Discipline
It's been a good month or more since I wrote my last post and the underlying reason is I've been busy taking my own advice which is rare. Like most people I like to think I'm good at dispensing advice, but all too often I'm guilty of not practising what I preach. Writing several thousand words in regards to betting however has had a profound effect and the hope is of course if you've been reading each part that equally you've started to benefit in the same manner I have. I've not been perfect don't get me wrong, I've still fallen into old traps but the word of the day is discipline. It's weirdly ended up costing me money, but by the same effect it will inevitably save me money if I can stick to it and like Ying and Yang it all balances itseld out in the end.
It seems simplistic to say don't bet on your team because your judgement is often clouded by emotion. For example I had selected West Ham to beat Palace yesterday at 5/2 away and took it back out of my betting slip. Of course they won 2-0 but I had a quiet word with myself and knew I was betting on a feeling rather than on the basis of data. Last season I'd have ignored my own question and bet it. Yes I'd have been right on this occasion but I'd have found a multitude of occasions where I'd not been right. I only have to look back to the previous weekend where Luton went down to ten men away against Portsmouth and my inclination was to lay the home win after they'd scored 3 against Leeds in the opening game and of course it finished 0-0. I'd bet with a built in expectation rather than based on any data. Regular readers will know I've highlighted that as just one of many big mistakes we all make week in, week out when it comes to football betting.
Regular readers will be aware that I've been doing several experiments with betting systems. I scrapped the one with the J League the week after it pulled a monster series of wins which might sound ridiculous but firstly I didn't put any weight behind it and secondly if you'd read it you might have been tempted to back it and I've repeated time and time again this guide isn't meant to be a tipping service. It frightens the life out of me to think someone might put money on a specific bet I've suggested let alone on some half baked mathematical principle I've built a spreadsheet around. My aim is for anyone reading this to think about how they're betting before they place a bet. If I can make that change then we're all more than capable. The second one I've been looking at has been only backing odds on bets which has meant I've really had to think about what I'm putting my money on. We're not talking large amounts. Part of my process of thinking has been to do things to scale. Start small to build up. I was ahead and I'm still ahead but not betting on the Euros meant I'd started looking elsewhere to bet my money and I'd laid money out on cricket and the Tour de France so I've drawn a line under the top part and started again with the new season underway and back to purely betting on football which is the entire premise of this guide.
At this juncture it's probably worth taking the time to reiterate the common argument some people raise against betting odds on, namely if you lose a bet it's harder to win your money back. Let's come back to that word discipline again. If you've researched your bet first of all you're lessening your chances of backing a loser. If you're placing a single bet you've not got multiple legs that can let you down in the same way as you would with an accumulator. Losing an odds on bet is no different to losing an odds against bet. It's all in your mind that there's any sort of difference. They're both losers. Just because you could have won something greater doesn't mean your original stake held more value. Losing £10 to win £100 at 9/1 is still the same £10 you'd have lost to win £15 at ½. Don't listen to anyone who tries to convince you otherwise. Tell them politely you do you and I'll do me. Once you retrain your brain to think smarter with your money you will act smarter with your money.
Winning your money back from an odds on losing bet doesn't mean you're having to repeat the same process over and over with the stake and the odds. You might lose a 2 /5 one week and back a 5/ 6 with a larger stake the next. The one common ground with all bets is there are no guarantees of a win. That's the second mind switch, knowing when to maximise your opportunity. Be honest with yourself when you're betting and record every bet you make. It's great it you have a £5 accumulator at 10/1 returning you £55 but if that's the only one you've landed in eleven weeks you're back at 0. Well done you've simply covered your losses. You could have 5 well researched £10 bets at ⅕ and been a tenner up. Problem is people would rather gloat about the 10/1 winner and lie to themselves that they've actually won nothing at all over that time period.
