In our last article in our introductory betting guides, we looked at the reasons why 90% of sports betting punters fail to make regular long-term profits. This article discusses the mindset required to be profitable in sports betting. The next section of guides discovers the practical betting tips, betting frequency, choice of leagues and markets required to form a solid and profitable betting strategy.
Perhaps the main reason why it is so difficult to win at sports betting is the fact that the human brain is simply not programmed to handle the situations and challenges that arise from this activity. Our brain is basically wired for survival and the mindset needed to consistently beat the bookies is simply one that is quite a bit different.
In our everyday lives, especially in the past, it was the intuition and urges that used to help humans survive. This kind of instinctive behavior however, is completely counterproductive in the sports betting environment and is exactly one of the main causes of sports betting losses.
Your Mindset Determines Your Reactions
Sports betting is an activity that comes along with lots of adversity. Losing streaks that result in significant monetary loss are very common place when betting sports professionally and developing the right mindset to combat these adversities is the key to reacting properly to such events.
Developing the proper winning mentality is possibly more important than developing the actual sports betting knowledge, as even the best sports bettors still make mistakes and get unlucky to run into losing streaks which can lead to significant emotional turmoil. This is where mindset kicks in and where the true professional is able to simply shrug it off and keep going without a second thought.
The true winner’s mindset is one that analyzes every event that happens from mathematical, logical and critical standpoint and is able to recognize both mistakes and negative variance, correcting the mistakes and accepting the variance as an unavoidable part of the game.
Key Components Of Winner’s Mindset
There are several important parts of a true winning mindset when it comes to sports betting. Perhaps most important of all is that you are able to take personal responsibility for your actions, your performance and your results.
Taking personal responsibility does not mean blaming yourself when things are not going too well, but rather understanding that you were the only person who affected the outcome. If you made a good bet and you still lost, this is perfectly fine. In fact if you are betting properly, this will happen a lot. What is important is to also be able to recognize when the bet you made was a loser and had a negative expected value right off the bat.
Still, even in such cases, it is not time to blame yourself, call yourself stupid or throw away your bankroll betting in rage. This is actually a great opportunity for you to grow as a bettor and learn what kind of bets you should avoid making in the future. If you are able to recognize your mistakes and learn from them, than your every mistake will actually carry value with it.
Another very important factor in being a successful sports bettor is embracing risk. While it is not entirely impossible to bet in a relatively low risk style, the very best spots in sports betting always come in situations where the risk factor is actually pretty high. For instance betting a horse that is 25/1 to win will clearly not win you money every time, but could be hugely profitable in the long run.
A true sports bettor has to be able to understand and embrace risk as a key component of the game and be prepared to lose the bet. After all, your job is not to pick the winner but to find the most favorable odds for you as a player and let’s face it, these are rarely the odds bookies lay on the favorites.
Adopting The Mastery Approach
In order to be a real master of betting, one must adopt the mastery approach, which is relevant not only to sports betting but any other activity as well. At a very basic level this means adopting an approach that entices you to learn and grow in your field constantly and making personal growth your number one goal.
A master focuses on his own performance, with little regard to others or their opinions. A master takes full responsibility for his mistakes and any outcome that he made happen, good or bad. Without intentionally making them, a true master also accepts that mistakes and losses are inevitable parts of the learning curve and he continues to follow that curve no matter how far he has gotten.
It is extremely important to keep developing your skills in any type of activity, especially a competitive one such as sports betting. The truth is there is no stagnation, and if you are not growing, you are probably in a state of decline.
Adopting this master’s approach is another one of the very crucial parts of even trying to bet sports professionally for a living.
