How To Outsmart A Bookie

Punter vs bookmaker is a battle that few punters win. Keep reading this article if you want to learn how to outsmart a bookie.

Bookies are hardworking, dedicated, and ruthless in their quest to make a living from punters that are willing to part with their hard-earned money without putting up much of a fight. If you want to fight back and beat the bookies, it’s time to be as professional as they are.

In this article, you’ll find information about finding your niche, understanding value, how to gamble professionally, and why you should bet online.

Find Your Betting Niche

It’s easy to be drawn into betting on the most popular sports and the biggest events, but many successful professional gamblers tend to find their niches elsewhere. If you love betting on horse racing, you might find that your niche is all-weather racing at Southwell rather than the Cheltenham Festival or Royal Ascot.

Your favourite football team might be Manchester City, but you might find that you can make a profit from football betting by betting in leagues in other countries around the world.

What you need to remember is the bookies are trying to bamboozle you by offering you 30+ sports and thousands of markets to bet on. But you can find your niche anywhere you like.

We won’t tell you that finding your niche will be easy. You may have to test your theories by trial and error. Hard work and dedication are two other qualities you will need to master how to outsmart a bookie.

Understand Value Betting

As daft as it may sound, making a profit from gambling isn’t as easy as just picking winners. Sure, if every selection you backed was a winner, making a profit from gambling would be easy. But nobody backs winners every time.

The concept of value is one that all professional gamblers have mastered, with value being the idea of only betting on selections that have a bigger chance of winning than the odds imply.

It doesn’t matter how big the odds are, providing they are bigger than you think they should be. A football team can be 5/4 (2.25) but, if you think they should be even-money, you’re getting a value price. Equally, if you’re getting 33/1 about a horse that you think should be 25/1, this is also a value bet.

Of course, the tricky thing about value is there is no accurate way to measure it. Value is just your opinion against the opinion of the bookie. But it’s those punters that consistently find value in their chosen betting niche that make a profit from gambling.

Gamble Professionally

Once you get to the stage that you’re confident that you can find enough value-priced winners in your chose betting niche, it’s important to work out your staking plan and a suitable betting bank.

Some staking plans have been given names by their creators, such as the Kelly Criterion and the Martingale, and you may wish to consider these. But most professional gamblers use a points-based staking plan that allows them to bet more when they think they are getting the best value.

For example, you may wish to bet £25 a point, with 1 point being your lowest stake for the least value bets and five points being your maximum stake for bets that offer outstanding value.

If using a 1-5 points staking plan, a recommended betting bank of 150-200 points is advised. If you are betting at £25 a point, this means it is advisable to start with a betting bank of between £3,750 and £5,000.

Of course, you don’t have to start at £25 a point, especially if you’re not 100% confident that you can pick enough value-priced winners to make a profit. Start at £2 or £5 point and with a corresponding betting bank.

One of the best things about being a professional gambler is watching your betting bank grow. What you do with your betting bank when it grows is up to you. You may wish to take your winnings and spend them, or you may wish to increase your stake.

If you start betting at £5 a point with a betting bank of £1,000, once you’ve grown your betting bank to £2,000, you may wish to increase your per point stake to £10, etc.

Bet Online

You’ve probably heard of legendary professional gamblers turning up at race meetings with a carrier bag with £50,000 in it and lumping it on a horse, but this isn’t the way that most professional gamblers bet. Most professional gamblers bet online where they can take advantage of a variety of odds, concessions, and promotions.

Having access to the best odds across a variety of bookmakers helps you find the best value. Bet with online bookmakers offering the best odds guaranteed concession and you’ll get even bigger odds for sports like horse racing and greyhound racing.

As there are so many online bookmakers competing for your business, you can also take advantage of many welcome offers such as free bets. These are perfect if you’re just starting gambling, as you can use them to place bets on value selections instead of using real money. These free bets can help you increase your early return on investment and profit and help you grow your betting bank quicker.

Having access to lots of online betting sites also allows you to spread your stakes around. Placing smaller bets with a few bookmakers, rather than a big bet with one bookmaker, can help you stay under the bookies’ radars longer if you’re a successful punter.

For example, you can place four £25 bets with four different bookmakers rather than a £100 bet with one bookmaker. You can also frequently combine different bookmakers in your staking plan, reducing the risk of bookmakers spotting your betting patterns, as some bookmakers are owned by the same companies and share information with each other.

Follow Tipsters

If you don’t think you’ve got the skills to beat the bookies on your own, consider joining the thousands of punters that have learned how to outsmart a bookie by following the tips of professional tipsters.

Sure, you will need to pay a monthly subscription to any tipster worth his salt, but it’s only like investing in the tools you need to do any job. Tipster services also come with advice about staking plans and betting banks.

Building Your Betting Portfolio

Many punters that follow betting tipsters normally start by choosing one that specializes in their favourite sport, whether that’s horse racing or football. But many punters that make a profit from following professional tipsters tend to build a portfolio of tipsters to follow.

These portfolios often incorporate sports that they wouldn’t have previously thought of betting on, such as tennis, golf, ice hockey, and basketball.

But the great thing about following tipsters is you don’t need to know a thing about the sports you’re betting on, you just need to follow the advice of the tipsters and make a profit.

Once you’ve grown your betting bank from one tipster, it’s easy to use that extra cash to fund a new betting bank for a new tipster. Keep repeating this process and you’ll soon have a portfolio of professional tipsters at your fingertips.

Whether you’re going to bet on your own tips or follow the advice of a professional betting tipster, we hope you now know how to outsmart a bookie. Happy punting!