Betting Rules of Thumb(BF in sports betting part III)

Last installment on this topic for now and I wanted to summarize as concisely as possible while giving a practical application that hopefully people can use to improve their own game.

The fact of the matter is emotions play a huge role in bettors decisions. The challenge is to avoid psychological biases that make rational decision making difficult. The catch being these biases are subtle and hard to recognize, so to steal a page from the successful market investors play book use Betting Rules of Thumb. These are just a list of simple procedures created in advance to help you make good decisions and minimize the emotional bias that can trip us all up. These are adapted from a great old textbook, "Investments analysis and behavior" by Mark Hirschey and John Nofsinger.

• Stay the course: maintain a long term perspective. The only way to build significant wealth is through regular contributions to your bankroll. Chasing a quick big hit is the surest way to bust out.
• Long run returns reflect underlying business prospects: Don't be surprised when pigs don't fly. Try to avoid betting on bad teams or in negative EV situations.
• Dumb money ceases to be dumb when it realizes its limitations: I know this to be true in my case. I busted out a couple of times until I admitted I was a bad sports bettor and started to study and learn why I was making the mistakes I was making. My bankroll has gone up ever since.Attaching your ego to your picks is an easy trap to fall in to.
  
• Don't confuse luck with brains: It isn't always due to skill when you win or bad luck when you lose. Set the ego and emotions aside, learn from each situation no matter the outcome.
• Let your winners run, cut your losses short: Be willing to admit a mistake, don't compound it by chasing. Being wrong and stubborn can be very expensive.
• Bulls can make money, bears can make money, hogs get slaughtered: Be very aware of the size of your bet in terms of percentage of total bankroll. Risk should always be the primary concern, how much do you stand to lose with a bet?
  

These are the basics that I like to keep in front of me plus one more simple but powerful concept.

I look at my sports betting as a business and to be successful a business must operate under the following principles;

1. Preservation of capital:As stated above, my primary concern is how much do I stand to lose if I'm wrong, not how much can I win. Keep a personal acceptable risk reward ratio and stick to it. If a bet/investment doesn't offer the right price for the amount of risk then its a no play.
2. Consistent profitability: This dovetails with stay the course. Look to consistently add a certain reasonable percentage to your bankroll on a monthly or even quarterly basis. This will keep you from over extending yourself in search of the quick hit.
   
3. Pursuit of superior returns: Lets say you have a quarterly accounting system and start with $10,000 to invest/bet. I would recommend that you make your bet sizes somewhere between 3-5% of the total depending on how much edge you feel you have on any given play. If the first bet of say $330 wins and you clear $300 I would set aside half the winnings ($150) and make any future bets between 3-5% of my new bankroll which is $10,150. Likewise if my first bet is a loss my next bet will have to be 3-5% of $9,670. This way as you win you are not only banking profits you are playing for bigger stakes. When you lose you are protecting yourself from a run of bad luck/poor performance breaking you.

Hopefully this helps and as always Best of Luck in whatever you decide to play!