Betting is all about fun, besides we all love to win. The feeling of success is brilliant and intoxicating. But when you’re losing more often than you’re winning, it’s no longer that much fun. The emotions one goes through are very intense – when everything goes your way, you are extremely happy, but when it doesn’t, you can’t help but feel disappointed. Controlling your anger and frustration when you lose a bet is of a significant importance if you want to be a successful punter. Being emotional may have a negative impact not only on the betting decisions you make but on their final results as well.
Find the best bookmakers here
Losing Bets Should be Expected
The most important part of betting is to learn how to lose because at some point you will need to deal with failure. After all, losing is part of the game. You have a 50% chance of winning and a 50% chance of losing. When you fail, you need to accept it and move on, but many people are incapable of doing that. Of course, remaining completely emotionless is not easy, especially if you lose money. No one likes that. The best thing you can do is to sit and relax and think for a moment why you’ve lost and where you went wrong. You should simply analyse the loss.
Here are a few methods that will help you deal with losing stakes.
What You Should Not Do
So, you lost a bet and you are clearly not happy about it. What would an inexperienced punter do? The answer to that question is pretty obvious – one would chase the losses. The first thought that pops in one’s mind is to try to get the money back, which is actually the worst decision you can make. The second one that comes to punters’ mind is to quit betting.
Why is chasing the losses considered a bad move? Simply because you are being too emotional and any decision you make would be a bad one. Most probably you will increase the size of your betting unit to make up for the losses. Of course, you can achieve success and regain your confidence, but the chances of losing are on the stake, too. You can end up losing more money than you’ve lost in the first place. Think twice before you make a move.
Losing the bet and your money will lead to a lack of confidence in your skills and abilities. You will begin to question yourself whether you are good enough to continue betting, what went wrong and why your strategy doesn’t seem to work anymore. Of course, it may be wise to quit placing bets at some point, but this will not bring back the money you’ve lost. The whole investment will go to waste. That is why this is not a good idea, either.
How to Deal with The Lows
The main difference between an expert and an amateur is not based on their ability to analyse a game, but on how they handle a longer losing streak. For example, if you’ve lost a bet on a horse race, you would be annoyed and, as we’ve mentioned before, you would either try to win back your money quickly by betting on the next race, or you would quit wagering altogether. But what a professional bettor does is to analyse what caused them to lose in the first place. The expert would not act foolishly and emotionally. They would accept the loss and of course, would want to win back the money, but would place their next bet only after planning it carefully.
What You Should Do
Everyone in the betting world knows that losing comes without a disclaimer or a warning. So you should be disciplined. Take a break until you get your confidence back, do not rush anything. It does not matter how long the break will last. Being able to see the bigger picture is another aspect of discipline, meaning that you must not lose faith in your own strategy for successful betting. If you have won four times, but lost once, this does not mean that you need to change your strategy. In the long run, you did achieve success. Sometimes luck is on your side, but other times it isn’t. Losing is part of the game.
To avoid big losses, you should place single bets or if you want to place combined bets, keep them small. You will still lose money, but you will not lose as much. Many people, who risk a lot of cash, end up being unsuccessful. Another thing you should do if you lose your stakes is to consider your next bets more carefully. Take more time to analyse the games and search for better bets. If you need a break, as we mentioned above, take it. But taking a break doesn’t mean you should do nothing. Just write down your results on paper and keep track of your winnings. This method will help you see if the strategy you prefer to use works.
But all this would not be helpful if you do not manage to control your emotions. It can be said that your reaction to an outcome is one of the most important factors. People’s reactions in stressful situations, like loosing a bet, are mostly an expression of their resilience of finance, psychology and physique.
Resilience of Finance
It is important to be able to bounce back when you are not sure whether you should place a bet or stay in the game, after a loss. You must be stable. The financial resilience is maybe the most essential factor of all. It is always better to place smaller bets in order not to lose as much. You should not risk more than you can afford to lose.
Let’s say that your betting bankroll is a wall and the size of the bets you place, are rocks that somebody throws at the wall. It would be very hard to survive for a long time, if the rocks that are thrown are of significant size and your wall is smaller. But if you have a bigger wall, and the rocks are smaller in size, your chances of surviving will be greater.
Resilience of Psychology
The psychological resilience is important when we talk about success in the long term. It is a feature that shows how you deal mentally with tough or stressful situations. Martin Seligman, an American psychologist, suggests that optimistic people outperform pessimistic ones. In betting, when optimistic punters lose, they are more likely to encourage perseverance and continue betting in order to win. However, if a bet placed by a pessimistic bettor fails, they lose both their confidence and their motivation to win.
You should be more optimistic in order to build betting resilience.
Physical Resilience
The third aspect of resilience has to do with physique. When the bets you place turn out to be losing ones, this can affect your physical health, too. When you are feeling down emotionally and mentally, you lack the energy you need to challenge yourself, to focus etc. The lack of energy affects your mood. In such cases, people tend to make more mistakes, to get angry, or lose motivation to win back the money they have lost. So it is recommended to give yourself some time to relax physically and mentally after you lose a bet.
Tips to Stop Losing
As we’ve said a couple of times, losing is part of the game, and sooner or later you might end up losing. What you need to do is analyse the mistakes you’ve made and avoid repeating them again. You must wager wisely, so here are some tips that may prevent you from losing money while betting on sports.
The most important advice is to avoid betting with money you’ve saved for rent or commodities. You can spend the money, you’ve put aside for entertainment. This will spare you the psychological pressure that you may waste your family’s budget.
If you want to place a bet, but there are only a few games going on and you have zero knowledge about the teams or the players, you should definitely not bet on impulse. The moment you feel the urge to bet, you should turn off your computer. You can always bet tomorrow when more events will be coming up and you will have more opportunities.
Placing a good bet means that you have done your homework – you’ve collected all the information you need. But do not follow blindly the statistics and reviews available on the Internet, because they are not always based on reason. You are the one to decide whether you should consider someone else’s suggestions.
When you’ve proved to be a successful punter, you may think that you can risk more. On the other hand, if you had a long losing streak, you would feel less confident in your abilities and you would bet more precariously. The most important thing to remember is that you should not be influenced by past results.
You must have a staking system. You should not increase or decrease your bets’ size chaotically. You can use the Kelly Staking Plan, for example. Sometimes, you may want to increase your bet’s size in order to compensate for your losses, but this most likely will result in losing even more money. Therefore, you should stick to the staking plan you have chosen.
To improve your betting, you should write down your performance results.
Sports betting requires knowledge. You should avoid betting on sports you do not understand. In most cases, the results will be painful.
A punter should always pay attention when wagering. You can accidentally place a bet on the second halftime of a football game, instead of betting on the first one. Such mistakes can cost you a lot of money.
And last, but surely not least, you should always compare the odds offered by different bookmakers. Placing a bet at odds of 2.00 may be a good decision, but if you place the same bet at odds of 1.70, this may be a complete waste of money.
Premier League
La Liga
Bundesliga
Serie A
Ligue 1
UCL
