Things I wish i’d known before starting to bet
-Picture to come-
I think it’s worth noting this piece has been on the back of my mind for a few days. More like the whole week actually. Who knows how many friends i’ve asked for ideas on this theme. I wanted to write about something original. I thought of doing a piece about what I wish i’d known before doing the IB (International Baccaleurate) or moving to England but nah. I’m sure a few people will write about moving to England.
And about the IB.. I mean I would loved to have gone on about how hard it was, little sleep I got, and how much TOK (a philosophy like class called Theory of Knowledge) changed my life. lol.
Question EVERYTHING!
Oh and last thing, the most FAQ — “does this count for CAS?”. CAS for those of you who did not do the IB was… actually it’s not even worth spending time on it. It was basically just pure bullshit.
So yeah, betting.. Here is a little backround about how it all started. I think I started betting in middle school when I was 14/15. It wasn’t really about the money though, it was just to make things more interesting. some of my first bets were on video games against friends. The stake was usually lunch the next day. We would often wouldn’t stop at one game as the loser would want revenge AKA double or nothing or modified odds. The best one though was when I got my friend to carry my bag around for a few days and buy me lunch.
I believe this habit orginated because I think i’m a pretty competitive person. Actually, I just stopped in the middle of this sentence, took my headphones out, and asked my friend next to me if he thought I was competitive. His response;
“haha are you serious”. So yeah that confirms the above.
It wasn’t really until I got the U.K that I started online betting. It was exciting and made matches more interesting. But here are the tree main things I learnt.
- Accumulator wins are extremely rare
I can’t count the number of times my friends and I would sit and read out each others large but very unlikely returns. If you aren’t familiar with accumulators, they are a series of bets on different events where the odds/returns are much higher than normal. But.. ALL predictions have to be correct. It was a bit dissapointing though because we would sometimes get close but never win.
Until this one time. My friend had an 8 fold accumulator and the return was 900 pounds. All the predictions had come in and there was one game left. We were in a bar and he kept checking updates on his phone. With 10 minutes of the game remaining he could cash out for 300 pounds or wait and hope for one of the teams to score. Our group was split. Some people were telling him to cash out whilst other tried convincing him not to. He kept on refreshing for updates. Corner. Shot on target. The team he had bet on was dominating. In the last 5 minutes of the game they scored and we all went crazy. TO this day however, I don’t know anyone else who’s won a big accumulator and I myself have stopped trying them.
2. Don’t bet on your own team
Pretty straight forward. Avoid a double loss.
3. Go with your gut feeling
This is probably the most valuable thing i’ve learnt and I wish I had done this from the start. The few times i’ve won big have been in the momment decisions. My biggest win was last semester. It was Champions League and I was watching the game at my place with a few friends. Barcelona vs Man. City. I had used an offer from Bet 365. 50 quid pre match and then 50 pound risk free bet during the game. People usually do this tactially for guaranteed money. My pre match bet was on City to win because the odds were low (although I was for Barcelona). However at half time, I realised this was never going to happen. Second half had just kicked off and I was browsing throught the potential bets, reading them out to my friends for their feedback. Messi to score a Hatrick came up. I instantly felt good about that one. I also got very excited when I saw the return was 650. He only needed two more goals. A few minutes later, Messi scored. It was going to be a good ending to the game. One more goal needed. It was funny because we were all screaming at the T.V and carefully seeing the minutes go by. Within a few minutes left Messi scored and we went crazy.
The next thing I did was get some beers from the cornerstop and transfer the money to my bank account to avoid losing it all on other bets.
With thanks to Suzie Patterson
