Beat the bookies – it’s what every bettor aims to do no matter how much experience you have. There’s nothing better than logging in to your bookie account and withdrawing your latest winnings!
Unfortunately it’s easier said than done… The bookies are in business to make money and truth be told most punters lose a lot of money to the bookmakers.
That’s why I wrote this article. To help you beat the bookies and maximise your profit from sports betting. We’ll look at some of my favourite tips and tricks from analysing key statistics and formulating winning strategies to understanding market dynamics and managing your mindset.
Let’s dive in.
How to beat the bookies
I don’t think there’s a better feeling than knowing you’ve beaten the bookies at their own game. But unfortunately, that’s not often the case. Bettors lose hundreds of thousands to betting companies each and every week.
Just take a look at the profit of bet365 and other large bookies and it’s clear to see punters often lose in the long run. The odds are stacked in the bookie’s favour.
So how can we turn this around?
Below we’ll take a look at a number of tips and tricks you can use to beat the bookies so you can take home more profit for yourself.
Before we get into our top tricks to beat the bookies, it’s important to understand that the following strategies and techniques aren’t guaranteed to win. We’re betting on live sports so anything can happen.
However, using the tricks below will certainly give you a better chance of winning and beating the bookies.
Right, that’s the boring stuff done…
Top tricks to beat the bookies
Let’s check out how to beat the bookies:
- Follow betting tips
- Find value
- Start matched betting
- Don’t follow the crowd
- Don’t bet on your favourite team
- Stay informed
- Bet online
- Bet with your head
1. Follow betting tips
Possibly one of the best strategies to beat the bookies is by following expert betting tipsters. Betting tips are incredibly popular with thousands of punters using them every day.
There are many benefits of following betting tips such as reducing your time investment and making your job easier. But the main benefit has to be the increased chance of beating the bookies and winning more bets.
However, you need to pick your tipsters carefully. There are hundreds of crappy tipsters out there who are just after your cash.
To maximise your profit from sports betting you need to follow high-quality tipsters that have a proven record of beating the bookies over a longer period of time.
Don’t follow any old betting tipster!
So where do you find the best tipsters? Good news, we’ve done all the hard work for you…
Best betting tipsters
One of my favourite tipster sites is Tipstrr. Here you’ll find a huge range of high-quality tipsters that cover various sports and events.
At the time of writing, Tipstrr has processed and verified over 5.5 million betting tips!
What makes this service so popular is the high-quality, consistent tipsters on the platform. It’s a welcome change to the huge number of tipster scams out there.
At Tipstrr you are able to check verified results of individual tipsters. You can see key stats such as total profit, monthly profit, win rate and ROI.
This gives us key information to help decide which tipsters to follow in order to beat the bookies.
To start with, I recommend you sign up for the free tips. If you want to take your earnings to the next level, you can purchase tips from the pro tipsters once you’ve tested the platform out.
To register and access these free tips which are sent directly to your inbox, click the link below to get started.
Alternatives to Tipstrr include sites such as Betting Gods and bettingexpert.
2. Find value
Another strategy you can use to beat the bookies is to take advantage of valuable markets and odds as often as possible.
As we’ll look at later, you’ll often find that bookmakers offer different prices for a certain market. This might be due to a promotion such as an odds boost or because the bookmaker has calculated the probability of an event differently.
It’s a common mistake for beginners to open their favourite betting app and place a bet without considering any other options.
The likelihood is that with a bit of research, punters can find more valuable odds very easily which means more profit from a winning bet.
You might think this seems a lot of effort just for slightly better odds…
But checking the latest odds is very easy and you’ll wish you had started this method months ago.
Finding valuable odds
We know finding the highest and most valuable odds is crucial to maximising your profit with sports betting. So how can we do this quickly?
Bettors use a process called line shopping to help with this.
This method involves comparing the odds for a certain market across all the major bookmakers. The aim is to find the bookies with the most valuable odds.
It may sound difficult, but thanks to handy websites such as Oddschecker it’s very simple. And it means you don’t have to scan bookmaker sites manually.
These sites allow you to compare the odds for a specific market across a wide range of bookmakers. You can then click through to the desired bookie, access the odds and place your bets.
Remember, the more bookies you check, the more value you’ll find in your betting.
To access the best value odds you’ll likely need a lot of bookmaker accounts open. But as we’ll look at next, this isn’t a bad thing if you’re serious about making money with betting.
Finding valuable promotions
Next up, let’s look at how promotions and bonuses can help you beat the bookies.
Betting offers play a huge role in online gambling. Bookies such as Betdaq and Ladbrokes are always offering new promotions like this example below.
In order to beat the bookies, it’s important to look out for valuable promotions and sign up offers. Luckily, this is an easy process as most bookmakers are very upfront about what free bets and bonuses they offer.
If you spend any time on the internet, you will undoubtedly see a lot of betting adverts containing free bets etc.