As an indicator of how disciplined I've been this season after three weekends I've bet a total of £0.66 of my own money. My returns for the football season stand at £29.92. Before you call bull shit note I said how much of my own money I've staked and not what free bet offers I've had. Five years ago I could well have been £15 down at the same point. I'm not a huge gambler as these posts will testify but some of you reading this will be. There's a good chance if you're reading this that you are. Also had I been up by the same amount chances are I'd have staked it all back and lost it by now. So I could have been £45 down. I'm probably lying to myself now. There's a chance I'd have chased those losses and I'd have been in the hole for even more money. It's a dangerous spiral we can all find ourselves in far too easily. Remember all those who claim to be making huge amounts from betting on football are doing so on small percentages of huge turnovers of bets. That's a huge risk. I cannot state that enough for anyone reading this. To ruin a line from Fight Club you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake and neither are you Tony Bloom. Football betting is not going to make you rich whatever anyone else might tell you. If a professional punter has a losing streak lasting a couple of months that's going to induce worries about keeping a roof over their head, putting food in their kids mouths et al. Since we went digital we've forgotten the value of money. If you're in your home now reading this, take an honest assessment of all the things you own that surround you and ask yourself if you owned none of it, how much of it would you purchase again? I'm willing to bet that for the large majority of you the answer is going to be very little. I know that because there's very little I'd buy again. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I ask that same question but relate it back to the subject matter of football betting. If you could have the money back from every losing bet you ever made if it meant you weren't allowed to ever bet again would you take it? If the answer is yes then you either need to gain a real level of discipline going forward or draw a line in the sand and call it quits.
You'll be familiar with the concept of FOMO I'm sure - the fear of missing out. What if we were to instead embrace the concept of JOMO - the joy of missing out. If you're spending your weekends or weekday evenings constantly checking on the progress of your bets and looking to cash out if they are going south, firstly you're making the wrong bets. You should be staking at a level you can afford to lose and be confident enough in your selections that you can just let them play out and let the dice fall where they may without checking every five minutes. Dopamine is delivered in two ways, one at the anticipation of what might happen and secondly when something goes your way. It's why gambling can be so addictive and why it's so easy to fall into a costly pattern of betting when it comes to both time and money. You're always chasing something, be it a high or your losses when things go wrong. Secondly there's a huge world out there full of adventure and excitement you're missing out on. So many new things to learn. Time is finite. You're not getting it back. If you're ignoring your partner or your kids and checking your bets instead you've seriously got your priorities wrong. If the amount you're losing has a detrimental effect on them in any way, and you might need to have an honest talk with yourself here, maybe it's time to take a hard look at the situation. Either start to really become disciplined in your approach or just cut your losses full stop. I've pissed away a six figure sum in my life. At the time of writing I'm 46 and I'm ten years sober. That's a frightening statistic. You don't ever want to be sat at my age looking at a similar statistic be that spending on alcohol, drugs or gambling. In some areas of the country that's a three bedroom house. To be fair where I live that's probably a static caravan but hopefully this post provides context and food for thought. We all make mistakes, sometimes it's just better to let others make bigger ones and for you to read about them rather than repeat them for yourself.
If you use social media across a number of platforms start to have a serious cull. Get rid of anything betting related. What good is it doing if you read a post from someone claiming to have had a big win that you could have had especially when there's probably no proof they actually won it or even if they did they're probably disguising what they also lost betting on over the same period. In my late teens and early 20s girls wore makeup and push up bras and disguised what wasn't necessarily there in the first place and social media is just the modern version of that. Don't believe everything you read and see and more importantly if you're not reading or seeing it in the first place and doing something far better with your life then you'll be in a place to embrace JOMO.
Hopefully this has given you food for thought. Who needs a life coach when you have me for free.
SEPTEMBER 14TH UPDATE
I've got to hold my hands up to the fact I've spent hours of my summer pouring away writing these guides to try help people and I quite literally have put myself off betting. Since this part went live on August 28th my total bets with my own money since the start of the season sit at £0.69. Returns £34.29. If you're one of those people who reads the last pages of books first well done you in this example you've saved yourselves a lot of bother cause it turns out the key to betting on football is to not bet at all other than using your freebets of course using the advice dispensed throughout the rest of the guides. You didn't think I was going to give it to you that easily did you? Seriously though I can't believe that I genuinely now have no interest in it. Wow.
