Welche Kenntnisse sind für erfolgreiche Sportwetten notwendig?

Sports betting is very much in vogue. Thanks to technical progress, they can be played at any time and any place. Even without too much prior knowledge, it is possible to increase the household budget a little - and the success of the right tip makes the victory of one's own team all the sweeter. It is therefore no wonder that in Germany alone, several million euros are wagered on bets every week. So it's good business for the providers - but for many of the people involved, it's a way to make a loss. Only about 0.5 percent of all bettors manage to be successful in the long run. But how does that actually happen?

Today, sports bettors can choose from thousands of events every single day. Sooner or later, however, he usually realises that he is betting on games and competitions about which he has no idea. Maybe he even manages to operate in the profit zone for some time. But that is more a matter of luck and has little to do with true skill. It is therefore advisable to clearly limit the selection of markets to bet on - but to acquire above-average knowledge here, to deal with the events there day by day and to include changes in one's own calculation.

Such specialisation - in football, for example, on the first or second German league - usually leads to the sports bettor getting to know his profession better over time. He can assess the participating teams and their players as well as the other general conditions of a match more competently. Thanks to advancing digitalisation, it is also quite easy to network with people who have a view behind the scenes. So if you regularly follow forums and chats, stay on top of the latest media reports and are able to acquire your own opinion, you will mature into a real insider.

Probably every betting player knows the problem: When looking at the game plan, the thoughts flow. Instinctively, it seems clear that Team A will win against Team B. Nevertheless, things turn out differently in the end, so the money staked is lost. The decisive factor here is the conflict between gut feeling on the one hand and the brain on the other. Many bettors follow their emotions. This may not be wrong in itself and has certainly brought many a nice profit for most of those concerned. In the long run, however, this leads to a loss - the only way to win is to remove potential stumbling blocks in advance.

The best way to do this is to make efficient use of the knowledge previously accumulated. This shows the enormous importance of the specialisation already mentioned: It is simply not possible to acquire such extensive competence in different sports that it is suitable for professional sports betting. However, if you focus on one market or even just one team, you can gather enough background information and use it profitably. It is now advisable to take plenty of time for the tip to be given and to note down one's assessments in writing. Anyone who has the opportunity to view the records of professional bettors will not be able to deny the similarities to a high-quality expert opinion.

Such an intensive examination of the teams and players as well as the other general conditions of the scheduled match enables a relatively accurate assessment of a probable match outcome. Even if such an assessment often requires several hours to do justice to all aspects. Again and again, however, unexpected results emerge: The realisation matures that the initial thoughts and emotions were perhaps wrong after all. Or it turns out that team A is indeed favoured against team B as assumed - but not as clearly as should be the case according to the odds.

Professional bettors would probably not play such a bet. On the contrary, they strictly follow the statements of their previous work. Especially if all usable information has been included in the expert opinion until shortly before kick-off of the match - one could think of the player who is still injured during the warm-up and thus cannot be used. It often takes a lot of discipline to go against one's gut feeling and just coolly follow rational analyses. All the more so when a seemingly safe bet is not played because it actually promises quick money. If you want to be successful in the long run, you have to be able to suppress emotions and greed for profits.

The previously mentioned odds are of central importance for professional bettors. This is because they indicate how likely the betting office considers the outcome of an event to be. By the way, good bettors are able to create their own odds based on the expert opinion and compare them with the offers of the betting exchanges. It often turns out that the odds of the betting offices are significantly lower than the actual probability of the outcomes to be assumed. Conversely, this means that with every win, the bettor would earn less money than was actually possible. And thus he will always lose in the long run.

Equally, however, the odds must also be considered free of all levies. After all, what use are the best odds if, in the event of success, a commission flows back to the betting provider or taxes have to be paid to the state treasury? Professional bettors must therefore always be in a position to soberly evaluate such figures and then decide in a disciplined manner whether they want to play a bet. Experience shows that the pure profit margins are relatively small. Moreover, it must be taken into account that not every bet can be won.

Many bettors fail because of themselves - their high expectations as well as their lack of discipline, greed for money and barely developed patience. Sooner or later, the very mistakes that were meticulously avoided in the beginning creep in with the bettors. The more money is lost, the more panic-driven action sets in. On the other hand, it is better, especially in the early days of betting, not to count on large earnings at all - and in this way to keep one's own demands at a low level.

Admittedly, every bettor knows the moments when he is absolutely sure about a tip - and he would like to gold-plate his knowledge. Since the odds are low and suggest security, a lot of money is bet. The dilemma is all the greater when the attempt fails and one's own capital is lost. Professional players should therefore rely on clever money management. On the one hand, this means only betting with money that is not earmarked for other purposes and whose loss would not hurt too much. This means not drawing on reserves for retirement or building a house.

On the other hand, money management also deals with the question of what sums are actually bet per tip - can they vary or do they remain the same for every bet? Professional players often develop their own system for this over many years. A rough guide could be to use an amount of two to five percent of the balance on the betting account per bet. Even in the worst case, it would take a few defeats before a complete loss could occur. Conversely, this kind of money management also confirms what was said earlier: the path to the profit zone is long and arduous - it requires a lot of patience.

The previous explanations make it easy to see how simple sports betting seems, especially to laypeople - but also that there is a complexity behind it that the professional should never underestimate. Which bets are played, which amounts are used, how to deal with winnings and losses: all these are questions that cannot be answered spontaneously from the gut and often require long years of experience, failure and patience. But this is precisely the reason why 0.5 percent of all tipsters are able to play successfully in the long term.

Because they are in a position to overlook all the factors that lead to success sooner or later, to use them for themselves and on this basis to make constant profits in the long term. It is not uncommon for a betting player to develop his own strategy over the course of months and years and to follow it relatively strictly. Such a system, however, also requires the ability of self-reflection: If frequent defeats occur, they do not necessarily have to be due to bad luck on the part of the person concerned - perhaps there have merely been some changes within his strategy that now require adjustment. If he succeeds in this, he can bet successfully in the long run.