You may be like I was years ago and had never heard the term “Sports Investing.”

Before I learned about sports investing, I was placing a big bet on the game that I knew was going to hit and some more a few other nice looking games. To cap off the day I would place one or two small bets for shits and giggles.

I quickly learned that this wasn’t a successful equation. It is the easy road to becoming desperate and calling a scamdicapper. Sick of losing all the time and taking cash advances to pay the bookie, I started searching online.

I was working nights at a hospital. While some nights were extremely busy, other nights supplied me with more time than I could endure. Sometimes I thought I would find the end of the internet.

I discovered that the internet is littered with sports gambling related websites. Most are trying to make a quick buck off of you before their site and worthless information fades away. Others are only sports book affiliate farms, offering banners for every possible sports book and poker room online. These guys are looking to make money from their players’ losses with out giving anything of value to those that click into one of those sports books.

Finally, while searching for betting strategies, I found certain sites that spoke about something called sports investing. These sites were speaking about betting a unit of their bankrolls and preaching that there is no such thing as a LOCK.

Is sports investing gambling? You bet it is!

That’s what makes it so fun.

Sports investing was coined to describe a disciplined method of wagering on sporting events. The principles of sports investing teach you to manage your funds to maximize your profit while minimizing your risk.

When you first decide to practice sports investing, you must determine what your bankroll is. Your bankroll is the amount of money that is set aside for your season long action. This money must be funds that if completely exhausted will not affect your living situation. Sports investing losses should never interfere with bills you have to pay or any other living necessity.

When I first learned of sports investing, I decided to test this theory out. After all the other systems and frauds that I found online, I was a little skeptical. However, this information was pieced together from multiple sources.

For my jump into sports investing, I staked myself a $1,000 bankroll. The size of my bankroll directly stipulated the size of the wagers I was going to be placing on my games. This amount is called a unit. The roll of thumb is that a unit equals to 5% of your bankroll. You can use 3%, 5% or even 10%. It all depends how aggressive or conservative you want to be.

In my case I decided to go with 5%, or $50. Now I didn’t don’t just go out placing a unit on every game. I began my week researching each game before I made my final decision. My research includes more than watching NFL Countdown and Sports Center. I use multiple online sites and offline resources before placing my bets. Handicappers and sports investors are known to put 10-40 hours a week into their picks.

After I do my homework and have a short list of games that I feel for one reason or another are the best games on the board, I go and place the same unit on each game. By placing this unit on each game, I am decreasing the volatility of the sports investing market by reducing my exposure to the juice that is included on losing wagers.

By placing a unit on 3-5 games that I researched provides me the opportunity to profit by hitting 55-60% of your wagers. If I hit 2 of my 3 plays during to the day games, I am up $45 (using $50 as a unit). If I win the Sunday Night Game, I will up $95. If I end up on the losing side of the Monday Football Game, I am still up $45. But I win I will be up $145 for the weekend.

In that example above, I won 3 of my 5 wagers that weekend. That is a winning percentage of 60%. As you can see, if you can average that winning percentage throughout the season, the only thing that limits your profit is the size of your bankroll and unit.

One final rule of sports investing is that you never risk more than half of your bankroll at any one given time. You should always have enough of a bankroll to fight back if you follow this golden rule.

Just like any hobby, sports investing is not for everyone. I can’t build a masterpiece wooden bench, and some people just aren’t as good at betting on sports as others. While most people lose at sports gambling because they are undisciplined and have no sense of money management, other people are better than others at picking winners and doing homework. If you find that you are always losing, you may want to re-evaluate your choice of hobbies. You may be handier with a radial saw.

Hockey can be exciting to watch. What makes it even more exciting is betting on it. Even if you are not a wild hockey enthusiast, having a wager on a hockey game will make it worth watching. There’s a good deal of money to be made in betting on hockey. The season is filled with betting opportunities. Today, I will go over a few hockey betting pointers. Use these to give yourself a better shot at cashing in winning tickets.

Point One: Pick the Winner

No, I am not trying to be Mr. Obvious. What I mean by this is don’t second guess yourself. Some hockey bettors second guess themselves and end up losing more times than they win. Don’t worry about how many games a team has won or lost in any situations. Streaks can continue for a long time and they will continue until they are over. Don’t get fooled. Simply decide which team is better and throw your money down.

