What qualities have the best tipsters and punters?

I’ve been linked to the sports betting world for many years. After betting and earning some good extra pay for a long time I created a blog where I posted my daily Tennis and Football picks.  Later on I founded Sportyy.com and after tipping for free during 1 year I started selling my tennis tips as a premium tipster. I have also managed my own portfolio of tipsters, that I ran as an investment. I was the co-creator of a mathematical prediction model that didn’t work.  Finally I decided to found Pyckio.com. Pyckio is a marketplace and sports betting social network. One of our objectives is to find the best world betting experts in every sport and give them the oppotunity to become PRO tipsters. After being for so long connected to the tipping world I think I know what are the qualities that meet the best tipsters and bettors. After all there is a very thin line between both.

1. To be passionate about the sport you tip on. The great tipsters use to be really passionate about the sports they tip on. Watching matches, reading articles, making good research about all the information that can affect the odds… is imperative. I know few tipsters who aren’t freaks on the sport they tip on.

2. To have enough time to analyse the matches properly. It’s necessary to dispose of several hours a day to make a good reserch. Just looking at the latest results and a pair of statistics and reading the last games reports is not enought. The best bettors spend many hours doing research. I am myself an example. These days I don’t have enough time to analyse in depth the football and tennis fixtures and my performance in Pyckio proves so :-). I suggest looking at the Pyckio rankings. You can find there many good tipsters.

3. To keep a cool head in the bad runs . Even the best world bettor experiences bad runs from time to time. The random factor in betting is key in the short runs. It isn’t possible to avoid drawdowns; sooner or later they will arrive. The intensity of the damage will depend on how aggressive our staking is. I’ve seen several great tipsters ruin their results because they weren’t able to control themselves in a bad streak. Overbetting and raising stakes to recover losses are 2 classic bettors’ mistakes. Yes, we have all made that bet at 1.40 odds without thinking too much in order to recover the money lost in some previous bets, haven’t we? And we have lost it… I think that keeping a cool head in the bad runs is one of the most difficult qualities to find in a tipster. It’s also important not to feel like superman when you are on fire and you don’t stop winning. Confidence is good for betting but overconfidence is very dangerous.

4. To manage your bankroll conservatively. This point is related to the previous one. There are many good bettors who ruin everything because their bankroll management strategy is too risky. I have seen many times how tipsters suggest to risk 5% of your bankroll in one single bet as a rule. With such high stakes the probability of bankruptcy is really high. I’ve come to lose 16 consecutive tennis bets at odds on. The random factor can put you into trouble if you don’t manage your bankroll conservatively. If your stakes are too high a bad streak will get you out of the business sooner or later. I suggest not risking more than 1.5-2% of your bankroll in one single bet if your average odds are next to 2.0 and lower if odds are higher. In some weeks we will write an article about money management in sports betting.

5. To be humble. I don’t like overconfident tipsters. There might be some exceptions but generally speaking the best tipsters are humble because they know how difficult is to win money betting. It isn’t easy to beat the bookmakers’ margins in the long run. Run away from tipsters who speak with lots of conviction and who promise to help you win money with their tips. The best tipsters are cautious and do not promise or guarantee positive yields, even though they might have the confidence they can do it.

6. Some Maths. Winning in sports betting consists of estimating probabilities better than the market, taking into account the bookies margins. If odds for a team to win are 1.75, our likelihood should be higher than 1/1.75 = 57.1% to bet on that team if be are rational bettors. Obviously no human mind can estimate probabilities accurately. Good tipsters and punters are  good at discerning if some odds are too high or too low, based on their experience. But it is true that is quite advisable to compute the implied probability in the odds.  I have personally changed many times my decision after doing this excercise. For example, I can be convinced that Real Madrid is going to beat Malaga. Odds are 1.05. But then I make the numbers and I come up with a 95.2% implied probability (1/1.05) for Madrid to beat Malaga. Now it looks my conviction is more than reflected in the price, isn’t it?

7. The virtue of intuition. I think intuition is achieved over the years, after having made thousands and thousands of bets. Some will get it earlier and some later but all smart bettors and tipsters I know share this talent, this ability, this different.thinking that makes them unique.

8. Focus on the process, not the results. Unskilled punters and tipsters often make the mistake of linking a winning result with their own foresight and forecast, whilst a losing result might just be considered bad luck. In reality, the link between cause and effect in highly uncertain environments like sports betting is very weak. When considering just one bet, how can we be sure that a win was not just lucky too? In truth, we can’t. Luck plays too big a roll. The relationship between our forecasts and our results only begins to appear slowly over hundreds of bets. Consequently, tipsters should aim to think probabilistically, not deterministically, forget about results after they’ve happened, whether they’re wins or losses, and focus solely on the analytical process.

To sum up, winning money betting in the long haul is tough and anyone who wants to try it should acquire the above mentioned capabilities. I think these 8 points are present in all good punters and tipsters. No one is born with these master skills. Moreover, theory is much different from practice.  Pyckio offers you the possibility of using our platform to learn and prove yourself at real market odds without risking a penny. In future we’ll give all our tipsters the possibility of resetting their statistics. The issue of statistics resetting in sports betting tipping is controversial. Although we are against those tipsters who continually reset their numbers we know many Pyckio users are “new tipsters” that are in a learning stage. We think isn’t fair that these statistics achieved in a learning period can pursue you for life. Therefore, we will let resetting under some conditions.

Last but not least, if you aren’t registered in Pyckio yet and you want to prove yourself, sign up here. It’s Free.