What Happens When You Lose A Bet
What Does Tie Mean In Sports Betting?
by Doc's Sports - 10/10/2014
I’m sure all you all know what a tie is in sports - when two teams or individuals finish a game with the same number of points, and there is no winner. Mercifully, it is pretty tough for ties to happen in most sports. In basketball and baseball they just keep playing until there is a winner. Hockey uses a shootout to end ties in the regular season, and plays until it’s over in the playoffs. Football can have ties - at least in the NFL - but new overtime rules make it tougher all the time for one to actually happen. Only soccer consistently delivers ties - a contributing reason why it isn’t as popular here as other sports.
The amount that you win or lose on a moneyline bet is set by the plus or minus sign and the number that is attached to it. Let’s start with the times that we are the underdogs. As we already know, when we are the underdogs we are going to get paid more than a standard even bet. If you’ve ever bet with friends, you probably. For example, if you lay a bet at 1.5 1/2 for £10 you are liable for £5 and will win £10 if the bet lands. But if you lay a bet a 3.5 5/2 for £10, you are risking £25 for the chance to win £10.
In sports betting, a tie means much the same thing, but it is slightly different - and more common as a result. The term tie in sports betting simply refers to a wager where no money was either won or lost. It is also commonly referred to as a push.
A tie can happen whether you are betting point spreads or totals. If, for example, a spread was three points, and the final score was 17-14 with the favorite winning. Whether you bet on the favorite or the underdog in that case you would not be a winner, but you also wouldn’t lose. You would get your entire bet back without penalty, and the sportsbooks would make nothing on the transaction. Similarly, if the total was 31 and the score was, again, 17-14 then neither over bettors nor under ones would be winners. They would both get a refund.
For the most part a tie doesn’t mean much for bettors - it’s just a mulligan, giving you another chance to pick a winner next time. There are times, though, when you need to be very aware of what ties mean, and how they should impact your bet selection process. One good example is with parlays. Some sportsbooks will treat a tie in a game in a parlay as just a voided game. If you have a tie in a three-game parlay, for example, then the whole parlay will just change into a two-team parlay. No big deal. Other books, though, will treat a tie as a loss in a parlay. That means, then, that the spread you are betting it is actually a half point worse than the one it says you are betting. If you aren’t aware of this then it can be surprising - and costly.
Doc's Sports is offering $60 worth of handicapper picks absolutely free - no obligation, no sales people - you don't even have to enter credit card information. You can use this $60 credit any way you please for any handicapper and any sport on Doc's Sports Advisory Board list of expert sports handicappers. Click here for more details and take advantage of this free $60 picks credit today .
Get all of Doc's Sports How To Articles Here.
Betting on sports for many people adds to the enjoyment of viewing. Instead of just flipping a contest on television or your phone, having “skin in the game” heightens the experience.
But what happens when you lose a sports bet, and all that excitement turns into dissatisfaction? It’s one thing when your favorite team loses, but practical thinkers realize they are not on the team’s payroll and any defeat doesn’t cost them a dime. However, if you had money and, in some cases, too much money involved, in the immortal words of Chris Farley, “…that’s going to leave a mark!”.
Here are common-sense rules to follow about how to cope with losing sports bets for a day, a week or hopefully not, for a month.
Respect Your Bankroll
When doing any sort of betting on sports, it’s not about how much you win, it’s how much you can afford to lose.
Let’s face it, all of us throw away money on dumb things, and we do it more than we care to admit. Say we are having a tough time at work, the bosses are harping, and instead of living your life in a normal fashion, we go out for drinks and food too often for a month, and after that period we realize that we are way over our normal budget and we have to cut way back for the next 30 days to get back on track.
In essence, you realized you spent money you really should not have and adjusted. This directly applies to set a bankroll for betting sports. If you have $100, $500 or a $1,000 to use for your entertainment, make sure that will not impact your lifestyle because the sportsbooks are creating betting odds that appeal to both sides of a game with the hope that 100 bettors take one side and 100 other bettors choose the other.
If you have, say, $500 to wager with, betting $100 a game is foolhardy, because you could blow through that in no time. If that is how much you have, you should be more in the $20 to $30 a game betting. Respecting your bankroll and staying within your limits doesn’t make losing any less painful, but it can take the sting out.
Understanding Money Management
Any true sports betting professional will extol the virtues of managing your money. It’s like the famous old line, “It’s not how much money you make that matters, it’s how much you keep.”
In sports wagering, you are going to have rough days, that is why for many, flat betting (same amount wagered on each game) makes sense for most gamblers.
This takes the pressure off of trying to win the - one big bet. Every sports bettor has done this and eventually learned from it. If you made eight wagers and won six of them, or 75 percent, and ended up losing money on the day, your methods are wrong. You should never have that much money riding on one outcome having won that percentage of bets.
The impact of one loss should not alter your outcome that severely.
What Happens When You Lose A Bet Belmont Stakes
NEVER Chase Losses
The best thing that ever happened to bookies or sportsbooks was Monday Night Football and later, Sunday Night Football. This is some of the easiest money they ever make, because countless bettors who suffered a losing day will try and get even, betting on one game they were indifferent about to start with.
Best advice: NEVER chase losing days. The beauty of sports betting is that there is always another game another day. Think about your everyday life; do you make great decisions every day of the year? Of course not. You like, everyone makes bone-headed mistakes, so why would betting on sports be any different?
If you had not decided to bet on the Sunday or Monday night game at the start of the day, trying to play catch up is often a bad choice.
Losing is A Component of Sports Betting
In any given sport, the very best experts having a great season are going to lose four in 10 wagers at the best. Oh sure, a few outliers will do even better, but those are not many.
If losing drives you crazy, betting on anything, let alone sports, probably isn’t for you. If you are a salesman, you don’t close every deal and will have hot and cold streaks. As a professional, you have to deal with the results and look to improve. The same is true when betting money on games; you have to have the mental resolve to take the good with the bad.
How to Position Yourself to Lose Fewer Bets
Just like at your place of employment, how you end up doing better is working harder, smarter and putting in the effort to improve. If you want to win more wagers, having better, useful information can place you in a more advantageous spot to win.
That requires time and a desire for success. Think of this way: you make 100 bets at $100 apiece and you win 50 of them. Now take the time and find methods to say win five more games, and you have gone from losing $500 to winning $550. That’s an investment in yourself.
What Happens When You Lose A Bet Take
If your life is too busy and pulling you in different directions, a Doc’s Sports subscription can be a wise choice to curtail losing. Each Doc’s handicapping expert was thoroughly vetted and only shares his expertise at Doc’s and no place else, all at very affordable pricing.
Losing at sports wagering is not fun, but by following these betting tips, you can find it more tolerable.
Doug Upstone of Doc’s Sports has 21 documented No. 1 titles and finished in the Top Ten 80+ other times in a distinguished career. Doug as a professional handicapper/writer, has written for various well-known sports betting websites and several of the football newsletters you have read before.
----------------------------------------------------------------
New Customers, use $60 Free Money to get my Hot Picks daily.
Check out Doug's Winning Plays! Click Here and start collecting cash!