Sports betting systems are an extremely interesting piece of urban folklore, which never fail to excite a square bettor. Experienced and skilled (not to mention successful) sports bettors are much more difficult to impress: they pretty much know what these systems are about and how the legit ones work, and they’re fully aware there’s a not a whole lot to be excited about. Most of these sharps use systems they themselves have created, and they therefore understand every tiny detail about it.
What can a square expect though? Should he just go online and purchase one of the systems sold for a few bucks off some shady website? After all, these systems do promise fabulous winning rates of over 90%, and they have the numbers to prove it too. If you believe that 90% winning rates are possible in sports betting, you obviously need to go on a virtual myth-busting trip with us, so you gain a full understanding of how these scam-systems arrive to those fabulously swollen success indicators and how a truly efficient sports betting system works.
Most of the scam-systems are based on chasing losses. Yes, you heard that right, and if you already know a thing or two about sports betting, I can picture you already shaking your heads. Every decent sports bettor knows that chasing your losses is just about the worst thing you can do. It’s like tilting in poker: it won’t just accelerate your naturally occurring losses, it’ll make sure that there is no trace of EV+ in the bets you make either. How exactly do these systems work? They tell you to double your wager every time you lose, so the first time you win, you recover all your previous losses and turn a marginal profit as well. Casino gamblers know this system all too well, and they also know it’s nothing but a bunch of baloney. The Martingale system only works in theory.
The biggest problem with it is that it only works on an infinite bankroll. If your bankroll falls short of that requirement (and it does), the Martingale system will blow up in your face every single time.
How do the scam systems calculate their incredible winning rates? They discount all the losing bets that come before a win, after all, the bettor doesn’t drop any money on those – in theory, and only count the one winning bet as a win. What does an actual betting system look like though? Ask any seasoned sports bettor, he’ll tell you that any winning rate which is over 50% is a good one. He’ll also tell you that winning sports betting feels a lot like losing: you’ll be losing many of your bets even as you manage to turn a profit at the end of the month. All square wagers carry negative EV because of the bookmaker’s juice which works like the poker rake. Poker players can turn to rakeback deals or they can become poker props to do away with the rake. All sports bettors can do to beat the vig though is to become adept at tracking the lines and discovering the hidden value.
Once they do learn how to locate value, they still need to learn to exercise maximum restraint when it comes to bankroll management too. In conclusion: a successful sports betting system consists of two distinct parts: one is about finding the hidden value and exploiting it, the other is about bankroll management. Of the two, the first one is obviously the more difficult to cover. Bankroll management is mainly about discipline, there are no particularly intricate skills involved in it.
