When it comes to sports betting, strategy is everything. Having a strong knowledge of the sport can only take you so far, and might be good for the quick wins. But a strategy can help ensure you put your money exactly where it should go, and mitigate wins and losses to ensure you never go broke. Developing the strategy is easier said than done – but some ideas on strategy can be borrowed from other places. Here are some ways in which other sports and activities can lend strategies in order to optimise sports betting, especially when you have chosen which bookie to make your bet with.

Roulette

Roulette may be a game solely infused in luck, but in order to make some real money on it, a strategy needs to be in place. Indeed, contrarily to popular opinion, there is actually a logical way of playing the roulette table when one considers the game’s mechanics – for instance, the odds of landing a 0 are 1 in 36. One such method is the Martingale strategy, which began in 18th-century France high society, of betting on roulette, The Martingale method, which has been the subject of empirical enquiry by The Independent, refers to doubling your bet after a loss. So if you lost £1, you’d bet £2. The theory states that you’ll eventually win back everything you’ve lost. So when considering sports betting, you would bet twice as much to counter anything you lost. Another roulette strategy is the Paroli method, which works almost oppositely to the Martingale. This time, you’d double your bet after a win, not a loss. If you then lost, you’d go back to your original bet, and would stop playing after three consecutive wins. This would work best for sports that have more of a logical reasoning for choosing a winner i.e. a track record of wins.

Poker

Poker betting strategies are less straightforward, given the bluffing aspect involved in the game, which makes it distinctly harder to master. Oftentimes in poker, players will bet upwards as a bluff, which would be akin to choosing a team with terrible playing ability in sports betting. However, poker does have some valuable insights where sports betting is concerned – with value betting. Value betting refers to betting bigger on what might be the best hand. So, in sports betting, you would bet higher for the team you would expect to win based on track record, insights, and instinctual information gleaned from being a fan of the sport. Should this strategy prove too risky, you could always use the poker strategy of betting for protection, which would ensure your hand stays in the next round. In sports betting, this would equate to betting on some easy, perhaps less profitable wins – for example, tennis provides this based on the player portfolios, especially in matches earlier on in the competition.

Video Games

Believe it or not, there is an entire genre of video games that refer to logic, strategic thinking, and tactical manoeuvring. Usually multiplayer online games, such as Dota 2, these games feature advance planning to both move forward your own team and push back your opponents. When played online, these games have an added level of difficulty given that another logical thinking human is on the other end. Dota 2 is a strong example as people place bets on it as an eSport. Bettors take into account who is playing, their track record, their opponent, and the entirety of the team before making their choice. This can be used in sports betting to provide a complete rundown of the game’s stats in order to bet with the most thorough method. Bet higher on those who have proven themselves and lower on those who have yet to prove themselves. Bet higher for the further along the competition goes – taking into account human factors of pressure and ‘off games’. This strategy would work especially well for football betting, as the strength of the team and their opponent should be considered when placing a bet.

Applying strategies from games based on luck to sports betting is far from as counterintuitive as it sounds. Rather than denouncing the luck of the game, the strategies are derived from the strategic form of betting, which can have patterns, even if the luck-based game might not. By analysing a variety of games and deciding which strategy would be best for sports betting, you are furthering your chances of tackling it with sound judgment.