We know that no one likes being told what they can’t or shouldn’t do. But, what happens when that advice means you’ll make more money? Yea, things change a little bit. In this article, we are going to cover the most common football betting mistakes made by bettors of all skill levels that are either costing you money or leaving free money on the table.
Typically, these lessons have to be learned the hard and expensive way. But, we’d rather you learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of others for free, then having to lose bets and lose money to realize the mistakes you’re making. So, if you’re ready to correct any issues in your football betting strategy, buckle down and let’s get to it.
Remember, we’re not here to attack you or say you’re dumb or anything like that. We’re here to help, so check your ego at the door and let’s get more money in your pockets from your upcoming football bets. Most of the experts that helped to write this article are able to write about these mistakes because they’ve made them before. The key to being a successful sports bettor is having the continued willingness to learn and improve your craft.
A quick search on Google will show you that there are A LOT of “expert” sports bettors out there that are either selling or giving away their picks on upcoming football games. Here’s the problem. There are no prerequisites for these people to prove they are experts. Having a website and being able to throw out some terms and stats does not make you a sharp football handicapper.
In fact, if you track most “expert’s” picks that are available online, you’ll see that they are actually losing bettors. Even a lot of the ones with winning records are not profitable because all they do is pick massive favorites every single week.
That being said, there are some good experts out there that know what they are doing, but they are few and far between. The tip here is not to blindly trust the self-proclaimed experts with their picks. Yes, you can get some information and direction from them, but only if you’ve validated that they know what they’re doing.
This goes for TV personalities as well. Their goal is not to pick value bets when they’re making their predictions or talking about games. Their goal is to entertain which means they couldn’t care less if the pick they gave you has value or not.
It’s okay to listen to experts but do your own homework. The whole goal of football betting is to learn to be an expert yourself so that you don’t have to count on anyone else for the tools to get the results you desire.
Football is an intense contact sport. People get hurt. Hooray, groundbreaking information! Okay, not that groundbreaking. But, you’d be surprised how many people forget about this when they’re making their betting picks. You see, you need to know who is hurt and not projected to play and who is questionable or not at 100% before you go and make your betting picks. Missing a key position can make a huge difference in the outcome of a game.
Now, this is easy when it’s a major offensive position like the quarterback or a running back. If Tom Brady or Ezekiel Elliot is out of a game, we’re pretty confident that every sports bettor in the world no matter how good or bad they are will be aware of it. But, what about offensive linemen? Defensive linemen? Corners? Safeties? You see, these positions are not as flashy as the offensive superstars, but they can have just as big of an effect on the outcome of a game. Missing one strong player (that you might not have ever heard of) off a side of the offensive line could open up sack-city for the defense which would severely hurt that team’s chances of winning the game.
Here’s what we’re suggesting. Take the time before you make your bets and look at who is injured on each team. Don’t just look at the news for the top players, but do some research and look to see who is out at any and all positions. Take this information and include it in your prediction. Remember, one player that you never heard of being hurt can swing the entire momentum of a game.
Too many bets have been lost because people have been too lazy to take 10 seconds and check that their betting slip is accurate before they submit it online or walk away from the counter in person. Mistakes happen. You can accidentally type in the wrong amount or select the wrong bet, or the sportsbook agent can mishear you and put in the wrong information. No matter how careful you are, it can literally still happen to you. It happens all day, every day.
How do you prevent it? Take 10 seconds and make sure that your betting slip is correct. If it’s not, make the correction or ask the sportsbook agent to fix it. If you wait until after you walk away from the counter or until after you submit your bet online, you’re not going to have much luck getting things corrected.
Save yourself the lost money from mistakes by taking literally 5-10 seconds to make sure you have the right game, the right date, the right bet type, and the right amount selected on the football bet you want to make.
A lot of people who are brand new to football betting think that you can get rich doing it. They’re not wrong, but here’s the problem. It takes a lot of time to grow your bankroll, learn the skills, and get to a point where you’re cleaning up nicely every football weekend.
Do not come into football betting expecting to win all the money your first week, first month, or even first year in most cases. You need to have a bankroll plan that allows you to survive the variance of the sport. Even the best in the world go on losing streaks that would wipe them out if they didn’t have solid bankroll management practices in place.
Take. Your. Time. Start with smaller bets and bet fewer games so you can focus on building up your skill sets. Football betting is certainly beatable, but it’s not as easy as most people like to believe it is. Take things slowly and don’t try and become rich on day one or you’re going to find yourself out of money and out of the game really quickly.
