College Football Betting: Respecting the Money
By Loot, Sports Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
In college football betting a lot of bettors fall into the trap of looking at their betting dollars differently than how they perceive money normally. Some guys start to look at their wagering funds similar to how some may perceive Monopoly money. Or when they win money, they have problems perceiving it as their money.
We've all done this. We win money from the house and proceed to treat it with less respect than we would with money we earned on a paycheck from work, for example. That's not a good way to look at it. Sure, if you go to Vegas once every couple of years and treat won money a bit cavalierly, that's one thing. To succeed in college football betting, however, we need to give money our full respect.
The sportsbook will happily take your money and be able to treat it as their money. So why when some of us win money, do we look at it like it's the "house's money?" It was their money, but after winning the bet, it became our money. And that's how it should be perceived. Once that money crosses the betting window into our hands or is credited to our account online--it is now ours!
It is crucial that we look at it the right way. If you regard that won money from the book as something less than your money, you're in dangerous territory. Look at it just like how you look at that $20 bill in your wallet. It's yours. There are a host of problems that come with failing to recognize it as your money.
When winning money, some bettors tend to start looking at it differently than the money that they have earned. They say that won money is twice as good as earned money. Maybe so. But it sure doesn't do you any good if you begin treating with a certain disregard. At root, there is no merit to the phrase "the house's money." It officially becomes yours once it hits your hands or your account balance. It's no longer the "house's money." It's your money. So when you decide to let it hang loose because you won and you're now playing with the "house's money," don't get it twisted. That's your money now.
You should approach your college football wagering with the same mindset you had before you won the money. The reason you won money in the first place is because you were doing the right things. If winning money changes your outlook to the point where your previously successful approach starts to unravel, that's a problem. Just as college football bettors need to master how to handle themselves in the face of losing, we need to make sure winning doesn't deteriorate our sensibilities.
Something happens in the minds of bettors and it's a puzzling thing. They see an account balance and there is s separation of reality. They just don't look at $1000 in their pockets and $1000 in their account balance the same way. There's a separation there, a dynamic that causes some bettors to perceive the money in the account balance as something that is less than completely their money.
We need to remember it is our money. Seems like a weird thing to have to say, but some people look at their account balance and that number doesn't mean as much as it really should. Maybe it's just the way we grew up. For a lot of us, cash was king. We could see it, smell it, and feel it. It's more real to us somehow. When we look at our account balance, we can't touch it. It's just a number on the screen. And a lot of times, it doesn't resonate in our minds the same way if we were just presented with a pile of cash.
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With actual money, we can take it and go buy things, pay our bills, or go get something to eat. You can't use that money in your account balance right away. You need to have the book process a payout, then wait for your funds to come. In the minds of some betting men, that causes them to develop a different perception about that money--a diminished sense of respect.
It's an important consideration in sports-betting. We're going to lose some wagers and we know that right out of the gate. So it makes it extra important how we treat the money when it comes our way. And if we treat it with a lack of respect, it's going to that much harder to beat the bookie.
