Betting on sports is all about winning, but too many bettors end up losing money with an overall negative winning percentage. Nobody bets to lose, but the reality of the situation is that most recreational bettors lose more than they win. Even the best professional handicappers are shooting for a consistent winning rate of 60 percent to earn a decent return on their money.

Top online sportsbooks make their money on the commission they charge for losing bets. All things being equal, the standard 10 percent juice is the profit between paying out $100 on a winning bet and collecting the $110 on the losing one. That is why the book’s primary focus is on trying to spread the total money bet on a game evenly across both sides. Sometimes that works to perfection and sometimes the books (or bettors) get hung out to dry if there is a heavy lean one way or the other in a particular matchup.

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Anyone even casually familiar with sports betting knows that the general lean in any sport and in any game is towards the favorite on the side and the OVER on the total. The sportsbooks can try and adjust a betting spread to even out the betting, but when the betting public goes heavy on the favorite and wins, they are going to take a beating. Fortunately for the books, underdogs have a way of covering or winning straight up at just the right time.

Regardless of what a sportsbook does with its betting lines or how the general public is betting a certain game, one of the most basic way to improve your sports betting winning percentage is by minimizing your losses.

Every sports bettor goes through winning streaks and losing skids. Unfortunately for most bettors, the winning streaks never seem to last nearly as long as the losing skids. Most times your results are probably mixed, but could you imagine just how much more money you would have if you eliminated just one loss from all the bets you place each week? Even if you are only betting $10 a game, that would add up to an extra $572 in your betting bankroll over the course of a year.

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Of course, the ideal way to minimize losses would be by winning more of your bets, but that is not a practical solution to this dilemma. Most of those losing wagers should have never been placed. Once again, nobody bets real money to lose real money. However, how many recreational bettors actually take the time to truly gauge an overall level of confidence in that particular play?

Every single time you are ready to pull the trigger on an actual wager, you should stop and take the time to assess your true motivation for betting that way. Did you thoroughly research this matchup to come up with your conclusion or did some outside source heavily influence you? Just because some so-called media expert tells you that Dallas covering this week is a lock does not mean you should take their advice while risking your hard-earned money.

The one way around this is to buy your picks from a sports betting expert. You should win more and lose less with this strategy, but the upfront cost could cut deep into your overall betting bankroll depending how big you are betting the games.

Betting less is not the answer unless you can improve your overall winning percentage. The juice owed on the losses will still add up in the long run. Betting smart is the only way to minimize losses. Do not place a bet just to have some action on the big game. Never chase losses with additional bets and always, always remember that when it comes to sports betting (or any betting for that matter) there is no such thing as a lock.