The most common mistakes when starting out in sports betting

The 13 mistakes at a glance

Beginner mistakes almost never come from missing information. They come from how you read it when you place the bet.

Short odds get read as a guarantee, an accumulator as an opportunity, three results as proof that a method works. The mistakes fall into four families: reading the odds, steering your stake, judging your results, and following someone else's pick without understanding it.

Why these mistakes all look alike

All thirteen turn an estimate into a certainty, or one isolated result into proof. Odds are a probability. The outcome of a match is a single draw. Keep that in mind as you read on, because each mistake is a variation on the same slip.

Reading the odds as if they announced a result

1. Treating short odds as a certainty

Odds of 1.15 on a heavy favourite look like a formality. They imply a probability of about 87%, which still leaves roughly one case in eight where the outcome doesn't happen. Over dozens of bets, that one in eight turns up at the announced rate.

Convert the odds into a percentage before you stake. The method is on implied probability. A short price is a poorly paid outcome, not a safe one.

2. Ignoring the margin built into the price

Odds are displayed as a firm price, with no hint of what has been taken out. Yet the implied probabilities of a market always add up to more than 100%, and that excess weighs on every bet, whatever the result.

Measure the gap between two prices in probability points rather than in hundredths of a decimal. The full calculation is on bookmaker margin.

3. Believing that shortening odds predict the result

A price coming down feels like inside information doing the rounds. Mostly it reflects the market re-rating the game, or an imbalance in the stakes received. That's collective opinion at one moment and says nothing about how the match will unfold. Plenty of favourites whose odds shortened still lose, and nothing about that is abnormal.

Treat a movement as a signal about the market and never about the outcome: see odds movements.

4. Forgetting the odds you took

Once the bet is confirmed, only the result of the match stays in your head. Yet two people backing the same selection at 2.40 and at 1.90 haven't made the same decision. Without the odds you took, you can't tell whether a winning bet was won at a good price.

Record the odds and the time when you stake. It's the only figure that lets you compare later with the closing price, a principle explained on closing line value.

Steering your stake by feel rather than by a rule

5. Raising your stake after a loss

A loss creates an urge to cancel it out fast, and doubling up looks like the shortest route. But the previous bet tells you nothing about the next one. Your exposure rises just when you're thinking least clearly, and four or five losses in a row are enough to drain a whole budget.

Set the staking rule when you're calm and leave it alone mid-session. The framework is on bankroll.

6. Trying to win it back straight away

Betting again immediately feels like taking back control. The recovery bet wasn't picked for its qualities, though. It's simply the next match on the schedule.

Separate the decision to bet from the moment you've just lost. This behaviour is called chasing, and it goes beyond a staking mistake, as mistakes in predictions sets out.

7. Mixing personal money and bankroll

If the bookmaker account gets topped up as you go, with no ceiling decided in advance, there's no identifiable total staked any more. Every loss is absorbed by your everyday budget and the real balance stays hidden.

Decide on a dedicated sum before you start: see sports betting budget.

8. Piling up accumulators

The total odds climb fast, and a three-figure payout from a few pounds looks out of proportion with the risk. Implied probabilities multiply just like the odds, and a product of numbers below 1 only gets smaller. High total odds therefore describe an event judged unlikely. On top of that, the margin applies to every selection and compounds in the price of the ticket.

Read an accumulator by its total probability and not its potential payout: see single bet or accumulator.

Judging your results too quickly

9. Judging a bet on the final result alone

The result is immediate and binary. The reasoning leaves no trace unless you wrote it down. Sport keeps an irreducible share of randomness, so a losing bet may have been well built and a winning one may be nothing but luck.

Write down why you made the decision before the match, then reread it afterwards. That's the whole point of tracking your bets.

10. Judging a method on a handful of bets

Ten bets already feel representative, and five winners in a row look like validation. Over so few bets, variance dominates. A sound approach can post a negative balance over twenty bets, and a poor one a positive balance.

Decide in advance how big a sample you'll look at. A period picked after the fact is always picked for what it proves.

11. Confusing strike rate with performance

A percentage of bets won is quick to calculate and nice to announce. It ignores the odds, though. Winning 80% of bets taken at 1.10 and 40% of bets taken at 3.00 doesn't end up in the same place. A high strike rate sits very comfortably alongside a negative balance.

Relate your wins and losses to the total staked, never to the number of bets won. Those two profiles make a quick test: over the long run the first loses money and the second makes it, even though the first wins twice as often.

Handing over the decision without understanding it

12. Following a tipster blindly

An impressive record and a ready-made selection save you all the analysis, and that's the appeal. But a record published by the seller can't be verified, and the odds quoted aren't always the ones still available when the subscriber stakes. No service can credibly promise to improve your chances of winning at a gambling activity.

Treat a paid selection as one opinion among many, and check what the displayed record actually measures: see tipsters.

13. Following a prediction without understanding the reasoning

The conclusion fits in one line, the argument takes ten paragraphs. Without the reasoning, you can't know whether the prediction still holds after a late injury or a big odds movement. You inherit a conclusion without the conditions that supported it.

Read the argument before the selection, and check it still holds when you stake: see sports betting predictions.

Two planes to keep apart: staking and reasoning

This page covers the mistakes made when you stake and manage your money. The ones made earlier, while analysing the match, have their own page.

The two planes stack. A flawless analysis can be ruined by a stake driven by emotion, and an impeccable staking rule won't rescue reasoning built back to front.

How far fixing these mistakes takes you

Avoiding these thirteen mistakes makes your own activity easier to read. It changes nothing about the outcome of the matches.

You'll know how much you staked, at what odds and why. Over a long enough period, you can also gauge how sound your way of working is. You can never conclude that a corrected practice becomes a winning one. If the urge to raise your stakes or win a loss back keeps coming round, that's no longer a question of method: talk to someone, and have a look at the support links in the sources.

Set a staking rule before you bet →

Back to the full beginner's guide →

Put it into practice

Apply this guide to real odds.

Dig into the market

Odds movements are only part of the story. Here are the next topics to read.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & methodology