College Football Betting: Signs That You Should Stop or Take an Extended Break
By Loot, NCAA Football Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
Gambling on college football is not an area of life where you want to show flippancy. It's serious business and if we're not careful, an unpleasant fate awaits us. It's important as bettors of sport for us to show proper respect to the dynamics of gambling and all the potential pitfalls that await. A lot of us bettors get some crazy notion that since we're using analysis and research, that we're not actually gambling. But we are.
When you start screwing up your life through college football betting, it will be a more-hidden problem. You're not going to have a family intervention or any of the things that other people with problems might have. Sometimes, we need to intervene on ourselves. A lot of bettors reach a point where they either need to regroup in a big way or even think about putting this down for a while.
A bad sign is when other areas of your life begin to suffer. Are you missing your daughter's championship volleyball game because you're at home watching the BYU vs. San Jose State game? Were you not able to get your son the football cleats he wanted because Oklahoma State didn't cover the spread? College football betting is not supposed to do these things to your life. If you find yourself starting to slip in these areas, you might need a break. College pigskin wagering is not good when you're becoming less of a friend to your friends, less of a father to your kids, or less of a husband to your wife.
This one seems more obvious, but we always find excuses. It's when you're losing. You're like King Midas in reverse. Everything you touch turns to doo-doo. You're on a bad run and can't seem to snap out of it. And it really doesn't matter how it got to that point. Sure, you had some brutal twists of fate. Referees were conspiring against you or no one could hit a late field goal that would have covered the spread for you.
This is a bottom-line business. Losing is losing at the end of the day, regardless of how snake-bitten you might feel. And while having a cruel twist of fate preventing you from winning a bet might allow to remain confident about your overall handicapping ability, it's affect on your mood and subsequent actions are probably worse than if you had just lost the wager in a rout. Having a slew of bets pan out like that in a short window of time might have a bad impact on your mind, requiring you to catch your breath and regain your composure before resuming your betting.
We have all been stuck on that hamster wheel of betting. It's hard to get off. We're caught up in a wave of momentum and inertia and we can lose ourselves a little bit. The voice we used when we began is now being drowned out by a more unreasonable person, one who is controlled by impulse and the need to make immediate amends on failed wagers. Sometimes, we need to force ourselves to jump off that hamster wheel and go chill in the cedar bedding for a while until we cool off and can start hearing the more reasonable voice we were using when we began.
QUIT THROWING AWAY YOUR HARD EARNED LOOT! BET ON COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES AT DISCOUNTED ODDS -105 THIS SEASON AT 5DIMES
We all begin betting on college football with a noble-enough outlook. We set out with a plan--what types of games we will bet, how much, and all the things that constitute a sound wagering plan. Your success as a bettor will come down to a lot of things, but one of the biggest considerations is whether or not you can hold true to your original plans.
At some point, take a good hard look at yourself. Are you adhering to your plan? Or are you unraveling when things either go well or badly? When you get on a hot streak, do you start looking at that money as the "house's money," giving you license to treat it willy-nilly? And when you lose, do you find yourself unable to rest until you've at least made an effort to right the ship? The landscape of NCAA football betting is a treacherous one. A lot of smart guys whose intelligence you greatly respect have been unable to remain composed in this world. Respect that and try your darnedest to not fall into these traps. If you do, you're gonna need to step away from it and regroup, if not quit altogether.
