The centuries-old form of entertainment with the thrill of winning big or losing everything. With time, it has come a long way. So has sports betting strategy. If you are new in the field of this classic form of gambling, we are here to take you on a journey you are going to remember for the rest of your life.
In this post, we are going to go in-depth on different kinds of sports betting strategy. Our goal is to give you an idea of what you should be looking for in sportsbooks in Canada.
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What is Sports Betting?
Before we jump right into the strategies, it is only decent to give you a brief idea about what sports betting is.
The history of sports betting dates back to the ancient Greek era. They just loved sports and betting on them. To an extent that it led to the introduction of the Olympics. Then, the culture of betting on sports spread to Rome. It took some time for the Romans to get the hang of it, but this fun activity was eventually legalized.
If we skip ahead a few centuries, we can find the culture of sports betting in England. It was mostly on horse races, but it was very rich. From there, it was only a matter of time before betting on sports spread across the world, especially in Europe and America. It evolved from a couple of bets on the horses on the track to a multi-billion dollars business for the bookmakers.
What is Sports Betting Strategy?
Just like any other activity, you need to understand some strategies for sports betting. When you wake up in the morning and brush your teeth, you unknowingly follow a strategy to get your teeth as clean as possible.
It is achieved through the training your parents gave you when you were little and then taken over by years of repetition.
We can say the same for sports betting. Sports betting strategy refers to a set of scenarios where you must make the right decision to succeed. And you cannot master them overnight. It took years of practice for the serious punters who are deemed successful.
Understanding the sports, the odds associated with them, and the bets are crucial for mastering the strategies.
Why Sports Betting Strategy is Necessary?
We think we have already answered the question. But if you are still hesitant, let us explore it a little more. And what better way to explain the necessity of something other than an example.
Suppose, you visited an online bookmaker in Canada and selected Football as your go-to sport. You should see a lot of matches going on all over the world. At this point, you do not understand the odds and you do not know any strategies.
You really like the match between Real Madrid and Barcelona, the classic rivals in LaLiga. You place a bet on Barcelona with all you got.
The match rolls. You see your hopes quickly disappearing amid attacks by the opponent. And unfortunately, Barcelona loses. And so do you. All your stakes are captured by the bookmaker.
Do you know that all of this could have been avoided if you had the patience to read this post? Yes, as farfetched as it may sound, learning sports betting strategy is one of the best things you can do to up your game.
Enough small talk. Now, it is time to get to the strategies.
Sports Betting Strategy
If you did not know, there are thousands of strategies you can follow while sports betting. As the activity is ancient, the strategies have evolved with it. But there are a few tried and tested strategies that work for both new bettors and seasoned punters.
One at a Time
When you first visit an online bookmaker in Canada, it is not uncommon to get overwhelmed and make lots of bets on lots of sports. And that is the first critical mistake. Before anything else, you must understand the sports and what it takes to succeed in those sports.
The best sports betting strategy you can follow here would be focusing on one team from one specific sport. It gives you the unique opportunity to understand the sport in-depth while analyzing the possibilities of the outcome.
Understanding everything regarding a team in a sport and making bets is known as an informed bet. And it is your best chance to win the money back with some hefty profits. Of course, the nature of sports betting is very unpredictable, but you can minimize the risks by following this strategy.
One of the crucial advantages this sports betting strategy gives you is the edge over other punters. In a match, the favourite team might be the primary choice for most bettors. But as a researcher, you know there is more than just the hype. So, you can make an informed bet and astonish your fellow bettors.
Also, by doing detailed research and watching previous games of the respective team, you tend to pick up on subtle insights that otherwise would have passed right by you. A player who gets injured often or a player who plays well at night are some of the insights no average punter will have.
Then again, no strategy is full proof. The same goes for focusing on one sport and team. The most prominent con of this strategy is that your options become less. A lot less. Betting on one team for the entire season can get boring at times. And it is completely fine. The decision is yours to make whether you want to maximize your profits or spend your money to have fun!