Point Two: Money Management

Speaking of money, here’s an important point. Never bet more than you can afford to lose. Better yet, decide how much money you will bet per game and stick to it. Here’s an easy way to do it. Decide how much you are willing to lose for the whole season. Let’s say that amount is $1,000. Next, decide how many bets you want to play at a minimum. Let’s say 100, which is generally one a day or so. $1,000 divided by 100 is $10. Your betting unit is $10. It’s pretty simple from here on out. Bet $10 every time you make a wager.

Point Three: Buying Sports Picks

The world is full of “pro” sports handicappers willing to sell you their winners. Most of these services are quite pricey. If you are a smaller player, you should never buy sports picks. Doing so will eat away any profit you made. Let’s say you are a $10 player and bet 100 times at a 53% winning percentage. Your end of the road profit can be evaporated if you buy just one sports pick at $25. Most sports bettors don’t think about this. They simply rush out to win for that day. If you do this, you are making the sports handicapper money–not yourself.

Start with these three hockey betting tips to get on the road to winning. Once you have them down, start to expand your horizons. Betting is an ever-evolving process. Good Luck.

As the national hunt horseracing season heading towards its climax with the Cheltenham Festival in March followed by the Grand National in April, interest in two of Britain’s biggest and most popular betting events is set to reach fever pitch.

If you’ve never placed a bet on either of these events, now may be the time to do so. However, betting on horseracing can seem intimidating, and conjures images of men who haven’t changed their clothes since the 1970s standing in long queues in grubby inner-city betting shops.

Fortunately betting on horseracing has moved with the times, with online betting becoming increasingly popular as the quick and easy alternative to visiting totes. However despite these changes, betting on horseracing can still be a daunting task due to the jargon used.

The jargon of horseracing betting conceals the fact that betting on horseracing is generally quite simple. Here are a few of the most popular betting options decoded:

Betting on a show: A horse that finishes a race with a show finishes in the top three. Betting on a show simply means betting on a horse reaching the top three. An advantage of this bet is that it allows you to bet on three horses in any given race. If all three horses show, you’ll receive three payouts, no matter what order they finish in.

Betting on a place: A horse that finishes a race placed has come either first or second. Once again you can bet on two horses with this option, and can receive a double payout irrespective of the order in which they place.

Betting on a winner: Commonly perceived as one of the easiest bets, betting on a winner is actually one of the toughest betting options. This is reflected in the higher odds paid on winning bets, particularly in handicap races. Whilst betting on a winner involves the simple process of picking your favourite, making an educated selection is far more difficult.

The ‘fectas’: The trifecta and sueprfecta are basically extensions of placing bets on a winner. However, these bets up the ante by requiring punters to correctly predict the finishing order of a race. In the case of the trifecta this means accurately predicting positions one to three, whilst the superfecta involves predicting the final standings from first to fourth place.

Betting both ways: Betting both ways is a popular method of ‘hedging’ a bet when betting on a winner. Alongside your bet on a winner, place a bet on the same horse showing. If the horse wins you’ll get paid out twice, if it falters but still manages a show still earn a payout.

There are many more betting options used by experienced punters, and virtually every race or festival will have its own specials. However, the simple betting options described above are a great way to familiarize yourself with horseracing betting. Before you head off to place your bets there is one last piece of horseracing betting information you’ll need.

Unless you plan on treating your betting like a lottery, it is worthwhile understanding the purpose of a racing card. Race cards are released in betting papers and totes once the fields for races are finalized. The race cards list the horses in the field along with information on age, weight carried (if the race is a handicap), and previous form for each runner.

The race card is not used simply to pick out the horse with the best looking stats. Instead it is used to match a horse to a given race or track, using form and recent trends in the race to decide which runner has the best prospects. This means it is often worthwhile researching race trends as well, including age, sex and form information relating to previous race winners.

If this doesn’t sound too complicated, you might also want to visit online formbooks such as the Racing Post which provides in-depth form and statistical information on every registered racehorse in the United Kingdom.

Finally, always keep in mind the golden law of betting ‘Bet enough for it to hurt, but never enough for it to do damage’.