Spread Betting Mistakes

  1. Spread Betting Mistakes Nfl
  2. What Is A Spread In Sports Betting
  3. Football Spread Betting Explained
  4. Spread Betting Mistakes College Football
  5. Betting Spreads Explained
  6. Spread Betting Mistakes Explained
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Common Spread Betting Mistakes Posted May 24th, 2020 by TSFX & filed under Spread Betting Articles. If you are new to financial spread betting or even if you are a seasoned trader, you will make the occasional mistake however hard you try not to. Spread betting and day trading using spread bets, is a high-risk high-reward, and tax-efficient way of speculating on the markets. From trading platform, to how to trade and trading strategy, this page will break down everything you need to get started intraday spread betting and online trading.

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Life is all about learning from your mistakes, but in the world of online sports betting, mistakes cost money, so we’d rather you didn’t make them at all! Of course, no one is perfect and a 100% success rate is unlikely. However, there are certain things that you can do or avoid doing to ensure a better betting experience.

If you’re new to the betting scene and want to start out on the right foot, or you’re a seasoned bettor who just can’t figure out where you’re going wrong, then read on. Here, we highlight 7 of the most common mistakes made in betting so you don’t fall victim to the same fate.

1. Emotional betting.

Betting with the heart is a trap many bettors fall into. There is a huge tendency to instantly bet on a favorite team without paying any attention to the odds or analyzing any match statistics. This sort of blind betting might work once or twice, but in the long-run it will lead to heartache.

It doesn’t matter how wonderful you believe your favorite team or player to be, you have to remain objective. Betting is all about cold, hard facts, statistics analysis, probability, and a good deal of luck. There is no place for sentimentality in betting decisions.

That’s not to say you can never bet on your favorite team! Just be sure to take into account all the information and make sure your bets are made with the head and not the heart.

2. No bankroll management.

A successful bettor bets responsibly, and to do that you have to show some discipline and actively manage your bankroll. Before you even start betting on online sports, spend a little time to build up your bankroll. A bankroll is spare cash that you set aside for the sole purpose of betting.

Note that this is ‘spare’ cash and not essential money you need for rent or bills. Having a separate account for this keeps you safe and ensures you won’t be tempted to dip into savings or the money you need to live on.

Never ‘go all in’. In fact, you should never bet more than 5% of your total bankroll. Set yourself a limit and stick to it. This ensures you have enough cash to bet again, minimizes losses, and allows you to recover them gradually.

3. Chasing losses.

This is a big no-no in sports betting. Betting is essentially a game of wins and losses—that’s why it’s called ‘gambling’ at the end of the day! Losses are just part and parcel and can’t be completely avoided. The sooner you come to accept this, the better.

Trying to recoup the money you’ve lost by betting bigger or more often on other games is a downward spiral. Desperate bets aren’t well thought-out or planned and are unreliable. Instead, be careful and consistent with your stakes and eventually losses even out.

Many sportsbooks give you the opportunity to set betting and deposit limits when you sign up and can help you avoid this particular pitfall.

4. Betting ‘just for fun’ (or for the hell of it).

Betting on sports shouldn’t be about making a sport ‘more interesting’. If you have to bet to add more fun or get an extra thrill, you may not be making the best betting choices. Generally, these ‘on a whim’ bets aren’t based on value, are on the spur of the moment with no analysis, and will end up costing you money.

Have a reason to bet, and not ‘just because’. The best reason to wager is to make long-term profits. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy betting, but surely it’s much more fun when you win!

5. Betting drunk.

Obvious, right? Yet, you’d be surprised how many bettors login into their sportsbook account while under the influence. Alcohol impairs judgment and makes you less inhibited, which is a recipe for disaster.

Drunk decisions are rarely the right ones, and you’re more likely to bet too generously. Bettors have been known to blow through their entire bankroll in one evening due to betting while drinking. Keep the booze for the celebrations when your smart bet has come up!

6. Betting on sports you don’t know.

Spread Betting Mistakes

This may seem like another obvious point to make, however, it happens all too often, especially with high-profile tournaments or matches.

For example, media attention in the lead up to an important boxing match often entices casual and newbie bettors. They know nothing about the sport, the athletes, the tournament, rules, background, nothing! They just get caught up in the hype and more often than not, lose the bet. It’s a great way for sportsbooks to make money!

A smart bettor is one who knows what they are betting on. You don’t need to be an expert, but it makes sense to have some understanding of the sport and how it works to have any chance of beating the bookies.

Spread Betting Mistakes Nfl

7. Not shopping around for the best odds.

While every online sportsbook is different, they all want to make money. So, being loyal to one sportsbook doesn’t make much sense. Line shopping means you can find the best bookies for your bet before you put down any of your hard-earned cash.

There’s really no excuse for being a lazy bettor. You don’t even need to move from your comfy armchair to do the research. A quick internet search and you’ll easily find which bookmakers are offering the best odds for your chosen match, game or tournament.

