Betting can be seen in different perspective, it all depends on which side of the coin it has shown you, while others make money from it, a huge number of people suffer the acrimony. Gambling continues to be a major part of sport and virtually every game/sports has been attached to the betting industry. To the extent that betting companies now support bets on esports. So you can see there is no way to hide as every game/sport you want to wager on are available for you.

I assume everyone who is reading this article already know what betting is and also I will be using betting and gambling interchangeably in this article as they relatively mean same thing.

Betting companies

There are over a thousand betting company/sites all over the world and more are still coming up every now and then, with the increasing number of bettors it is almost certain that these bookies will not run out of business. There are various reasons a person prefers a particular betting company over another. Below are the basic things to consider when choosing a betting site to use.

Odds:

this should be the first priority as a bettor. odds vary from one company to another. Most bettors tend to use a betting company who offers bigger odds so as to get a huge profit from their stakes. The bookies know this and is a competition between them also, many of them adjust their system to match that of their competitors so as not to go out of the market.

Odds vary in the format at which they are presented in a particular betting site and in different countries, the way the odds are presented in UK betting sites differ from those in American and other countries. it can be in decimal format, fractional form, or money line odds which is type of betting on it's own. In Nigeria, the decimal system is mainly used.

Available games:

if you play bet is no news that not all games/sports are available for all bookies, with that in mind people tend to drive their attention to bookmakers who have all the leagues and sports's for different country.

Also speaking about availability, certain bookies offer a wide variety of options compared to others, such as betting on fouls, throw-in, goal kick etcetera.

User friendly

having a betting site is not enough but it should be comfortable for anyone to be able to navigate through and easily place their bets, a complex site stands as a turn off for many, when they find it hard to navigate they tend to abandon such bookmaker and switch to another which suits their taste.

Crediting/withdrawal:

this is another big issue faced by this betting companies, they offer limited means for a user to credit their bets accounts, for a instance a person who don’t have cash but has bitcoin on their blockchain wallet, it will be comfortable for him to use a bookie which accepts bitcoin.

the issue of withdrawing winnings also stands as barrier, if a user request for withdrawal of his earning and the company takes over a day or two to payout, is a turn off for bettors, currently there are bookies who pay within seconds, minutes or worse case an hour or more, so comparing this to another platform which takes days to send winning users won’t think it twice to migrate to company with fast payout.

Stake:

This is the amount of money a person wants to wager, as usual every bookmaker differs in the minimum amount that can be used to place bets, some go as low as 1$ some go as high as $5 per bets, so is essential for a person who is considering a site to use to put this into consideration before picking his bookmaker.

Types of bets

Knowing the type of bet you want to place is significant for a bettor, most person’s lose their bets out of lack of understanding on the kind of bets they want to play. Sports continue to gain more popularity because of the wide range options available to the gamblers.

Spread bet/Handicap: is a kind of bet that a better wager base on the spread the bookmaker gives, one team is handicapped while the other Is favoured, you have to choose if a particular outcome of a game will be higher or lower, for instance if a spread for goal scored in a match is 3-4 you are left to select an outcome lower or higher, if you back the bet to be more than four goals for every goal scored above four you win one multiplied by your initial stake and multiplied by two if they score five and so forth.

Total over o/ under bet: this is a bet placed for the combined score outcome of a particular event for example if a game between PSG and LIVERPOOL has 3 goals in it one bettor wants the total goals to be less than three for under bets while the other wants it to be more than three for over bets.

Proposition bets: they are bets not directly on the score line of a game but on game statistics like throw ins, fouls, cards and so on

live betting/in play: unlike other types of bets that all wagers are done before the game starts, in this type of betting wagers are done during the event. And recently people find it convenient in placing their bets on live games.

Exchange: in this form of betting you are not staking against a bookmaker rather you are wagering against another better, it uses fixed odds, one person is laying and one backs it, if the backer wins the outcome of the game the layer pays him and vice versa

Other types include; Money line, Parlays, Teasers, Esports

Bet Abuse

This is an Inevitable part, as bettors lose control of themselves and abuse the system with their chronic betting lifestyle, the bookies/bookmakers will advise, bet with your spare cash, but most people still don’t get that English right, it is unfortunate that many has lost a huge amount of their money, some has went as far as selling their valuables and at the end of the day, they lose their money to the bookies. This has rendered many useless in the society.

