5 Bad Betting Habits — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:02] lose money. You see, most sports bettors lose because they think they picked the wrong team, they got unlucky, or they had a bad beat. But, honestly, most sports bettors lose because of bad habits. Little things they do repeatedly

[00:16] without knowing that those habits are destroying their bankroll long-term. And the scary part is, a lot of these habits feel smart in the moment. So, today, I'm going to break down five of the biggest habits that slowly make sports bettors

[00:30] lose money long-term. And the mindset shifts that you need to have in order to become a profitable sharp sports better. So, let's dive right into habit number one, emotional betting. This is probably the worst habit and most popular bad

[00:43] habit that sports bettors have. And honestly, almost every better bets with emotions at some point in time. Casual bettors love to revenge bet after a loss, chase losses late at night, force action simply because there's a game on,

[00:58] or tell themselves that they absolutely need a win tonight. That mindset right there destroys bankrolls. Because the second emotion enters your betting process, discipline completely disappears. Emotional bettors constantly

[01:13] overbet, force plays, ignore value, and abandon strategy. Sharp bettors will never think emotionally. They think probabilistically, and that right there is a massive difference. One of the biggest improvements I ever made as a

[01:28] sports better was learning how to completely set my emotions aside. Because to sharp sports bettors, one bet means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Now, bad habit number two that casual sports bettors often have is

[01:42] caring about winning more than value. And this right here is another huge trap. You see, most sports bettors are obsessed with being right. Sharp sports bettors are obsessed with getting value. And that's a big difference. Casual

[01:55] bettors think, will this win tonight? Is this safe? Or I just want a guaranteed hit. But profitable sports betting isn't about winning every bet. It's about consistently getting profitable numbers. Because you can literally win most of

[02:09] your bets and still lose money long-term. Meanwhile, some of these sharpest, most profitable sports bettors can have a massive ROI while having a losing record long-term. And that's exactly why sharp sports bettors care

[02:22] more about pricing and expected value than they do emotional confidence. Now, bad habit number three is one that quietly kills casual sports bettors long-term and that is refusing to line shop. Most casual bettors use one sports

[02:36] book and they never compare prices. That means that their one sports book could have a prop at minus 145 when another sports book has that same exact prop at minus 125. Now, losing 20 cents of value in one bet may not seem like a lot, but

[02:53] when you do that over hundreds and thousands of bets, you are throwing away Odds Jam to show you just how important line shopping is and how much variance We can take a look right here. I'm on the positive EV tool over at Odds Jam

[03:08] and I can see here if you like to Elias Diaz under half a single, you should be Diaz under half a single, you should be taking this prop at BetMGM at minus 150 odds. Now, let's say you really like that prop, but you only use DraftKings.

[03:20] You're a casual sports better, you like the interface on DraftKings, you have the best betting experience over there from an entertainment standpoint. Well, if you really like this prop, you would be paying minus 209 juice to take this

[03:33] same exact play that you can get on BetMGM at minus 150 odds. That is a massive difference, almost 60 cents worth of value that you are throwing away simply by not line shopping. And it's not just this Elias Diaz prop.

[03:49] As you can see here, there are hundreds of bets where you can get a better price on BetMGM or on DraftKings or FanDuel than you could on other sports books. So, the next time you fall in love with a prop, make sure to check if there's a

[04:03] better price on another sports book because if you don't, you are throwing away value. Now, tool like Odds Jam is going to help you a ton when it comes to line shopping because as you could imagine, scanning the entire market

[04:15] single-handedly by yourself is nearly impossible. So, you can get a software like Odds Jam that will do the work for you and highlight exactly where there's value. Now, we're moving on to bad habit number four that casual bettors have and

[04:28] number four that casual bettors have and that is chasing a massive payday with parlays. And this one's interesting because parlays are not inherently bad, but most casual bettors use parlays horribly. They build 10-leg lottery

[04:41] horribly. They build 10-leg lottery tickets looking to turn $10 into $10,000 in one night and sports books absolutely love that. Now, where a lot of people misunderstand things is that sharp bettors and professional bettors do

[04:53] indeed place parlays, but a sharp better thinks about a parlay much differently than a casual better. Sharp bettors, instead of thinking about turning $10 into $10,000, sharp bettors are thinking about positive value and correlation.

[05:07] And that right there is a huge difference. The only time you should ever be placing a parlay is if it's a positive expected value slip. So, you can think about the daily fantasy sports apps, for example. A three-man slip on

[05:20] PrizePicks has the over and under valued at minus 122 odds and whether you take the over or under does not change your payout. Now, instead of finding three plays where market consensus has each prop at minus 110 odds, on PrizePicks

[05:33] you can scan the market to find three props where the average odds are minus 140 on sports books. So, you now know that you're getting a prop where market consensus is minus 140 odds when you're getting it locked in at minus 122. And

[05:48] that right there is a positive expected value parlay that is indeed profitable long-term. And as you could imagine, that slip is very different than your 10-leg lottery ticket where you're trying to get rich overnight. When

[06:02] thinking about is does this parlay have positive expected value? And that is something that most casual bettors will never think of. Now, that leads us into bad habit number five that most casual sports bettors have, and that is not

[06:17] understanding variance. And this is a habit that destroys people. Casual variance is. A winning streak means they're a genius, and a bad beat means that sports are rigged. And that is

[06:30] simply not how betting works. Even profitable sharp bettors lose, and they lose a lot. That's completely normal. And that's because variance exists in every market. Sharp bettors understand that short-term results mean almost

[06:44] nothing. That's why they focus on volume, process, discipline, and their long-term edge over the market. Meanwhile, you'll see casual bettors panic emotionally after every losing streak. And honestly, variance is why

[06:58] most people fail. Not because they can't find good bets, but because they collapse emotionally when variance hits. The biggest thing that made me a sharper sports better was completely changing the way that I thought about sports

[07:11] betting emotionally, and trying to predict perfectly. And instead, focused on expected value, line shopping, bankroll management, and my long-term process. And once you commit to doing those things, sports betting starts to

[07:26] make a lot more sense. Because profitable betting has way less to do with knowing ball, and way more to do with discipline and numbers. I hope this video helps you get rid of some of those casual sports betting bad habits.

[07:39] Because once you stop betting emotionally, and start understanding entire sports betting industry works very differently than most people very differently than most people realize.