You would do it if you were going to part with cash for any other product, like a car, so why not shop around for the best deal for your bets? It takes little effort, but even a small difference in the betting market can make a significant difference to your total payout.

What Is A Spread In Sports Betting


Football Spread Betting Explained

The majority of spread bettors fall into the common pitfalls that plague inexperienced traders. As a result, more often than not new traders will find themselves exhausting their capital before they feel they’ve had a real attempt at playing the markets, which often leads to heavier trades as the gambling instincts kick in. In order to become a successful spread trader, it’s pivotal that you learn these all-too-common traps that tend to catch traders out, so you can plan your spread betting career more effectively and give yourself the best possible chance of long-term trading success.

Over Exposure

Over exposure, more often borne as a result of a lack of true appreciation of leverage, can be a devastating trap for most spread traders, paving the way for significant losses and even the dreaded total wipeout. Over exposure generally takes shape in the form of stakes that are too high for the capital pot to bear, with traders equating a small margin requirement to a small risk. Remember at all times that you are liable for losses infinitely beyond your trading pot, and as such you should only bet with small per point stakes until you have sufficient capital to invest more heavily.

No Strategy

A lack of focus brought about by poor strategic thinking is another common pitfall, and one that all too often catches out the lazy or inexperienced trader. Strategy is not just a long-term spread bettors’ ambition – it’s a short-term necessity, and a consideration that every serious trader should take into account before executing a single trade. While on a trade by trade basis you might be successful, over time you will find it hard to develop rhythm and consistency in your trading, which is essential to long term profitability. Remember, even expert traders get it wrong from time to time, and trading the markets is fiendishly difficult at the best of times – only those that have a strategy to deliver more frequent winning trades than losing trades will stand the test of time.

Stop Losses

Positioning stop losses at the appropriate levels is something that many traders learn to do the hard way, and in neglecting the stop loss you will find yourself quickly running up significant losses. Some traders are put off the concept of stop losses because they automatically cut positions that might otherwise recover, but the benefits of having the rigid safeguard of a stop loss in place far outweigh the downsides of the odd prematurely closed trade. Learn how to use stop losses and set them for every trade you position, especially in the short-term as you learn the ropes. Stop losses not only prevent trader oversight, but they also help keep defined parameters on your potential losses, to ensure the preservation of your capital and your long-term success. Think long-term – it’s better to have some capital remaining than none at all if your much-cherished position collapses.

Spread betting can be a lucrative and exciting pursuit, but it’s not much fun if it starts costing you serious money. The above mistakes are just three of the more common errors encountered by traders, but by taking care and exercising caution at every turn in your trading career, you should be able to limit these negatives as you learn the markets and improve your trading skills.

Spread Betting – Learn From Your Mistakes

Becoming a successful spread bettor presents a significant earnings opportunity, and many traders who have invested the time and energy in learning to trade the spread betting markets correctly have ended up enjoying the financial fruits of their labours. But as any successful spread trader will tell you, they didn’t get to where they are today without the help of a few essential resources which no serious trader should do without.

Good Trading Platform

Spread Betting Mistakes College Football

Central to any successful trader’s armoury is the trading platform, and a good, reliable and inexpensive broker with a usable platform is key to the whole success pyramid. For various reasons, continuing to switch between different brokers with their own different trading portals is undesirable, so it pays dividends to make sure you take the right decision at the first time of asking to avoid the pitfalls of swapping later on. By far the best way to do this is through trialling demo accounts at those brokers that seem to be the most reputable, according to other traders and independent sources. Look for broker reviews and comparisons in order to find out the best portals through which you can trade – this will help you sort out the wheat from the chaff in order to eventually settle on a reputable broker with a trading platform you can live with.

Spread Betting Information And Media

Another critical arrow in the quiver of prolific spread betting traders is the quality of their information, both in terms of the foundations of the market and how things work through to strategy ideas and technique. Quality information is hard to come by, but when you find it you should plunder it for every gem of knowledge you can. The Internet, for example, is packed with the exact types of information you need to know to become a successful trader, across every single conceivable trading discipline, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to find. Locating good, quality resources with the kinds of information that will help inform your knowledge and shape your opinion is vital to the ongoing learning process.

Data Analysis Tools

Betting Spreads Explained

Data analysis applications are another thing that most traders could not live without, and their value shouldn’t be underestimated. Data analysis tools allow you to look at and interpret past market data, in order to give you a better idea of how the markets should behave in future. While data tools can’t predict the future, they are the next best thing, allowing you to decipher the natural fluctuations and maximum/minimum price points of an asset before you venture in to take your spread positions. This helps you better guarantee more frequent, consistent trading, by enabling you to make sensible decisions based on the performance of the market.

Spread Betting Mistakes Explained

The successful spread bettor’s toolkit need not be an expensive collection of premium applications and resources, nor does it need to be most in-depth in its category, to deliver results. These various tools are highly advisable to make your trading life easier, and to help streamline your decision making process so that you are more able to respond to the dynamic, ever-changing face of the markets when dealing in spread betting positions.