Fade the Public
It is a classic sports betting strategy used by veteran punters.
So, what is Fade the Public? In simple terms, you place the bet against what the public is doing. If we take a football match where Germany and Russia are playing, there is a clear favourite for the crowd. Germany is a more popular football team than Russia and bookmakers know it as well.
So, the online bookmakers in Canada change the odds to go with the flow and maximize their profits. The lines sportsbooks shade is based on the favourites. And that gives you an edge over the huge crowd when you place a bet against them.
When a particular team has a very good chance of winning, bookmakers tend to put handicaps on the odds to bring the differences down. And that is your chance to win some money.
This bet is perfect if you do not have the time or patience to sit through hours of archived gameplay to understand a team. All you need for this sports betting strategy is a team or player with a significantly larger fan base than the opponent.
Now, this does not mean this strategy works at all times. If that was the case, all of the other strategies would become obsolete, right? You need to mix up things to steer clear from the bookmaker’s radar. If the platform sense that you only fade the public, you might be banned.
Use the 2% Rule
Do you know the 2% rule? If you do not, it refers to the sports betting strategy where you only use 1% or 2% of your bankroll for a bet.
When you find a high-voltage football match, it is hard to resist the temptation and place a big bet on the outcome. But doing so also imposes a big risk for you. You might lose the entire bet because even the bests cannot perform at times.
So, what do you do? Your strategy here is to use up to 2% of your budget for a single bet. You can spread your money over multiple matches. If you do the research right, you should be able to come up with a very good selection on your bet slip.
It minimizes the chance of you losing every last bit of your money. In our traditional manner, let us look at an example to explain what we are trying to say here.
If you visit an online bookmaker in Canada with a C$100 in your balance, do not put a C$30 bet on one match. Rather, split your bets into 5 different selections covering 5 games. This way, even if 1 or 2 of the selections fail, you have 3 winning bets which should be plenty to cover the losses.
As opposed to a single bet of C$30, you might lose it all if the outcome is not what you anticipated. That is the beauty of the 2% rule. You may not become a millionaire with this sports betting strategy, but it can sustain your interest in the long run. And it is fun to go through all the insights and previous games, right?
We know it is a conservative strategy and it takes away the fun of sports betting a little, but it is probably the best way to create a steady flow of money.
But there is a catch, if you do not have a big budget, say C$1,000, the effectiveness of this strategy declines. It is a perfect strategy for high rollers, but not so much for the average punters.
Know the Weather
Have you ever thought of the weather to be a catalyst in sports betting? To your surprise, it is a major factor in determining the outcome of any sports. It is especially true when a totals (over/under) bet is concerned.
Sportsbooks in Canada determine a total score for a match depending on their analysis and previous reports. In a totals bet, the punters place either over or under that value. And that is where the weather reports come into play.
In a seemingly cold weather, the analysis by the sportsbook may not hold. So, you can place a bet under its score. Similarly, rain might affect the overall score and of the game and this sports betting strategy can give you an edge over the bookmaker.
If you go even deeper into the realm, you may find subtle insights about certain players who perform differently in different weathers. It can very well change the outcome of a match. Knowing the weather of the specific day when the event is supposed to take place will give you a better hand at betting.
Another reason why you should always utilize the weather report that you can get your hands on it very easily. Just about anyone can get weather forecasts. It is a blessing and a curse at the same time because the bookmakers may also change their predictions depending on the odds.
Lucky for you, online sportsbooks declare their odds quite early and are very unlikely to change them.
Mastering the Point Spread
A point spread is a very complex bet when compared to simpler ones like the outrights or totals. In a point spread, you bet on one or more values rather than placing your bets on the outcome of the match.
As we are taking football as our inspiration throughout, we are going to stick to it for this sports betting strategy as well. For example, in a LaLiga match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, Barcelona is the set favourite by the bookmaker. And there might be handicaps as well.
