In this material we suggest you to determine your level as a pari betting player and the type of bettor you belong to. Can you consider that you do it with an almost professional approach or is betting just a pastime for you?
All bettors can be divided into two categories. For some of them betting is a way to earn money, sometimes even the main one, and they have their own game strategy, which allows them to get profit on a long distance. Such can be safely called professionals. Others treat betting on sports as a pleasant addition to watching matches of their favorite teams, often without worrying about losing, and betting in bookmakers purely for fun. Such players belong to the category of amateurs.
Of course, both of them are attracted by the opportunity to earn in sports betting, but the former use analytics, strategy and subtle calculation, while the latter mainly rely on intuition. At the same time, all players can also be divided into several sub-types; there are certain traits in the approaches of each of the bettors that are unique to this category. Let’s take a look at each of them, and you will be able to attribute yourself to one of the variants.
Subtype 1: self-determination of odds
Such a player is always driven by the desire to outplay the bookmaker through more thorough and meticulous preliminary work. Using various sources of information and going through many different methods, he tries to calculate the most accurate probabilities of the outcome of the event, surpassing the bookmaker here.
Most often, at the preliminary stage, such bettors do not even look at the quotes offered by the bookmaker, and only after they calculate the odds themselves, compare them with the bookmaker’s. In the case when the probabilities determined by the players are higher than the bookmakers, they place bets, which by definition should be the most favorable.
Players belonging to this subtype possess such valuable qualities for any person as vast experience, determination, balanced decision making and patience. Most often such bettors are limited to one, maximum two major markets, on which they bet.
It often happens that players of this type unite into entire tipster communities, operating joint efforts and knowledge to increase the chances of winning in each individual event and, accordingly, the total profit. At the same time, they develop along with the betting industry itself.
Subtype 2: good idea with bad implementation
Most often such type of bettors do not even think that they belong to this type. In their failures they blame anything — collusion of teams, “incompetence” of coaches who did not guess with the lineup, a bump on the field that prevented them from scoring a much-needed goal, finally, banal bad luck — but not themselves. But when the outcome is good, they tend to look for a pattern in their bets, refusing to believe when they are told that they have “caught the bird of luck by the tail”.
Such bettors have an idea of analytics, take into account statistical data and can even correctly determine the probabilities of outcomes, embedded in the bookmaker’s quotes, but they use too little information (or treat the data superficially) and too little testing of their strategies and results.
In general, this is a rather amateurish approach, and such players have little chance of becoming professionals, as they bet only on the basis of basic analysis. At the same time, bookmakers, when determining quotes for sporting events, invest a lot of money in staff and advanced technology. In addition, the odds are also based on the results of analyzing the bets of really professional players.
Thus, if you truly aim to outplay the bookmakers and the market, this approach should be excluded and you should spend much more effort and time on analyzing and developing your own profitable strategies.
Subtype 3: Using the market to your own advantage
Many of our readers will be surprised, but it turns out that you don’t have to have a thorough understanding of the sport you are betting on to be a successful bettor. To prove it, one of the studies devoted to betting gives an example from the practice of one professional trader (and as you know, stock trading and sports betting are two very comparable industries).
So, this man for a long time with a good profit traded a certain “green wood”, absolutely sure that this term implies a wood painted in green color. Only much later he was amazed to find out that it turned out to be lumber from freshly cut trees.
So, players of this type believe that they do not need to know well the sport where they place bets. They rely on market movements and big data for analytics. Thus, they do not try to compete with bookmakers, but rather, they rely on their calculations.
This type of players includes all without exception the so-called “waggler”, who try to play on the apparent discrepancy of quotes for the same event at different bookmaker’s offices. Often bookmakers, dissatisfied with this state of affairs, cut their limits or block their accounts altogether, and the bettors themselves are blacklisted.
Another option to make an initially profitable bet is to search for quotes on unpopular markets, going against the odds of the main markets in the same bookmaker company. However, in this case there is a risk that unscrupulous bookmakers, referring to their own mistake, in the end will not pay out the winnings, and in the best case will simply make a refund of the bet.
For example, betting on basketball, such a player, having calculated approximately the distribution of the number of points scored by teams by quarters from the total number of points in the match, offered by the bookmaker for a profitable bet, eventually places a bet not on the entire game, but only on one of the quarters, expecting to play on the discrepancy discovered by him.
Subtype 4: the main thing is not winning, but the thrill of emotions
Such players are actually few, and they want to win, of course, no less than everyone else. The only difference is that the lost money is not the main thing for them: they enjoy the additional portion of adrenaline in the blood, and are not very upset in case of defeat. “Lost? Well, no problem, next time will be lucky,” — this is roughly how bettors of this type think.
Neither analytics, nor calculations, they either do not do at all, or spend a minimum of time on them — well, for example, look at the statistics of personal meetings between two teams. At the same time, they initially realize that the probability of winning is not too high, but, as we have already said, this is of little concern to them.
Such players can sometimes be found in betting shops: when they notice that the screen starts a live broadcast of some interesting (and perhaps not so interesting) match, they make an intuitive bet on their favorite, and then enthusiastically watch, thus receiving double pleasure in case of victory.
At the same time, such players can operate and bets of 50-100 rubles, and amounts of several million; they are not at all engaged in comparing quotes from different bookmaker’s offices to find the most favorable. Most often they are customers of one favorite office, in which they are attracted by certain things — for example, the convenient design of the site or the location of the betting shop near home.
Important conclusions for all type of bettors
When determining your type of player, it is important not to make a mistake by attributing yourself to one of them. In this case, regardless of your type, it is necessary to be able to properly manage the bankroll (however, bettors of the fourth category sometimes it is not even at all), betting only on the amount that you are not afraid to lose.
In addition, in the betting industry there are not only bettors and bookmakers, but also so-called tipsters — prognosticators, selling their “70, 80, 90% correct” predictions on the Internet. Some even offer information about allegedly “betting” matches — although it is obvious to an infant that, having really such information, an intelligent person will not share it with others, and especially with strangers.
Bettors who are seriously involved in betting know that such offers have no value at all, and players who are engaged in betting purely for fun are unlikely to look for such “super predictions”. Nevertheless, there are many players, mostly among beginners, who go along with these, in fact, fraudsters.
Yes, there are also among tipsters quite decent people who really offer professionally made predictions, but they are really few. Find advantages in the market is not so easy, and people who know how to do it is easier to make profitable bets themselves and make money on it, rather than sell them on the Internet.
In conclusion, it may well be the case that you don’t fit within any one particular category, but some traits are still present in you. Players can and do move from one type to another over time, and we wish every one of our readers to become a true betting professional!
