The Road To Sports Betting Success: 5 Key Blunders Newbies Must Sidestep

Newbie sports bettors jump into betting with unbridled eagerness, especially with easy access to online app-based betting. 

But in this eagerness, they consistently make choices that hurt their chances for short- and long-term betting success. 

Here are five of the top mistakes inexperienced bettors make and what they should do instead to realize wins and stay in the game longer.

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• Overbetting Their Home Team

A frequent risk for newbie bettors who want to become consistent advanced players is to place too many bets on their home teams. An overabundance of confidence can prove costly. For example, someone might support an NFL team that is often a seven- to 10-point underdog. A home-team bettor might place a lot of moneyline bets on this team in hopes that it will win games outright as a big underdog — despite evidence to the contrary. Their allegiance to their team might make them ignore its dismal historical against-the-spread (ATS) performance. New bettors should consider not betting on their home team so they can leave emotion out of their wagering decisions and focus on data and current conditions.

 

• Looking At The Wrong Data

 

A bettor could see that a Major League Baseball (MLB) team won its past five games and eagerly jump into a bet. But teams on winning streaks are sometimes overvalued by the books, making them a less valuable long-term play. New bettors often look at data that does not apply to their particular betting patterns. For example, they might see an NBA team had a great record the year before, but they don’t see that team also performed poorly against the spread during the same season and should warrant less betting action. Understanding what data points correlate the most to performance in betting — not the team’s win/loss record — is a crucial step for new bettors. 

 

• Not Managing A Bankroll

 

Many new bettors become overeager with all of the betting choices and options. They might commit $500 for an NFL season, but find themselves out of money by Week 4 because they increased their bet sizing or number of bets in an attempt to chase losses or hit a big score. A good rule of thumb is to place bets that are 1% to 3% of a total bankroll, so $5 to $15 bets for the $500 roll example. By picking good spots and making fewer bets, people can limit losses and maintain a bankroll for a longer period. 

 

• Only Betting “Lotto” Wins

 

Parlay bets where a bettor combines two or more outcomes in a single bet appeal to new players because of their potential payouts. Numerous screenshots of huge wins on X, formerly Twitter, and sports betting sites show people turning $10 into $100,000 or more. For example, an eight-team parlay typically pays 150 to 1, while a three-team ticket pays 6 to 1. 

Longshot parlays are profitable for sportsbooks because the payouts are considerably less than the odds of the bet occurring. You need to win every leg of a parlay for the bet to pay off, which is unlikely. New bettors should stick to single bets or up to three-leg parlays as they continue to build strategies and maintain a decent bankroll. 

 

• Always Betting Favorites

 

A favorite is the team the sportsbook determines is more likely to win. If you see “Chiefs -7,” that means Kansas City is favored by seven points. If you place a straight bet, you need the Chiefs to win by more than seven to win your bet. These bets are fine when you think they are a good value, but bettors often blindly place too many bets on favorites without looking at the spread. They often identify who they think will win but do not consider other factors. 

Bettors instead should look at the whole picture and think of a game script — how the game might go. A big football or basketball favorite might score a lot of points early, but does it have a tendency to ease up during garbage time and let the opponent score points to cover the spread? This happens frequently in NCAA March Madness games, where bigger underdogs might be +12 to +20 on the spread, which gives them an opportunity to cover the spread even though the game’s outcome is decided early. 

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