You should complete as many of these promotions as possible in order to maximise your income.
As we’ll look at next, using certain betting strategies such as matched betting, you can make a guaranteed profit from a lot of these free bets and promotions given out by the bookmakers.
Overall, whether it’s looking for the best odds on a market or scanning around for the best bookmaker promotions, it’s important to keep an eye on value. This is key to maximising your profit in the long run.
3. Start matched betting
Another strategy you can use to beat the bookies is start using matched betting.
Whilst this method isn’t strictly gambling, you are guaranteed to make a profit no matter what the outcome of the event you’re betting on is.
In simple terms you take advantage of bookmakers free bets and promotions by placing two opposite bets. These bets effectively cancel each other out meaning you bag up to 80% of a free bet in cash.
In other words, you can lock in a profit before a sporting event has even kicked off!
There’s a bit more to it and it’s not for everyone but it’s certainly a method to consider.
Head here for more information about how matched betting works and how you can use it to beat the bookmakers today.
4. Don’t follow the crowd
Another trick to beat the bookies is to not follow the crowd. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to follow crowds even if they’re heading in the wrong direction…
But that often means you lose out in more ways than one and it will certainly affect the amount of profit you make.
The majority of bettors are not savvy and often place their bets based on gut instincts, emotions and what others are doing. These are often the punters who lose a lot of money to the bookmakers.
This is not going to help you beat the bookies!
So, what should you do? Don’t follow what others are doing!
Do your own research and make your decisions based on that information. Alternatively, follow successful tipsters that have a proven record as we looked at above.
Sites such as betconnect have made this incredibly easy to do. You can follow the exact bets that pro punters would make without doing any of the hard work.
You can get started at BetConnect today with £50 in free matched bets.
5. Don’t bet on your favourite team
Not so much a trick, just good advice that will certainly help you beat the bookies – don’t bet on your favourite team!
Whether you think it or not, you’ll have emotional ties with your own team.
It’s always difficult to make rational decisions when emotion is involved. So it’s best to avoid betting on your favourite team altogether.
What’s more, a loss for your team would be a double whammy assuming you bet on your team to win.
Instead, research the best teams, look at current form, injury news, head to heads etc. Anything that will help you beat the bookmakers.
6. Stay informed
This trick kind of follows on from the previous one but it definitely deserves its own section. It’s important to research your bets and look for the teams and runners that are likely to prove great bets.
There are many different sources you can use to find valuable information online. There are various websites that provide minute by minute updates on team selection, key statistics and injury news.
Here at The Sure Bettor, we preview upcoming sports fixtures and events in order to help you make more informed betting decisions. You can find these articles on our blog.
7. Do your betting online
Another trick to beat the bookies is to place your bets online rather than in-store.
It’s a shame to see the high-street in the place it’s found itself. But there’s a reason so many punters place their bets on digital platforms:
- Access to better odds and a wider range of bookmakers
- More promotions to take advantage of
- Ease of placing your bets
Better odds
There are hundreds of different betting companies that operate online.
Whilst there’s arguably too many online bookies, it’s great when you’re looking for the best odds.
Bookies run promotions and price boosts that may make odds even higher. All in all, it’s great for maximising your value from your betting strategy.
Promotions online
As we looked at earlier, the bookmakers offer countless promotions and bonuses to new and existing customers. These offers are available on a regular basis meaning there’s plenty of profit to be made.
Obviously, the more bookmakers you have access to, the more promotions you can access and the more money you can make.
This is especially true when you consider methods like matched betting where you can make a guaranteed profit without any risk.
Ease of placing bets online
It’s incredibly easy to place bets online.
A process that one day could have taken more than 15 minutes to get to your nearest bookmaker can now be completed in less than a minute via betting apps.
All in all, placing bets online is certainly a great trick to increase your efficiency. Furthermore, betting online doesn’t cost any money.
8. Bet with your head
Another great strategy you should use to beat the bookies is bet with your head not your heart. As we looked at earlier, it’s important not to bet on teams you personally support or have an emotional tie to.
Betting and emotions should never be brought together. It’s a deadly combination. This will only lead to costly mistakes. Instead, it’s important to place bets based on your research.
The more informed bets you place, the more likely you are to beat the bookies in the long run. For more information on what to research when it comes to placing your bets, check out this article.
Betting on your favourite team or players might work once or twice but when it doesn’t you’ll be incredibly annoyed. One, your beloved team just lost and two your bet returned nothing…
Bet with your head, not your heart.
How to beat the bookies
Whilst it’s not possible to always beat the bookies and don’t believe anyone that says you can, these tips and tricks we’ve shared above will certainly help.
Here’s a quick recap of our favourite tricks:
- Follow betting tips
- Find value
- Start matched betting
- Don’t follow the crowd
- Don’t bet on your favourite team
- Stay informed
- Bet online
- Bet with your head
I recommend you implement these strategies one by one to see what works for you.