bet should be no more than say 5% of your bankroll. Any more than that, and you're likely to end up broke very quickly.

To be successful at betting you must be able to recognise variance between odds on offer and expected outcome. This means having knowledge about the event you are betting on. Pick a sport you know something about, or you can educate yourself about. Take GAA. Looking at the weather forecast, team selection and the nature of the teams playing ay give you a good indication of whether the game will be high scoring or low scoring. Without this "edge" over the average punter, you'll be a loosing punter.

Before playing for real money, start betting with pretend money. Work out if you really can beat breakeven over say 3 months before risking real money.

Finally, I'll say it anyway. Its likely to be a daft idea, so dont do it.

bazza76dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057554795/advice-for-a-newbie-to-gambling

Yes, don't bother, I certainly wouldn't be picking it up as a pastime or hobby.

If you must, try research poker, something like Texas Holdem - research the game and get used to it playing free money games, or very low stakes, something that doesn't negatively impact on your life in terms of money spent. If you are considering that, I'd pick a certain type of game to start with, same type, like sit and go or straight cash texas holdem

growleaves

Stay away from casino games. They are all negative-odds games and therefore there is no long-term strategy that can beat the casino save card-counting which is a well that has run dry as they will often now reshuffle the cards after every hand.

If you are betting on cricket be aware that the betting syndicates fix the games in such a way as to sucker ordinary bettors. The favourites can be winning 3/4th of the way through a match and then suddenly start losing at the very end after the majority of bets have been placed. It may be the same for other sports.

Sports betting requires obsessiveness imo. You should be following a sport daily. You can maybe beat the bookies if you spot a trend early and take advantage of mispriced odds before they change them. Sometimes there is complacency and preconceived notions from the bookies.

Also there are intuitive factors in sports having to do with character and spirit that aren't totally rational. On paper Mayo may be the favourites to win an all-Ireland but then they go on to lose anyway. Ditto Tottenham in any competition they are in. Self-sabotage is a big part of human nature - some people struggle to win even when they are the best.

Hope this helps. Btw I would start out with dry-run pretend bets as the poster above said. Try out different strategies and get a feel for them before you risk real money.

dontmindme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057554795/advice-for-a-newbie-to-gambling

Thinking about getting into gambling.

Really? Why do you think that might be?...Have all those gambling 'togetherness' TV ads finally gotten to you?

NiceFella

If you are asking a question like that, you shouldn't be getting into gambling at all.

If you have no intuition into what to gamble on, when and how much. Then it isn't for you. If you have no inclination into it, then it's purely for a buzz. That buzz will get you in trouble particularly if you can't apply a rhyme or reason into what and why you are gambling in the first place. Asking for trouble.

growleaves

Almost nobody should be getting into gambling in a serious way. I know a total of one successful gambler (now retired) and he ate, slept and breathed sports.

Fr Tod Umptious

I decided a few years ago to try and see if one could make a side hustle of of gambling.

I started with tennis.

In reality there are real opportunities to make money betting tennis.

The fancy word people use is trading but all it really is is making a bet and cashing out before the end either to make a smaller profit or a smaller loss than if you had stayed to the end.

Women's tennis is brilliant for it because the prices change so much in play because women find it harder to hold their serve.

So you can look at the graph of a women's tennis match on Betfair and it will be all over the place.

The problem is you can't just do it blindly.

After a while looking at YouTube videos and reading I tried the following strategy.

Lay (bet against) an under dog if they win the first set, and then cash out either when they are broken in the next set or when they break their opponent next.

If they are broken you can cash out for a profit, if they break you can cash out for a smaller loss.

The idea is that as the under dog they are going to be under pressure in the second set and will get broken first.

I did that over about 400 bets (all of the same stake) and I came out with a ROI of -0.5%.

But as I said you can't do it blindly like I did. You really have to watch the games, know how each player is performing and decided whether to bet or not based on that.

And you also need time.

I picked all the games on each day in Flash Score and then set an alert after the first set, if the underdog won I'd then place the bet and try keeping an eye on it to see when the next service break happens and then cash out.

Regularly I was trying to keep up with multiple games at the same time.

Another strategy I used was to back an underdog if they win the first set in a men's games and leave it at that, don't cash out or anything.

Men tend to hold server more than women, so the chances of a break are far less.

One year over a 850 bets (COVID took away about 5 months of tennis) it came out with an ROI of +3.35%, but the next year I gave up after 1,305 bets when my ROI was sitting at -0.45%.

That 1,305 bets was over a seven months period, so if I stuck the whole season I would have made close on 2,500 bets.

This year I didn't bother with tennis and did baseball, I game I like.

I follow a few free MLB tipsters on social media so I just bet based on their selections.

Came out with a ROI of +3.35% over 700 bets.

Moral of the story is there is money to be made, especially in women's tennis because of the price fluctuations, but it's not easy and you have to really work hard for it, know the sport, know the players, watch the games because that's the only way you will know what a good price is.