Discipline - is the most important attribute to possess when gambling.
Take it from me, I know from bitter personal experience that one of the
worst feelings in the world is watching the last favourite of the day
get beaten by a mile when you have bet
your bank on him. This is a situation that you may or may not
personally have been in and I hope you never have but it illustrates why
many people struggle to make any money at all, let alone a regular
useful income from sports betting/investment. Lack of discipline,
meaning chasing losses, increasing stakes after a loss (sometimes to
your whole bank!) and placing random bets, is symptomatic of a gambler
as opposed to a shrewd investor placing wise bets with a high chance of
winning.
When I first began in my endeavours to make money from sports betting it has to be said that I knew very
little about just how hard it is to do. People have spent entire
lifetimes and still failed to find a consistently profitable method to
make money. It’s no surprise that I lost money hand over fist at the
beginning. After much reading and buying systems of dubious quality from
the internet I realised that to be consistently successful I had to
follow certain rules, a system, but that the most important thing was to
stick to the system no matter what.
Even once I had found a system that I felt I could follow I still did
not make money straight away as I would get bored and deviate from the
system or try to second guess my system and place bets not in accordance
with the rules. Dealing with losses was also a problem. As soon as my
system encountered more than two or three losses in a row I would lose
faith and start increasing stakes to try to recoup the losses faster and inevitably end up betting the bank on the last race of the day.
For Optimal Growth and Profit one has to follow some Gambling Fundamentals.
A betting bank is essential ( money set aside for wagering that will not affect your day to day expenses).
To ensure you never lose that bank its advisable to bet 4% of your bank per bet only increasing the size of your bet as your bank increases and diminishing the size of your bet if your bank decreases. Most people find it very hard to follow this discipline, but I assure you that if you don't you will lose. I know of no system that will pick only winning horses/football
teams/shares/forex trades over and over again with no losers therefore
it is inevitable that you will sometimes lose. The sooner that you
accept this and move on the better. Using a betting bank allows you to
suffer a sustained period of losses but still have enough money left to
keep you in the game and then when the winning run happens it turns out
that overall you are up.
Record every bet or trade that you make. This is one of the hardest
steps to take towards disciplining yourself. I can use excel to a
reasonable degree and so I knocked up a few spreadsheets with the
information of each bet/trade and the profit/loss. I also made charts
with my p/l and also drew a target for each day. If you can’t use excel
just write the information down in a diary or even a plain pad of paper
but make sure that you refer to it every day and write your bets or
trades down every day so that you have an accurate record of your
activity. Use a separate spreadsheet or sheet of paper for each
different system that you use, this way should you place a bet or trade
that isn’t in accordance with your system you’ve got nowhere to write it
down! This helped me focus on sticking to the rules of my system.
Learn to accept small wins. If you feel like you’re winning you’re
probably betting too much on each event. Read that through again.
Another way of expressing it is to say that if your heart rate increases
on each win you’re risking too much on each bet/trade. When I first
started out I wanted to win and to win big, that’s what you do it for,
right? That’s probably why you’re reading this, right? It’s what
everyone wants. My point is that to win big you have to learn how to win
small. What are the chances of winning the lottery? Pretty small but
when you win you win big all in one go. The chances of you finding a
betting/trading system that will win big consistently enough to make you
rich overnight are probably just as small. Learn to love the small wins
because when they add up they will amount to something big.
If you’re losing and feel the urge to bet the bank… run! The urge comes
to me over and over, I want a big win now, I want the thrill, I want
the money. When you get this urge the best thing you can do is to shut
the computer down and go for a walk in the fresh air. Betting/trading in
this way is definitely not sustainable, eventually you will lose and
lose everything in one go. Just don’t do it
Avoid alcohol and betting/trading. After a few beers it is much harder
to maintain discipline. You may enjoy a few beers while you watch the
match but if you’re trading on it leave the booze alone, it lowers your
discipline threshold and leaves you prone to meddling with a perfectly
good system.
If you can follow this advise you will greatly increase your chance of making a good profit from gambling.
Remember once again the key word is "DISCIPLINE"
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