There would be a margin set by the bookmaker for point spread bets. If Barcelona is the favourite and Real Madrid is the underdog, the bet might look something like this, ‘Barcelona -2.5 (-110) vs Real Madrid +2.5 (-110)’. The concept is quite simple here. This is how this sports betting strategy works.
The minus (-) sign for Barcelona means they are the favourite. To cover the point spread of your bet, it must win with 3 goals ahead of Real. And Real Madrid must not lose the game over 2 goals behind.
So, if the outcome of the match is Barcelona 5-3 Real Madrid, Barcelona could not maintain the 3 goals lead. But Real Madrid managed the keep the loss threshold to 2 goals. So, if you placed points spread bet on Barcelona, you lose the bets even though Barcelona won the match. And if your bet was on Real Madrid, you win your points spread.
As you can see, points spread bets take a little more understanding of the sport and the teams, but it can be very fruitful when placed properly. Learning the point spread correctly is a sports betting strategy in Canada.
Betting Systems
Congratulations on reading the most common strategies used in sports betting! But that is not all it is going to take for you to be a successful punter. You need to understand different betting systems that will ultimately work in your favour. Understanding the betting systems is a strategy on its own. But we are going to make a separate section, just for your convenience!
The Martingale System
It is very unlikely that people who have an interest in sports betting strategy have not heard about the Martingale System. It is one of the most common and effective strategies to cover up losses.
In this system, you double your stakes for every losing bet. Sounds intimidating, right? But the math behind is quite simple.
If you have a C$1,000 bankroll, let us start with dividing them into 100 equal portions of C$10 each. And let us take a major tournament like the FIFA World Cup as an example. If you place an initial bet of C$10 on England and lose, you must wager C$20 on England the next match.
That is the Martingale system in a nutshell. The idea behind doubling the stake is to cover the previous loss and make a profit on the upcoming bet.
The Kelly Criterion
The mechanics of this betting system is as fancy as the name. It was first invented by a scientist named John Kelly Jr. It is quite complex and that is why it is widely used by veteran punters. You can get a piece of the cake as well if you decide to use it as your sports betting strategy.
To understand Kelly Criterion, you must understand bankroll management. Without bankroll management, Kelly Criterion will not do you any favour. For this, you need to look at your bankroll as units rather than the monetary value.
If we take our previous example of diving the bankroll into 100, C$10 is your unit. Now, you bet using the unit value.
The Kelly Criterion formula goes as (BP-Q)/B.
Where,
B is the decimal odds.
P is the probability of winning and
Q is the probability of losing
Using this formula, you can generate a fractional value that dictates the percentage of how many units you should bet on a specific game. It is not a perfect sports betting strategy, none exist so far. But the Kelly Criterion is one of the best that exists today.
The Fibonacci Betting System
Named after the Italian mathematician Fibonacci, this betting system is a combination of the Kelly Criterion and the Martingale system. It might be the perfect sports betting strategy if you have a big bankroll and the ambition to cover your losses.
In the Fibonacci betting system, you divide your bankroll into units, just like the Kelly Criterion. And similar to the Martingale system, you keep increasing the units as you lose each bet. The difference here is that you do not double your stakes as you go. Instead, you use the Fibonacci sequence.
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21…..do you see a pattern here? Each of the numbers is a sum of the previous 2 numbers. That is Fibonacci in its simplest form. So, when you lose your first bet, you place the same wager of 1 unit (C$10). Lose that and go for 2 units. Then 3 units, then 5 units, then 8 units. It goes on until you win the bet. When you do, all of your previous losses are automatically covered.
Our Experience with Sports Betting Strategy
This is something we cherish. And you should too if you want to succeed in the competitive world of sports betting. Knowing the strategies will definitely improve your punting experience as well as allow you to win more.
Do you feel ready? We sure do. Now, go ahead and check out the sportsbooks on our platform to give the strategies a try!