Another form of abuse is underage bettors which is getting rampant by the day, young lads breaks the code of conduct of bookies which say betting is illegal for person below 18-years to engage in betting activities. The online betting platform has made it easy for underage persons to get involved in sports betting activities, this is a disturbing situation for our society. the negative effect is long lasting because they are high possibility that the child might become an addict or cause them trauma, So is therefore important that measures should be put in place where by any new account should provide valid ID or some other sort of identification before they are granted access to use the site to wager any bet.

Some betting theory/myth

Let’s go through some betting facts I think everyone should know, when we talk about betting, football actually leads the roll call, which is one of the most widely watch and followed sport in the world. A lot of people also love engaging in football discussions and to an extent it aids a bettor to have other ideas about the game he plans to stake on. But in the real world it is not those who can speak about football, giving team news and or sorts that are the winners from sports betting as most of what they say are knowledge gotten from reading articles which gets outdated and the reader gets a wrong information, another instance is the case of various sites which provides analyses base on a particular game but you find out that this analysis giving by this bunch of sites are not true. So therefore, they are some theory/myths behind betting that you must know as a starter.

I call them THE REALITY FACTS you might choose to dispute this but it still remains a fact

Most bettors lose

I am sure everyone will agree with me on this one, it is an undisputed fact, no matter how good you are losing money is inevitable in sports betting, not that you don’t get to win but on the long run you see that the loses inquired is superior to the wins, this is common among those who bet on football, some set of people will say they bet for fun and they keep accumulating losses.

Book makers don’t lose

this point will make you ponder how they get to pay the winning bets if they don’t lose, but remember they set the odds and they don’t give away cheap value odds so is almost hard to beat them, the bookies are invulnerable, how they make their money is simple they take the money from losing wagers to settle small amount of winning wagers.

Value betting works

this is more profitable and is advisable bettors try to learn this, the only challenge here Is picking out that value odds, but is quite unfortunate many are not inclined to this line, and if one can do it consistently you are certain of making profits

Smart bettors win

making profit from sport betting is no way an easy task but it is possible, to achieve this you have to put a lot of effort both time and energy. You don’t have to be an expert in football analysis to earn from it, many have been successful just by being smart. While some fall in the bookies trap, they want to make $10000 out of $10 and these set of bettors keep wailing out of series of lose.

Statistics are everything

yes, it is good to study team statisticss but knowing their stats alone is not everything, most persons take out their prediction from just knowledge about stats forgetting that trend changes, if you want to make profit then they are a lot you need to do to achieve that.

Good team’s wins

this is hilarious, the kind of ideal many have about betting forgetting there is bound to be upsets along the line. In as much it is expected that the big boys win a particular game but it is not all. That’s why you need to be smart to beat the bookies.

If you want to make money out of sports betting there is a lot you need to KNOW so also there are a lot you need to IGNORE, the media and various sites is a pool of information and they all can’t give you accurate results. To make profit you need to have a solid background knowledge of the sports you plan to wager on as well as the betting knowledge behind it.

Personal experience

Firstly, I want to say no one thought me how to play sport bets, it was something I picked up my phone and started reading every related article I could find. And it didn’t take me too long to get acquainted with the terms and how to place a bet. I wouldn’t say it has been rosy for me, I have had my loosing days but one thing for sure is that my wins are far more superior than my losses. In Nigeria here they are a lot of local bookies here and I have used virtually all of them. But along the line I didn’t find them compatible enough for me and I ported to a foreign bookie. I remember it took me a week to win my first bet which is about $20, I was so happy that day. From then I began to win series of other bets.

Like I always tell people know when to stop, don’t chase your lose, if you had a bad day, calm down, take your time and strategies.

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Drop your comments on your opinion about betting, will love to hear from you.

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