Betting in general is when two parties agree to wager on the outcome of an event. For example you and a friend can flip a coin and agree that, if the coin comes up heads, you buy him a drink, and if the coin comes up tails, he buys you a drink.

Sports betting is wagering money on the outcome of sport events.

There are always two parties involved, traditionally the bettor, which would be you, and the bookmaker.
The bookmaker will publish betting rules on sporting events and offer prices on the possible outcomes. You can then place a wager on one of the outcomes. The amount you wager, or risk to lose, is called the stake. The amount you could win is given by the price offered by the bookmaker, and this price is called the odds.

If the sporting event ends with the outcome you have chosen you win the bet. Any other outcome and you lose. In case of a losing bet you lose your stake. In case of a winning bet the bookmaker returns the stake and a profit. The amount of profit depends on the price, or odds, at which you placed the bet.

For example there is a tennis match between Roger Federer and Andre Agassi. The bookmaker is offering these prices on the winner of the match:

Federer : 1.20
Agassi : 6.00

Knowing a little bit about tennis you think Federer will win this match and you place a bet of 100 Euro on Federer.
If Federer actually wins the match the bookmaker returns the stake of 100 Euro and a profit of 20 Euro.
If Federer should lose then you lose the stake of 100 Euro.

That, in a nutshell, is sports betting.

Why indeed?
People get involved for various reasons. The most obvious reason would be that it may be a way to get some money. If you are interested in sports and enjoy watching a game then having some money riding on the outcome can enhance the fun you have. Put a wager on your favourite team and if they win you have some spending money to celebrate. If they lose, you lose. Short from playing yourself you can't get more involved than that.

Some people get involved without knowing much about sports or even having an interest in sports. To them it is simply an opportunity to make money. After all, without going into details at this moment, what is the difference between the world of sport betting and for example the stock exchange? Very little, both are about making a profit by predicting future events. On the stock exchange you look for companies that you think will grow in value. You then buy stocks of that company. If you are right the stock will rise in value and you can sell for a profit. If you are wrong the value of the company will go down and you may have to sell at a lower price and suffer a loss. Sporting events are much like stocks. Both sports betting and the stock exchange are financial markets. Up to you to play the markets.

A very good question with a simple answer: no.

Allow me to explain;
the difference between gambling and sports betting is found in the inherent possibility to determine your chance of winning. When you wager money on an event, and you have no way at all of predicting the outcome, you are gambling. An example would be the flip of a coin. It will fall and either show heads or tails, there is no way to predict either one. You can be 10 times as intelligent as Albert Einstein, it makes no difference, there is still no way to predict the outcome, its still heads or tails. Wagering money on the outcome of the flip of a coin is gambling.

In sports betting you can look at an opportunity to bet and make an educated guess on the outcome. There are quite a few ways of doing this. You can use recent performance, your personal experience, statistics and mathematics, the latest news in the press, and so on. All this allows you to make an educated guess on the outcome of an event.

Basically this is exactly what a bookmaker does. The bookmaker has to make an educated guess about the outcome of an event and, based on his assessment, offer a price for each possible outcome. If you are able to predict the outcome of events more successfully than the bookmaker, you will make a profit. You can apply skill to predict the outcome of an event, and this is why sports betting is not gambling.

Sports betting in itself is not gambling. But that does not mean you cannot gamble on sports.
You can place a bet on a sporting event completely random. Since you make no effort at all to determine the outcome you leave winning or losing up to chance. That would be gambling. But the gambling part is not sports betting, it is you.

Well there are a few things you need to know about:

• The bettor, also known as wagerer or punter.
• The bookmaker, the company or person you place bets with.
• The exchange, a facilitator allowing you to bet with other people.
• Betting, bet selection, stake, odds, calculate your winnings, the basic maths.
• Costs and the bookmaker's overround or exchange commission.

Well if you are reading this you have some sort of interest in sports betting. You may be an experienced bettor, or a novice or simply curious. I'll assume you are new to sports betting and allow myself the liberty of giving you some advice. There are a couple of things considered the golden rules of sports betting, I will mention those I find most powerful. But this list is never complete. As you get more experience in sports betting you tend to add your own rules.

Never bet with money you cannot afford to lose.

A Golden Rule of gambling just as applicable to sports betting. And a rule that speaks for itself. I will not presume to know you or your situation but to break this rule is simply stupid. If you are thinking of placing a bet on sports with next weeks rent money then what are you doing? If you don't have any money you can afford to lose, don't bet. Take care of your finances first.

Information is power, make informed bets or don't bet.

Get informed. Sure you can place bets completely at random. But that is not sports betting, that's gambling. Whatever your approach to sports betting is: get informed. There is a wealth of information about, papers, websites (like this one), forums, databases, statistics, and last but not least watching the sport you bet on. Make bets based on information or don't bet. Many punters have come to the conclusion that they made the mistake of placing too many bets. Its fun, you get carried away, betting may even become addictive, or you may simply become the victim of your own greed. Nothing wrong with all that, it's just not the way to be successful in sports betting.

