What are the essentials for sports betting?

essentials for sports betting

What do you need to bet on sports? It is a seemingly simple question, perhaps with an obvious answer: Money and a sports betting site/shop where you can place your bets. Easy, isn’t it? While that has been the perceived wisdom for many years, the truth is that the essentials for sports betting are far more complicated. Especially if you want to have a healthy, secure, responsible and enjoyable hobby that lasts many years. So, in this article, we are going to delve a little deeper into the mystery.

We’ll look at the practical essentials for sports betting of course. However, we will also look at some of the mental and behavioural processes you need to develop to enjoy sports betting in the right way. Consequently, our aim is to give you a far better understanding of what the true essentials for sports betting are. To do that, we are going to examine each aspect in isolation, starting with the simplest to understand. The practical essentials you need to bet on sports.

Practical essentials for sports betting

In practical terms, there are just a few essentials you need to have for sports betting.

Location

Firstly, you must live in a part of the world where you can place bets without falling foul of the laws of your state or country.

Age

You must be the minimum age or older to gamble legally where you live. It is important you check this because different states or countries have different laws regarding what age you can gamble at. For some it is age 18. For some 21 and others it can be 22 or 23.

Disposable Income

If you are going to gamble, then it must be with cash you can afford to lose. Therefore, any gambling spending should always, without exception, be made from disposable income.

A means to bet

That could be as simple as living or working relatively close to a high street betting shop. Alternatively, and more likely in the modern day, it is having a phone, tablet or computer with internet access that allows you to access online betting providers.

Membership of a sports betting site

It is much more convenient nowadays for bettors to use online betting sites to place their bets. Some people still use high street bookmakers, but there is a far wider choice of options online, plus you can bet anywhere you have your phone with you. There’s also additional incentives when betting online - most of SportyTrader's online betting sites have bonus and promotional offers when you join. They also has additional features such as casino games, esports betting, Virtual Sports gaming, Crash Games, poker, bingo.

If you can tick off all five of these practical essentials for betting, then you have the foundations laid in practical terms. If you are a beginner in gambling on sports, read our article How to start sports betting?

Mental essentials for sports betting

Your mental attitude towards sports betting is as fundamental to your ability to enjoy betting for what it is, as any of the practical essentials outlined above. Mentally, we are talking mostly about your attitude towards sports betting and also the psychological relationship that you have with it. The wrong attitude towards betting, can cause problems. The right attitude will ensure you enjoy gambling safely and responsibly. That will then foster a positive (or negative) psychological relationship with betting. Of course, we only want to encourage people to develop the former! Subsequently, your key attitudinal essentials when sports betting should be the following.

You should understand how betting works

It goes without saying, you should not bet until you are clear what the process is when you bet. How you will be paid out if you win and what the bets you make actually require your selections to do to land a win. Fortunately, there are many guides to betting and the different types of bet available to help you start your journey in terms of understanding how the betting industry works. Read our article on this very subject: How betting works?

Gambling should always be fun

When you bet, you should enjoy it. It should be exciting for you to bet and try to win. As one popular British bookmaker puts it “When the fun stops. Stop.”

You should be able to accept a loss

Perhaps the most important aspect of gambling: at some point, you are going to lose. Sometimes, the odds are against you. Therefore, you have to develop a healthy attitude and an indifference towards losing. Sure it is nice to win, but generally that is the exception that proves the rule! This is why gambling should never mean too much and why gambling with disposable income is so important. You should view any wager you make as money that has been spent. Then any returns you get back from a win, well that’s a bonus! Read our article: How much to bet on your sports bets?

Consider your bets carefully

Part of the fun of gambling is pitting your wits and insight against the bookmaker. So, with that in mind, don’t just take a scattergun approach to betting. Consider your bets carefully. Research your potential betting markets to gain an understanding of what they are and how likely they are to succeed. There’s nothing better in gambling than researching a bet carefully, placing the wager and then seeing that work pay off in the shape of a return.

