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Analyzing and researching your selections - by Jhim

There are some who believe that sometimes hunches are your best bets, but if that was the case and we never did any work to make our betting selections and made lots of money on hunches, bookmakers would be out of business. Analyzing and researching your selections is very important, you should devise a structure and a set of rules that govern the way you make your picks, use your discipline to follow that structure every time you bet and you will reap the rewards.

There are many arguments as to what is important when considering a bet, some say form is not all that important, some say previous encounters are not that important, there are many different views. My own opinion is that if you consider all angles then you can't be doing something wrong. Here I will list the factors that I consider important when deciding on what to bet on.

Motivation - Motivation is probably the single most important factor to me when selecting a bet. I believe in each sporting encounter, one side will have more motivation to win, it may not always mean they will win, but it is very important to recognize it in every event. I will use most of my examples in soccer, as that is my primary market. For professional sports where you are betting on an individual like Tennis or Golf, all players are normally highly motivated as they need to progress in every game they play to make their living. In soccer it is different, and many things can affect motivation. Relegation, promotion, money goals, revenge, league positioning for European places, new manager, losing streak and many other aspects can all affect a teams motivation. Pay attention to mood within a team, if a team if unhappy with their manager, a manager unhappy with his team, if there are behind the scenes troubles and any other news that can affect a teams morale in a positive or negative manner. It is possible to decide in almost every game, a reason why one team may be more motivated than the other, it may not always come true, but its possible to make a decision. Motivation can become heightened towards the end of the season, always remember that at this stage many teams are jostling for position and many also are playing for nothing. But do not always assume that because a team is going nowhere that they will not play to win, that is always folly, as a former player in a league team at county level, no matter how bad the team I played for performed, we always wanted to win, and sometimes when a team is in severe dire straits, when professional players cross that white line at the start of any game, adrenaline takes over, and a players natural will to perform well also kicks in. For your purposes, you need to decide which team will have more drive on the day.

Team News - As the European Soccer market is so diverse, sometimes you may wish to bet on a team in a country where information is not readily available in your own language, and online translators do not always do them justice, if you find yourself lacking in info, ask on the forum, you may be surprised how much information can be provided by our visitors, we have members from almost every corner of the world. But this is one of the reasons I tend to stick to betting within markets where I can find good information in English. Always check team news before a game if you can, you can find vital information on squad availability, injuries, illnesses, banned players, and also you can glean valuable information on each teams motivation, depending on how good the reporter is, I sometimes find interviewed comments of managers very useful, they can give you an insight on how much he is driving his team, sometimes a threatening comment from a manager to his team can kick up their level of performance. News is very important, research as many websites or other sources as you can, my own preferences are the BBC and Sporting Life.

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