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Writer's pictureCaleb Dykema

It Takes More Than Just Picking Winners When Sports Betting

Updated: Mar 23, 2022

Obviously, making good picks is vital to success as a sports bettor, but it's only half the story.


Sports bettors also need to be able to

  • Avoid gambling traps

  • Know their strengths so they can capitalize on them

  • Know their weaknesses so they can improve upon them



How the Hot Hand Fallacy causes you to lose $ even with a positive record

Bettor A placed 15 bets over the course of a week on the NHL. The first ten bets he puts down 1 unit each and wins all ten! (for those doing math, with odds at -110, he's up +9.1u)


Now Bettor A is feeling good, like he's on a hot streak, and decides to double his wager amount to 2 units each for the next five games. His streak comes to a crashing halt when he ends up losing all five. (now he's down -10 units)


Wait, so Bettor A just picked 10 out of 15 games to win (66%) but lost money? YES, he fell into the classic "Hot Hand Fallacy" gambler trap - a trap where a bettor feels they are on a hot streak and they begin to wager more.




How not knowing your strengths and weaknesses can be just as bad as losing bets

Bettor B is big on betting on the NBA. She's had an average season, teetering between winning and losing, but trusts that she'll improve as the season goes on. What Bettor B doesn't know is she's actually crushing it betting on the spread for away teams, but doing awful betting on the total for teams that have come off of a 2+ days rest.


Because Bettor B doesn't know her strengths and weaknesses, she remains an average bettor over the season.

 

How can you avoid these traps most sports bettors fall into?

By tracking your bets.


Tracking your bets is the only real way to monitor where you thrive, and where you barely get by. This way you can capitalize on areas you're good at, and modify your strategy on areas you aren't. You can also easily monitor your bankroll and avoid common gambling traps.


If Bettor A had tracked his bets, he would have noticed he was starting to wager higher amounts than his average and avoid falling into the trap.


And Bettor B would have been able to filter out her net profit for spread bets and for total bets. She would have easily been able to find her strength and weakness, and could modify her strategy accordingly!




What's the best way to track my sports bets?

Bettors hated tracking their bets. It used to be a tedious process, and there was very little information on the internet on how to improve from it.


And that's why my co-founder Zach and I started Vault back in January 2020.


The Vault app is the best way to track your bets! Vault syncs to your sportsbooks and automatically tracks every bet you place. Your bet data is aggregated across all your books to show you your net profit, units, ROI, bankroll, and trends.



Download Vault on the App Store, and you'll discover the once tedious process of tracking your sports bets is now easy!






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