Understand that winning is never a guarantee

It’s a matter of fact that even the ‘best’ punters lose, and lose a lot of the time. There are no such things as a ‘guaranteed’ winner or a ‘certainty’. So while it is important to have a healthy attitude towards losing, it is equally important to have a realistic attitude when you win too. If you hit a few wins, that’s great! But don’t assume you are now a sports betting guru who will make the bookmakers tremble whenever they place a bet! That Midas touch for landing winners will stop, so having the right attitude when you win is important. Nevertheless, there are ways to help you improve the probability - read our article: How to win at sports betting?

View sports betting as a long-term hobby not simply as a single bet to single bet

Ask a novice or poor punter about profit and loss and they’ll likely tell you about the 10/1 winner they landed at Newmarket. They won’t tell you that for the past six months they have barely had a winner and have spent four times the amount they won on that race on losing bets. Understanding what your total profit and loss is when betting is helpful. Not only does it give you feedback on your successes (or lack of them!), you also get to see your spending habits and the type of bets that are more or less successful for you. Keep a simple spreadsheet which records your spending, bets made and any returns and you’ll gain far more insight into your betting than simply wagering from one bet to the next.

Never view betting as a source of making money

One of the key tenets of responsible gambling. Betting should never be viewed as a source of making money you need for important items such as rent, household bills, food, transport etc. You can make a return from a bet, but the moment you start to rely on your bet winning – that’s when you need to stop betting and seek help immediately. Developing a clear and consistent mental approach to betting is what all responsible bettors have. So you should start shaping your mental processes towards betting from the moment you consider placing your first bet!

Behavioural essentials for sports betting

Your attitude and psychological state of mind regarding sports betting will heavily influence your behaviour when it comes to sports betting. The gambling industry is now far more aware of what responsible, safe, and sensible gambling behaviours are. They can also readily identify more potentially problematic or destructive behaviours. So, in terms of your behaviours when betting here’s what you need to do:

Don’t use any winnings you have solely for more gambling

If you have landed a win, then lovely! But do you really want to hand it all back to the bookmaker? Instead, withdraw a significant percentage of your winnings and spend it on something else. A treat for the family perhaps? Or get yourself those new shoes you wanted. So many punters just keep winnings in their account and over time hand it back to the bookmaker yet view themselves as getting one over the bookie! Remember, you only ‘win’ when that cash hits your bank account and you use it for those nice little extras, rather than simply handing your winnings back to the bookmaker over time.

NEVER CHASE LOSSES

This is the Golden Rule for sports betting (hence the capitals!). If you lose a bet, don’t be tempted into making another to try and recoup the loss. If you do, you are opening yourself up to potential problems in the future. View your loss as money spent that you can’t get back (as we mentioned in the section above).

Be open and honest with your betting

You should never lie to anybody about how often you bet, how much you spend, how much you are winning or losing at the bookmakers. This is particularly important for friends and family members. If you are lying about any aspect of your betting, then this is a real sign you need to stop and seek help.

Only stake what you are comfortable betting and not concerned with losing

You’ll notice I have not said you should bet £X amount initially when you make a bet. That’s because £10 for one person may be a lot of money, but for another, it may be a tiny fraction of their disposable income each month. Only ever stake amounts you are comfortable with betting, regardless of how big or small that bet is. The last thing you want to be when you have placed a bet is anxious about how much you have spent. Betting sensible amounts keeps you calm and your head clear. Both of which helps you make better judgements with your bets.

Budget for your betting

A simple but effective way to track your spending. As we mentioned above, keeping track of your bets, stakes, and any winnings you receive is a good way to ensure your spending on betting is where it should be.

Take a break

You should never feel like that because it’s a Friday or Saturday, you must have a bet. A healthy attitude to betting will mean that at times, you just don’t make any bets for that week, month or maybe three or four months. Betting should always be fun. If you find yourself betting simply because you have done so for the past few weeks or months, just take a break until the enjoyment returns!

As you can see, the essentials you need for sports betting are far more complicated than you would initially assume. Consequently, it is good practice for any punter, novice or experienced, to review their betting attitude and behaviours to ensure that they are still betting responsibly and safely.

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