Manage your money.

After selecting what to bet on the next thing to do is manage your money.

This simply begins with keeping records of your betting. You can use an extensive spreadsheet but a simply notebook will also do. How can you know if you are successful in sports betting over time? Don't rely on the human memory, it's one of the most unreliable record keepers. We tend to remember only those things we want to remember.

Next is to set aside a bank for betting. An amount of money that is independent from the rest of your finances, money you can afford to lose. Place bets using a portion of this bank only. How big should the portion be? Read on, there are quite a few pages on this site about staking and staking plans (under construction). For now just remember managing your money means having a separate betting bank.

Now you may be thinking: why go through all that trouble? Well you don't have to. If you simply want to put some money on your local team to win the match next weekend you don't need all this. And you are right, you don't. It all depends what your intention is by betting on sports. If it's to have a bit of fun, the only rule you need is the first one. If however you'd like to make some profit, you'll need to put in a bit more effort.

To place a bet on sports you always need someone to bet against. Traditionally this is a bookmaker. These days you can also bet against other people using exchanges. More on those in the next chapter, let's look at the bookmaker first.

The term bookmaker originates from the late 1800's and simply means to keep notes of wagers in a book. The person making the notes, keeping the book is called the bookmaker. It is that simple. These days independent bookmakers are found mostly on racetracks. Besides the traditional racecourse bookmaker most bookmaking is done by companies with betting shops and these days of course the internet. The bookmaker will publish opportunities to bet, these can vary from a simple "who will win the match" to more specific opportunities, like predicting the "number of points scored" or combining more than one event in one bet. With these opportunities he will also publish the price he offers.

You place a bet by selecting a betting opportunity and giving the bookmaker your stake, the amount you risk losing. He will give you a "bet slip", a piece of paper, or computer record, that lists the bet you made. If the bet loses, that's it. The bookmakers keeps your stake. If the bet wins you then use the "bet slip" to claim your winnings and the bookmaker returns your stake and a profit depending on the price at which you placed the bet.

What is also important to know is that when you place the bet, you agree to the bookmaker's rules and regulations. These determine exactly the difference between a winning and losing bet. Do not assume these are the same for every bookmaker. The conditions for a winning or losing bet can vary from bookmaker to bookmaker. Any bookmaker on the internet has his rules published on his site, always check.

Are bookmakers reliable?
Ah, good question. Yes, providing you take some precautions that are simply common sense.

Don't put all your money with one bookmaker. Every now and then a bookmaker goes out of business, rare, but it happens. This is no different from any other company, you can buy stocks on the stock market and the company may go bankrupt leaving you with worthless stocks. It happens, having accounts with several different bookmakers limits your risk.

Check out whom you deal with. Like any other business there are reliable companies and there are bad companies right down to plain rip-offs. There are quite a few sites about where you can find reviews on bookmaker companies. Check them out. A good starting point is to find out if a bookmaker is located in a country where betting is regulated. Examples of these are England and Australia, 2 countries with strong regulation on gambling and sports betting, providing you with a reasonable amount of security. In contrast there are companies located on some obscure island in the Caribbean without even an address or phone number listed. I suggest you stay well clear of these.

Here are links to some bookmakers. As far as I can tell these are reputable established companies. I do not recommend any one in particular simply because they all have good and less good areas. Mainly determined by the fact if they provide good prices on certain sports or not. You will have to pick your preferred bookmakers based on the sports and markets you wish to bet on.

VIPSports	BetGameDay	FiveCardCharlie	Bet19	BetWWTS
BetCRIS	Diamond	Bet365	Pinnacle	Ladbrokes

In its most basic form betting is done between 2 people. You simply agree with another person on the conditions of the bet, put up your stake, and settle up after the outcome is known. In recent years there has been the introduction of the betting exchanges. These are companies that act as facilitators for people to bet against each other. Also known as P2P, person-to-person betting.

Exchanges publish betting opportunities, including the rules that determine a winning or losing bet, and allow people to put up their own prices. If you offer a price on an event you are effectively acting as a bookmaker. You can bet on an event using the price that's offered, just as with a bookmaker, except you are betting against other individuals. This is completely anonymous; the exchange takes care of all the administration.

Here are some links to betting exchanges. It is well known that Betfair is currently by far the market leader.

Now we come to the point that we need to decide what to bet on.

I could write a whole book on the subject, in fact quite a few books have been written on the subject already. There is no end to the ways and methods you can use to select what to bet on. You can use so many things, and in fact most successful punters use a combination of things. There is the study of form. By examining recent performance you try to determine the chance a team or player has of winning the next match. You can also use statistics so past results inform you how likely an outcome is gives a set of conditions. You can use latest news, expert advice, tipsters, message boards and forums, etc... there is no end.

