Every sports bettor starts somewhere.
Maybe it was a trip to the track with the railbird in your family. Maybe you caught the itch in your first March Madness pool. For others, it was flipping through The Post, landing on the sports section, and asking your old man what all those numbers on the betting page meant.
For millions of new bettors, though, it starts with The Big Game.
The Super Bowl is the biggest betting event on the sports calendar, which makes it a natural entry point for a brand-new wave of bettors. Ten years from now, there will be thousands of seasoned gamblers who trace it all back to next weekend’s game at Levi’s Stadium.
If you are thinking about getting started, we have outlined the foundational elements of responsible gambling below. There is a lot more to it than just these first four steps, but if you commit to these guidelines, you will give yourself the best possible footing from day one.
Bankroll management
This is the most important part of sports betting. You can have the sharpest reads in the world, but without discipline, your bankroll will disappear fast. On the flip side, even an average bettor who manages their money well has a better chance of surviving and succeeding long term.
The simplest approach is to set aside a specific amount of money strictly for betting. There is no perfect number. The best rule is to decide how much you can comfortably afford to lose and treat that as your bankroll.
From there, you need to define your standard bet size, often called a unit.
Most experienced bettors recommend keeping each unit between 1 and 3 percent of your total bankroll.
Betting on the NFL?
Don’t chase losses
Nobody has a linear journey in betting. It’s a roller coaster. But those who avoid getting too high or too low will have a more enjoyable — and successful — experience.
The easiest way to lose your head in betting is by chasing your losses. We’ve all been there. You’re on the wrong side of a bad beat in the afternoon window, and you think you can just win it all back in primetime.
Maybe it works. But it’s just as likely to not.
The quicker you can learn to accept losing and bad luck as part of betting, the better.
Implied probability
There is more to betting than simply picking winners. To bet responsibly and with any hope of long-term success, you need to understand what the odds are actually telling you.
Every set of odds reflects a probability (ex: A bet that is +100 has a 50 percent chance of winning). In other words, the sportsbook is assigning a likelihood to an outcome based on its pricing. When you see odds on a game, you are not just looking at potential payouts. You are looking at how likely the book believes that result is to happen, with its built-in margin (aka the vig or juice) included.
Learning how to translate odds into implied probability allows you to compare your own opinion of an outcome to the sportsbook’s expectation and decide whether a bet is worth making at all.
There are several tools online to quickly convert odds to implied probability. Get familiar with them.
Line-shopping
Several sportsbooks are operating in the United States, and they do not always agree on pricing. Different books can offer different odds, spreads, or totals on the same game.
Think of it like two McDonald’s right next to each other. One charges $6 for a Big Mac, while the other charges $5.50. You are getting the exact same product, but one option is simply cheaper.
Sports betting works the same way. By comparing lines across multiple sportsbooks, you can find better prices and slightly better odds on the same bet. Over time, those small differences add up. Line shopping does not guarantee wins, but consistently getting the best available number can have a real impact on your results and help protect your bankroll in the long run.
Why Trust New York Post Betting
Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.