NFL Betting: Can You Sustain Losing Streaks?
by Charles of Predictem.com
If handicapping and betting on NFL games is what you really want to do, and you are kind of new to it (which in this case means that you have been involved for a few years or less), one of the things that must be understood is that you are going to have some bad weeks/losing streaks; that is, if you are looking upon it realistically. No one wins every week, or at an ungodly rate, despite what your friends and/or colleagues may want to claim.
Now for the big question: are you prepared for it?
Things may literally fall apart from time to time. One “bad beat” may lead to another, then another, then yet another. And you are going to be looking at that pile of rubble on Sunday night and wondering “Where the hell am I, and how do I get it all back?”
Well, the answer to that last question is “not all at once.” This is one of the critical mistakes people make, and certainly it’s what’s made Monday Night Football such a popular thing. Forget the so-called “bailout” play. That’s a loser’s strategy. And it’s part of what we want to address. It’s one thing not to be able to sustain a bad week or two from a financial standpoint; we’re a little more concerned over whether you can do it from a psychological perspective.
It is crucial to keep your cool; to comes to grips with the fact that this will happen to everyone eventually (no matter what anyone else wants to tell you). It becomes doubly important when you lose games in the most incredible ways. A mid-season 2012 NFL game between the Seahawks and 49ers was an example of it, especially if you laid 8-1/2 points with San Francisco, but we won’t delve too far into that bad memory.
You want to deal with these bad weeks as if you were a football coach. That is to say, what’s done is done, and you have to regroup, review what you’ve done, make adjustments as necessary, and stick to your basic philosophy, if that is something you believed in the first place. You may want to take a look at why you may have won or lost certain games; whether you may have made a mistake that can be corrected. Then go about your business.
Try to be consistent. A common error that can be made is to get too hyper-aggressive or too gun-shy. Some folks try to make it all up in one fell swoop, while others may play way too scared. The best suggestion here is to stick with the wagering game plan you had before, as long as it is in proportion to your overall bankroll, of course. If you are new to this thing, you might have a tendency to lose confidence in your own judgment. Then you start to hold back when the situation calls for you to charge forward, or start relying on a hundred different opinions when the plan was to digest and interpret information, then make an informed decision. If you have undertaken to handicap your own games, then continue on that road. If you figure you need help, use it as something that is supplemental to what you are doing already.
When I say all of this I am operating under the assumption that your intention is to be in this for the long-term, because that is what NFL betting is – a long-term proposition. No one proves himself over the course of one or two weekends, or even an entire season. If you’re any good at this, you’re going to do it over the long haul.
It’s possible.
But to draw another analogy, in terms of overall courage you may want to look at yourself like an NFL quarterback. That is to say, if you’re serious about this, you have to be able to stand in there, in the face of the heat, and deliver. This is not a pursuit for wimps. To relay a personal story, I was giving plays to a friend and had a couple of winning weeks, then a bad week where he had a couple of losers – one of them a “bad beat.” He cried about it, and I told him that since I did not have time for babies, he’d have to get his plays from somewhere else.
If you are not willing to accept the speed bumps that invariably come with it, the journey down the NFL betting highway (and the same could be said about other sports as well) should not be taken, because you are sure to get “car-sick.”
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