It all comes down to personal choice. You will have to find your own method. You have to give your bet selection process the time and effort it needs. Many punters fail at getting a good bet selection method and resort to alternative ways of trying to get money out of sports betting. In the long term they will fail. A sound bet selection process is the basis of being successful at sports betting. If at times your bet selection method does not come up with good bets, then simply don't bet. It's that simple.

Check out the rest of my site. You will find many pages that hopefully will assist you in finding your own method of selecting what to bet on. I would also advise you to have a look on The Punters Lounge. A message Forum with a wealth of information provided by its members. If all that doesn't get you inspired I don't know what will.

Once you have selected what to bet on it's time to determine your stake.

The size of your stake is first of all a matter of managing risk. As i mentioned before you should have a betting bank that is independent from the rest of your finances. Money you can afford to lose. It's a fact that as you place bets some will win and some will lose. First of all your stake on each individual bet should be a portion of your bank, so that if you do hit some losers you won't go bankrupt straight away. How big should the portion be? That depends on your attitude towards risk. Risk takers use a large portion, risk avoiders a small portion. Staking and staking plans are subjects that cover many pages on their own. Assuming you are a beginner I will leave you with this advice: on each bet use 1% of your bank as the stake. Even with the worst of luck that should allow you to continue for quite some time. Learn all you can and as long as you are not certain that you should use any more than 1%, take my word for it: stick to the 1%. Best advice I can give you. And it's completely free.

Now we know what we want to bet on and how much we are willing to risk, it's time to look at the odds.

The odds are the price offered by the bookmaker ( or exchange ) on the outcome of an event. There are 3 ways in which the odds can be displayed: Decimal, Fractional and American. For example the tennis match between Federer and Agassi:

Outcome	Decimal odds	Fractional odds	American style
Federer to win	1.20	1/5	-500
Agassi to win	5.50	9/2	+450

Most bookies on-line allow you to set your own preference. Here is how the potential profit can be calculated.

In case of decimal odds simply multiply the stake by the odds and that gives you your return. The profit is the return minus the stake. Example bet 100 on Federer, return = 1.20 x 100 = 120 , profit = 120 - 100 = 20 . It works the same on both outcomes. Bet 100 on Agassi, return = 5.50 x 100 = 550 , profit = 550 - 100 = 450.

Fractional odds are the more traditional English way of displaying odds. The fraction indicates the profit you can make. To know exactly simple divide the actual fraction: 1/5 = 0.20 , 9/2 = 4.50 . Don't confuse this with the decimal odds. They have the stake in the number, fractional odds display only the potential profit.

Then there is the American style odds. They take a different approach and have negative as well as positive numbers. When the number is positive it's easy, it indicates the amount you can profit from the stake of 100. So place 100 on Agassi to win and your profit is 450. If the number is negative it indicates the stake you need to put up in order to make a profit of 100. This means your stake is higher than your potential profit. So in order to make a profit of 100 on Federer we would have to put up a stake of 500. If we put up a stake of 100, one fifth of 500, then we can profit one fifth of 100 being 20.

These 3 ways of displaying odds may take a bit of getting used to but believe me it doesn't take long. If you are new to betting i advise the use of Decimal odds. They are the easiest to work with. If you are not new then you are probably set in your ways with one of the three methods, do continue with whatever works for you.

A few more things you need to know. First the costs involved. If you want to bet on-line you will need to deposit money in an account with a bookmaker. Depending on the method you use to transfer that money and the conditions of the bookmaker there may be costs involved. The same goes for withdrawing money. Even if the bookmaker charges nothing for a withdraw your own bank may charge you for a banktransfer or cashing a cheque. These costs are usually not high but you need to take them into account.

Next there is the bookmaker overround. Let's go back to our example of Federer against Agassi. Suppose you where to bet on both outcomes with a stake such that each outcome returns the same amount.

On Federer place a bet with a stake of 82.09 at odds of 1.20 to get a return of 98.51
on Agassi place a bet with a stake of 17.91 at odds of 5.50 to get a return of 98.51

Notice that the total stake 82.09 + 17.91 = 100 , but the return on both events is only 98.51 , a difference of -1.49. So if you bet on both outcomes you will always lose part of your stake. This is how the bookmaker ensures he always has a profit over time. He takes bets from many people on both outcomes. Because the odds do not cover 100% he will always have a percentage of profit. Actually in this example you are getting some very good prices, the overround is usually in the area of 10%

Then there are the exchanges. They are not charity organisations and make their profit by charging a commission. Usually this is a commission of 5% - 3% on the winnings of your bets. You will frequently see odds displayed like this:

Federer : 1.20
Agassi : 6.00

And there may even be an indication that the market is at 100% , and you may think you cannot do better than that. Just remember you have to pay commission on your winnings.

So a bit of advice to wrap this all up. Shop around. Make sure you have accounts at a couple of bookmakers. Then when you have selected what to bet on check the prices at the different bookmakers. You can use some of the odds comparison sites around, they do all the work for you. You may be quite surprised at the difference in prices offered. It can make all the difference in the long run.

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