In this post we provide 5 top tips for researching & analysing your sports bets.
This will help you to maximise your chances, minimise risks, and — hopefully — identify a successful approach to sports betting.
1. Use Detailed Statistics
Stats ought to be the basis for selecting any sports bet. But where exactly do you find good, free statistics online?
Here’s our recommendations:
Football Stats
Our favourite site for Football stats is Squawka.
You can use Squawka to compare any team (or player) to their competitors, using a range of data items and metrics. The depth of Squawka’s stats, accompanied by its neat user interface, makes football data analysis quick and easy.
Squawka’s a great starting point for betting research. You can use it to identify potential bias in the betting markets.
Horse Racing Stats
There’s plenty of reliable online sources providing detailed horse racing form stats. These can be used to check past performances in order to estimate future results.
Our favourites are:
1. THE RACING POST
Launched on April 15, 1986, the Racing Post is a daily national print and digital publisher dedicated to the horseracing industry, greyhound racing and sports betting.
2. TIMEFORM
Owned by Betfair, Timeform is a publishing company from West Yorkshire, founded in 1948 to provide information to fans, bettors, and others involved in the horse racing industry.
3. AT THE RACES / SKY SPORTS RACING
Sky Sports Racing is a joint venture between Sky and the Arena Racing Company. It provides a television channel, website and app devoted to horse racing — covering domestic, European and international events.
4. SPORTING LIFE
Sporting Life was a British newspaper, best known for its coverage of horse racing and greyhound racing. It has been continued as a multi-sports website.
Always keep in mind that other punters may have spotted the same “form” pattern you have. For your method to be effective, you may need to uncover something specialised. This leads onto our next tip for researching your bets…
2. Delve Into Niche Markets
Popular sports betting markets tend to have tight odds. This means that the Bookmakers, on average, “get the odds right” for those events.
But remember: Bookies provide a breadth of alternative sports and markets at your disposal. So why not use them instead?
One of the most effective ways to research profitable sports bets is to delve into less-known, obscure sports/markets — those that only the minority of people know anything about. If you study the sport, then you’re in the best position find odds that represent value.
Many successful punters can interpret the chance of an event occurring more accurately than the Bookmakers!
3. Search For Maximum Value
Part of your bet research is finding the best odds available.
While most Bookmakers offer close, competitive prices, they often differ on selections. So our advice is to open accounts with multiple sports betting sites, so that you’re always prepared to take the prices with the highest value.
If horse racing is your thing, you should also lookout for “Beat Odds Guaranteed”. This essentially means that the Bookie will honour you with the start price of a horse if it’s higher (better) than what you bet at. This is a huge deal for racing punters, as the BOG offer protects against negative price movements.
Find out which Bookmakers offer Best Odds Guaranteed.
Let’s talk more about how odds change over time — because this also factors into your betting research…
4. Get In There Early
One of the most important things to understand about sports betting is that the odds continually change as more information becomes available.
Generally, when the odds change, they become more accurate (which isn’t what you want as a punter!).
When you’re seeking a high price with a tidy (potential) payout, you’ll often need to get in there early: before everyone else does. Those good opportunities don’t last forever…
So if you have valuable information that isn’t known by the masses, and isn’t reflected in the odds — then that’s your cue to strike.
5. Follow Reputable Tipsters
Finally, you’re by no means limited to your own analysis of the sports betting markets. There’s also the opinions of tipsters that you could use as the basis of your research.
The question is, where do you find an honest tipster?
There’s literally thousands of tipsters out there — but hardly any of them are sufficiently monitored. A lot of them are simply scams, with inflated profit records, designed to earn hefty subscription fees from unsuspecting punters.
We strongly advise sticking with tipsters featured on the trusted Tipstrr platform, who are each rigorously proofed by the automated processes in place. Tipsters simply cannot forge their results on the Tipstrr platform.
To discover great tipsters, check out my top 10 list, and take advantage of an exclusive £5 free credit deal on Tipstrr.
Hopefully the suggestions in this post will help to improve your sports betting research and selection methods.