Football bettors have a tendency to form opinions about teams within the first few games of the season. This is a good thing and is what you’re supposed to be doing. But, problems arise if you fix those opinions in stone and refuse to let them change as the season goes on if necessary. Sometimes teams will start out hot, and then things will just fall apart. If you continue to think they’re the best thing since sliced bread by ignoring the most recent occurrences, you’re going to get yourself into a lot of trouble betting.
You need to be prepared to evaluate teams based on their most recent performances first and then the rest of the season. Don’t just look at a team’s overall season record and draw conclusions from that. Yes, that is important, but it’s only useful if you look deeper to see when the wins came, under what conditions, and against who. A win is not just a win and the value of that win in predicting the future decreases as time goes on.
Form opinions about teams and players, but don’t be too stubborn to let those opinions morph as things happen and the season goes on. It’s smart to reevaluate your overall opinions on each team that you like to bet weekly.
Placing bets on football is easy, but being profitable is not. Contrary to popular belief, identifying value spots and picking winners in football requires a lot of work and does not just involve staring at the numbers, scratching your chin, and making a pick based on you watching the games on RedZone the past few weeks.
If you want to be a profitable football bettor, you have to be willing to work. If you’re too lazy to put the work in, you might as well admit you’re only betting for entertainment value and stop expecting to turn a profit long term. This includes doing effective and sufficient research, watching the games that you need to, shopping all your betting lines, checking your tickets for accuracy, and constantly tracking and evaluating what you’re doing and what is and is not working.
It’s painful to hear people say that a bet they’re about to make or have already made is a lock. Yes, we understand that it’s just a phrase, but the problem is that a lot of people forget it’s just a phrase. The phrase is supposed to mean that the bet is very likely to win. But, people interpret it literally to mean that there is no way that the bet can lose.
Wake-up call…There are zero bets in football that are ever locks or guaranteed winners. Sure, there are wagers that are more likely to win and are fantastic value spots, but nothing is a lock. We’re not just pointing this out to twist words around. People have a tendency to take locks and ride them all the way to the bank by betting way more than they are comfortable betting or way more than their bankroll rules they’ve set up allow for.
This is career suicide. It might work once. Heck, it might work a couple of times. But, it’s eventually going to catch up with you. Football is a crazy sport where sometimes double-digit favorites can get blown out for absolutely no rational reason.
It’s okay to be confident and even proud of some of the picks you are making. But, don’t let that influence you to bet more money than you’re comfortable with or that your bankroll management rules allow.
If you’re betting on the NFL, it can be tempting to fire the entire slate because there are only 16 games to choose from for the entire week. In college football, it can feel like a kid in a candy store when you look at just how many games you have to choose from every single week. While we love your excitement to get action, betting every single game is never a smart play.
No, this has nothing to do with how much money you have in play. This has to do with intelligent betting practices. Here are two true statements you need to understand and come to terms with right now. Not every football game available to bet is going to have value, and you are not going to be able to predict a winner in every single football game.
We can all probably agree that you should only be betting games that have value and you should only be betting games that you have a strong prediction on the winner (or a team to cover the spread). If that’s the case, then you really should never be betting every single game. You should only be betting the games with value that you feel strongly about.
This might not be the most fun thing we’ve told you today, but being a profitable football bettor does require some self-control if you’re serious about making money. Sometimes this means you’ll only be betting a few games a week and sometimes it means you might be betting a lot. Stick to your guns and realize that you’re going to have plenty of opportunities to get the action that you want. If you really need to get more money in play for some reason, just bet more on the games that you feel confident about that have value.
One last thing that we want to say…if you are betting every game or a ton of them because you claim they all have value and you have strong feelings on each, you need to have a reality check. You are lying to yourself. Scale things back and put more parameters on what it takes for you to assess value and pick winners. This might not be the most fun tip, but it’s certainly one of the ones that could save you the most money in mistakes betting football.
Football has produced some incredible athletes who have the power to drive a team to victory. But, they are never the only player on the field. Should you take into account the star players with this power? Yes, of course. Should they be a big part of your betting strategy and game analysis? Yes, of course. Should they be the only thing that you look at when evaluating an upcoming game? 100% no.
You have to take the other players, conditions, and other factors into play when making your predictions. The star players can be a driving force in your predictions, but you cannot put all your footballs in one basket. Make sure that your betting predictions are well rounded and involve more than just an analysis of the star players.
We’ve covered everything that you shouldn’t do when it comes to betting on football. Hopefully, you’ve learned from these mistakes and are not destined to have to make them yourselves to learn the lessons. The next logical step for you now is to start looking at what it is that you should be doing when you’re betting on football. The link below will take you to our main football betting strategy section where we have a ton of great information, resources, and tools to help you succeed in betting on football.
