Alongside bankroll management is the crucial discipline of not chasing your losses. With the current zeitgeist of responsible gambling, bookmakers now tell customers that they shouldn’t place a bet if their sole intention is to recover previous losses. Even the bookmakers are telling you that chasing is irresponsible! Why spend a considerable period looking for smart bets and then have the same stake, or even a larger amount, on a whim just to recover your money? As stated earlier, many losing bets aren’t necessarily bad bets so there’s no need to be self-critical and allow this to affect your betting decisions. If at the end of the year you added up the profit and loss on the bets where you chased your losses, I’d be confident they would show a loss overall.

 

As an example of bettors’ propensity to chase losses, look at the action that most books take on Sunday Night or Monday Night Football in the NFL. So many customers are looking to get out of jail after the earlier games during the weekend. In Horse Racing, the last race is sometimes referred to as the getting out stakes. In most cases, it’s the getting in deeper stakes. On almost every occasion there is another chance tomorrow, or in the next week to place a better bet. So never chase your losses.

 

Experience also counts for a lot when it comes to successful sports betting. Nearly thirty years into my sports betting career, I certainly know far more than when I set out. I believe that I get a feel for the texture of games, and scenarios fall into categories that are similar to those I’ve seen before, allowing me to make better decisions. Another thing that you tend to learn over the years is the value of betting singles rather than multiples. Put simply, the margin on multiple bets is huge. We’ve all seen bookmakers promoting Acca insurance (get your stake back as a free bet if one leg of your four/five/six-fold lets you down.) Ask yourself, why do bookmakers love these promotions? They push these because multiples bets are the type, they want you to make.

 

At every bookmaker I’ve worked at the biggest GGR is always created by multiples. Customers lose at a greater margin on multiples than on anything else. Think for a second about a Yankee. This wager consists of 11 bets: 6 Doubles, 4 Trebles and a four-leg Accumulator. If the first of these selections is a loser, seven of your bets have lost. How often do you fancy a selection so strongly that you’d like to back it 7 times over? It’s far better to stick with singles — your bookmaker won’t thank you for it.