Winning and losing – not unlike life – are both part of the sports betting experience. Experiencing one necessarily means having to experience the other. Again, not unlike our approach to life in general, the fact that we’ve won or lost isn’t nearly as significant as how we choose to deal with each when they do happen to arise.
Even more important is our reaction not necessarily to single win or loss – up or down – but to a cluster of wins or losses. Casino gamblers typically refer to clusters as “streaks”. Streaks are what happen when the toss of a coin results in a “tails” twenty-two times in a row, when “red” is the result on the Roulette wheel for what can feel like the entire evening, or when the Blackjack dealer draws four perfect Blackjacks in a row.
Whether experiencing a winning or a losing cluster or streak, what will ultimately set apart the enjoyer of long-term sports betting success from the early copper-outer, isn’t as much the winning or losing result of a cluster as what it is how the bettor handles the emotions experienced as a result of long periods of losing and long periods of winning.
Know This: You Need Failure
It’s no secret: failure breads success much in the same way as what resistance and weight build muscle and strength.
But in order to really prepare ourselves for the internal mental fight likely to follow a string of losses recorded over an extended period of time, it is important that we right from the start become aware of what we’re likely to experience in such an event. Or in other words, forewarned being the same as forearmed.
Common reactions to losing clusters include:
- A loss of self-confidence and of confidence in strategy.
- Developing an obsession with losing – leading in and of itself to even more losses.
- Developing low levels of mental energy.
- Increasing the size of a bet simply to get that bet over and done with – a winning strategy for losing money if ever there were such a thing.
- Changing a strategy and approach that has served you well for many years on a whim and in a heartbeat.
Avoid Extreme Reactions
Knowing that betting in Australia on sports will inevitably present you with a fair share of challenges all throughout your journey is the first step to growing that much-needed “thick skin”.
Certainly helpful is imagining a typical everyday life challenge – as well as your response to such a challenge. Begin by imagining your computer for whatever reason giving up the ghost and refusing to even as much as power up. Since most of us have had to deal with this particular annoyance, you’re probably thinking along the lines of calling up the local IT-guy, hoisting your machine off to the nearest computer repair store, etc.
What you’re probably not thinking is dumping it all in the trash and rushing out to buy a whole new system. Why? Because common sense tells you that more likely than the need for a complete replacement, is that of only a single component having bombed out.
It’s the same with a sports betting losing streak. Instead of giving the entire business up as a bad job, a far better approach would be to take it all apart and only change the one or two approaches in need of a tweak.