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Achieve Discipline Early
by Jhim

As any experienced bettor will tell you, achieveing discipline is paramount to success in betting. Its easy for me to say learn discipline early, but I did not, thats why I want to help. On this site there are many number of good bettors, and we have arranged articles by experienced people for you to learn from, take on the advice as early as you can to avoid making the obvious mistakes. I have learned primarily from my own mistakes and also by listening to all of the people I have come across during my betting experience. YOU MUST have discipline in every aspect of your betting, regardless of the bet type or market you choose to play in if you wish to be in any way successful. Discipline must be used in your staking, your money management, your analysis, your odds selection and any other part of your betting make up.

When you decide on your staking plan, you must enforce self discipline to stick to it, otherwise you can remove the word 'plan' from that phrase. Set yourself rules and do not allow yourself to break them. If you decide you will make each of your stakes 3% of your bankroll, the moment you change this or wander from it, you have failed yourself and failed your own rules. At some point this happens to everyone,but it is whether you choose to ignore your mistake or recognise it that will determine your betting future. People who fail to acknowledge their mistakes and learn from them, will fail, and will not learn discipline.

The most common signs of a lack of discipline in my opinion are the following: Betting constantly, betting to make up for losses, betting on selections without analysis, betting on markets where the bettor has no knowledge, making too many selections, betting more than they can afford, constantly adding to bankroll during losing streaks, failing to recognise when to stop, always betting on large accumulators, using phrases like "I'll bet my house on it" etc..... the list goes on but these are most of the common ones.

If you are new to betting, really don't know what you are doing and are reading this, here is my advice on how to begin, keeping it as simple as possible.

- Decide how much money you can begin with, make it an amount you can afford to lose, then tell yourself.. I will not use any more cash than this for betting.
- Open one or more accounts with reputable bookmakers with proven histories, if you are unsure ask questions on a forum or from people you know who bet. Also with the advent of betting exchanges, please make sure you have at least one in your armory, you'll know why once you have spent time looking at your regular bookmaker and then at your exchange, you will find better prices many times over. My personal preference is Betfair. Don't deposit your full bankroll, deposit small amounts in each bookmaker, then make further deposits from your bank as and when you need them.
- Decide on a staking plan, remember that if you choose large stakes and you are intially unsuccessful, you may lose the bank very early, then you will not be able to participate without spending money you cannot afford, if you do this, discipline is lost. Start with 3% or thereabouts of your bank as a betting unit and see how you feel after a period of time. I recommend using level stakes regardless of your odds. If I feel a particular selection of mine is very strong I will stake more than one unit depending on my current progress and on th amount I am looking to return on my number of selections.
- Stick to betting singles on Fixed Odds or Handicap selections, and consider using double chance if you feel it is worthy and the market allows it, this is essentialy two singles, increasing chance of return at a lower odds. Do not be tempted by high odds high risk accumulators, at least not until you have some betting experience, but generally I don't recommend it at all.
- Choose a market you have knowledge in, wether it is a certain sport, or a certain country or division within a sport. My own example is that I have most knowledge in UK football, especially Scottish football, so will make my betting selections primarily from that market. Don't try to bet on every market going just because you see them in your book, its a very bad thing to do, you'll learn nothing except how to lose money, and will taint your enjoyment of betting.
- Select a limit to your selections, do not bet on 20 or 30 games per day. I have been betting regularly on Soccer for about 5 years, and I generally average between 5 and 10 bets on singles per week (some weeks I will not bet at all if instincts tell me its not worth it). But I have witnessed people doing this on a daily basis, even on days where there are only that amount of games being played. Thats a waste of time and money. I don't bet everyday, generally I only bet on weekend soccer where I have more choice, or midweek on domestic or cup football ONLY if I feel a window of opportunity is available with relatively low risk. The reason I say this is important, is because it goes along with your staking, if you are disciplined enough to learn that its good to use 3% of your bank as a stake, if you make 10 bets a day, your destroying all that hard work as your betting 30% of your bank. You may as well bet 10% as a stake on three singles?
- Set yourself a process for selecting your picks, make a step by step way of analysing your shortlist of possible bets and use it every time, if you are failing, analyse your analysis process and improve it. Use news sites, football sites, stat sites, betting sites, don't make the process too long or it will become tiresome. By all means listen to the opinions of others, listen to differeing opinions and consider them wisely, but never follow anyone blindly or you will never learn to be a bettor, and you will never learn you own work ethic. If you follow a tipster blindly, you have only yourself to blame if you lose, its your choice so never insult a tipster for his selections, its very rude, bad form and shows a lack of etiquette.

Start small and stick to your rules, this will help you to learn to enjoy betting, its better to start out with a sweet taste than a bitter one. Only experiment and try to increase your scope in betting when you have mastered the basics and proven to yourself that you are smart, you can think, analyse, recognise, realise, you can win and enjoy and can lose and be upbeat! Whether you want to be a pro or just want a hobby, it should always be enjoyable. If in doubt, STOP, take time to reflect on what you are doing, practice anything you think may halp improve your chances and then start again only when you are sure you have regained your composure!

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