From recreational bettors to sharps, the world of sports betting comes with all kinds of bettors who place wagers on a myriad of sporting events across the world, including the NFL Super Bowl, the MLB World Series, the NCAAB March Madness and the Soccer FIFA World Cup. Here’s a sweeping look at some of the common types of sports bettors, including some types of sports punters you should try not to be.
Types of Sports Bettors: Find Out Who You Are
Recreational Bettors
These are the most common types of sports bettors and sportsbooks love them because they tend to be careless about their wagers. Some do research before bets, the majority don’t. Some consider prudent betting strategies like bankroll management, the majority of the rest don’t. The drive for most recreational bettors is making money and wagering on popular teams (like New England Patriots in the NFL or Barcelona in Soccer) or popular sporting events (like the Super Bowl and March Madness) because the rest of the public is doing so. Emotionality plays a key role in wagers made by recreational bettors, no wonder they tend to make mistakes quite often. Fortunately for them, it’s easy for most of them to get fed up of losing and run away from sports betting (especially when their bankroll is depleted), hence protecting them becoming addicts and losing pretty much their entire livelihoods to sports betting.
The Addicted Gambler
This is the type of sports bettor that bets on virtually anything and can’t say no to gambling. A good number of the addicts rarely have good winning percentage, mainly because they spend too much time looking for the next line to bet on, rather than taking time to study trends and odds in order to find some betting advantage over the bookies. Oh, and these guys don’t have a problem with getting into huge debts and selling their houses just for the sake of betting. Try not to be let your gambling get you to the addiction stage because the road to recovery is hellishly long and relapses happen quite often for these degenerate gamblers.
The Numbers Guy
This punter believes in every word about the adage that says Numbers Don’t Lie. And because of that, he purely trusts numbers from betting trends and historical statistics and will bet depending on what the numbers say. A good number of them can develop into good sports investors. The problem, however, is that numbers are just one part of sports betting; you have to factor in several other things if you want to be successful, especially in games where numbers don’t offer any form of advantage to either of the two teams/players involved in a sporting event.
Investor and Sharps
Sports investors and sharps have one thing in common; they view sports betting as an investment rather than a form of recreation or a gamble of sorts. With that, they consider all the necessary rules and guidelines that will encourage success, kind of in the same way the guys at Wall Street do a circumspect analysis of their potential investments in financial markets as the NASDAQ and NYSE. And as a result, these bettors witness lower risks in terms of external influences on the outcome to win, which often encourages profitability. If you want to improve your success in sports betting, adopt a philosophy that is similar to that of these investors and sharps.
Mr. My Money Grows on Trees
Yeah, this is that spoilt rich guy who owns all the money in the world and his bankroll never runs dry. More often than not, he comes from a rich family so he doesn’t know what it takes to make money the hard way, making it easy for him to piss off his money into the betting lines without considering the numbers and the potential losses (because he can always get more money to waste away the next day). Alternatively, he is that guy syndicated to the mob and drug money continually comes in, so wasting it is not a big deal. If you know any of such guys, good for you, especially if you can convince them to shoulder some of your betting bills. If not, then too bad for you!
I Love Props
This type of sports bettors mostly—often strictly—bet on proposition bets. They thrive on placing wagers on unconventional bets such as who will score the first goal in a world cup football game or how many times Mike Tyson will swear in a press conference. Oh, and these prop lovers don’t stop at sports betting; they take their love for props to anything interesting in the pop world, ranging from celebrities to political elections. Success varies for these prop masters, depending on whether they are recreational or addicted gamblers.
