Sports betting: how can you bet without taking risks?
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Sports betting is all about taking risks. Every time you place a bet on sports, you’re risking your wager on the outcome. If it goes according to plan, you’ll win money back on your stake. But if and when you lose, you surrender your wager - that’s the name of the game, and part of what makes betting on sports so exciting. As a prudent sports gambler, it’s important to be aware of the risks you are taking, and the possible ways open to you to mitigate and reduce those risks. In some cases, it’s even possible to find bets with no risk at all - though these opportunities don’t come around too often, and you need to act quickly to take advantage.
So how do you bet on sports without significant risks, and what can you do to mitigate the risks you do face when you’re betting on sports for real money?
How to reduce the risk in betting?
There are a number of ways you can reduce the risks of your bets. Risk management is all about finding value in your betting - where the gap between the quoted odds and the odds of an outcome, in your judgement, represent good value for money. Lower risk bets can include betting on heavy favourites, for example, which would be expected to yield more frequent wins at a lower return. But this might not always be the best value for money - indeed, sometimes odds on the other side can be so long as to make it more attractive to back the upset in a football match, for example.
Reducing risk is all about playing for value, and finding the best opportunities to make money from your bets. But there are also other things you can do. Hedging bets to cover more possible outcomes, for example, or employing system bets rather than singles. You should also look to manage your bankroll, and bet on small amounts per stake, relative to your total betting funds, to keep a handle on your risk profile.
How much should I risk per bet?
This comes down to your betting strategy, and how you want to structure your bets. Typically, we’d recommend spreading your bankroll over more bets than fewer - avoiding putting all your eggs into the same basket. Even the most sure-fire bet can fail, and there’s nothing worse than betting the house on a sure-thing that fails to work out like you’d expected. As a rule of thumb, you should look to bet no more than 5-10% of your bankroll on a single bet, but this very much depends on the amount of funds you have available for your betting, and your risk tolerance.
It ultimately comes down to assessing how much you can afford to lose per bet. Remember that your bankroll has to be available for future bets, especially if you have a strategic approach to your betting. Controlling the maximum amount you wager per bet is an important part of spreading the risk, and ensuring your bankroll survives to fight another day - even if your bets today all lose.
What is the safest betting strategy?
A safety first betting strategy would aim to accept the minimum acceptable yield from your bets, while covering the maximum number of potential outcomes. Imagine a horse race - the safest bet is to back every horse to come in a winner. But this would leave you betting more than you could possibly win in return in most cases. An alternative might be to back 3 horses in a 6 horse race, which would feel like a pretty safe bet - especially with each way coverage. Of course, this pays out much less than you’d expect from picking the outright winner, so it’s always a balancing act between risk and reward.
Sometimes there are opportunities to absolutely guarantee a profit, by backing both sides of a bet - known as sports betting arbitrage. Free bets can be useful here too, giving you a guaranteed profit win, lose or draw, where discrepancies between quoted odds support it. This often relies on betting with separate bookmakers, and you’ll usually end up wagering a lot for a small minimum guaranteed win. But it is doable in some cases, as an absolutely risk-free way to bet.
How do you get a risk-free bet?
In other instances, free bets are available from bookmakers, which are by definition completely risk-free. No matter what you bet on with these bets, you won’t lose money. Free bets are often given out as part of the welcome bonus package when you sign up for a new bookmaker, or as part of regular promotional offerings. With free bets, you get the chance to claim anything you win in real money, which you can then use to bet on other events within your account. Depending on meeting any withdrawal restrictions, you can even withdraw your winnings to cash, for a completely risk-free betting offer.
Look out for free bet promos when choosing a bookmaker to sign up with. These are often amongst the only viable ways you can bet for real money, without risking a penny of your own.
Betting is all about risk. While the punter takes risk in picking events to bet on, the bookmaker takes the risk on the opposing side, while aiming to balance out its liabilities between customers, and the betting markets at large. In most cases, risk correlates with reward - the more you are prepared to take, the more you are likely to win.
Having said that, the risks in sports betting are very real, and it’s highly likely you will lose bets along the way. While betting without any risk is rare, there are steps you can take along the way to reduce your risk, and manage the potential downsides of your betting. By taking a smart, strategic approach, you can control the risks you face, while giving yourself the best chance of walking away in the black from your online sports betting.
More about betting methods :
- Betting exchange: how does it work?
- What is Handicap betting?
- What is Kelly Criterion in sports betting?
- What is Martingale method in sports betting?
- What is the difference between fixed and variable stakes?
- What is a sure bet?
- What is a value bet?
- What is a single bet?
- What is an Accumulator bet?
- How to beat the bookmakers?
- What Is Draw No Bet?
- What is a live sure bet and how to place it?
- Sports betting: should you bet on the small odds?
- What is the Difference Between an Each Way First Goalscorer Bet and an Anytime Goalscorer Bet?
- What is the European Handicap?
- How does Tote betting differ from traditional betting with a bookmaker?
- Sports betting: what's the safest bet?
- Is it possible to bet without losing money?
