MLB Betting Advice: Keep Your Emotions in Check
By Loot, MLB Handicapper, Lootmeister.com
Think about a pitcher who loses his cool. He’s almost never as effective as he was before he lost it. The shortstop boots a ball, the catcher lets a ball get by him to advance the runner, then he scores on a bloop single just outside of the reach of an infielder. He can get steamed. He was doing well until some extenuating circumstances threw him off-center.
Don’t let this happen to you when you wager on baseball. There are some cruel twists of fate in this game and over a 162-game season, there will be some losses that are truly difficult to stomach. The key is to stay on-point and not allow these things to throw your baseball handicapping into a tailspin. A lot of otherwise solid pickers of winners are no longer betting on baseball because they couldn’t master the emotional component.
Just like the pitcher who loses his way on the mound after some disheartening plays, a bettor who gets flustered is a diminished force. The quality of your choices starts to slip and next thing you know--you’re trying to sneak 88 mph heat by a fastball hitter. A red-faced gambling man is a man who is usually going to lose.
If you could see footage of the country’s top baseball bettors, you would see a group of men who are composed and calculating individuals. You would see guys who have a deep-rooted understanding of the unpredictable nature of baseball. They know the best teams lose 40% of the time and the worst teams win at about the same clip. In addition, they keep their expectations in line considering the high rate of failure when betting this sport.
There is a certain way that the pros handle winning and losing that really sets them apart from the general betting public. The guys who are really good at this remain stoic during the inevitable swings in fate--whether good or bad. When on a winning run, they don’t get big-headed. They stick with the girl they brought to the dance. At no point do they regard their won money as “the house’s money,” giving themselves license to start swinging from the hip. They stick to their strategy.
When losing, they are able to put it in its proper perspective. Just as good teams have bad weeks or even a bad month here and there, a bettor worth his salt will not go into panic mode on the heels of a handful of setbacks. Bad swings are an inevitable part of betting on baseball. When something is inevitable, you don’t sweat it too much. You don’t overhaul your betting strategy or start making other frantic moves.
When bettors start losing, any number of things can happen--most of them negative. A betting man may feel that he is due to start winning and he increases the size of his bets. This is poor money management and a sure-fire way to bankrupt your bankroll. This type of player selectivity begins to slip, as he starts betting on games that previously would not have met his standards. The bookies rely on this. They know most bettors begin to deteriorate after a string of misfortune and it’s almost always going to end up hurting them.
This is as important a consideration a betting man will have to deal with during his growth as a MLB bettor. The tendency to implode in the face of failure is a surefire recipe for failure. It’s quite an insidious trait. It almost always leads to ruin. The losing bettor will lose his bankroll quicker, being that he never keeps his cool when he’s losing, which he tends to do anyway. The more depressing situation is when a good handicapper allows this to happen.
You could in fact be a talented bettor of baseball. It won’t matter if when every time things begin to go south, you fall apart at the seams. It doesn’t matter how good someone is at betting if they deconstruct in the face of losing. There will be those bad stretches and it’s not a matter of “if,” but rather “when.” The inability to handle these periods of struggle will render all positive betting traits moot. You could have all the talent in the world, but if it’s just a a matter of time before you unravel, failure is the only possible outcome.
