key points

  • For a better understanding of your overall sports betting performance, you should track your results.
  • Benefits include a better understanding of when it’s time to increase or decrease your stakes or rate of play.
  • The biggest downside is the time commitment, but you can improve your efficiency after an initial learning curve.

Sports betting can be entertaining, but there is some legwork that you’ll need to do to keep it that way. Tracking your results may sound tedious, but it can help you improve your game, spot weaknesses and make critical budgeting decisions. Read on for a complete explanation of an often overlooked part of betting on sports successfully.

Is it necessary to track sports betting results?

If you bet on sports occasionally and casually, then you can bypass detailed tracking of your results. That said, you should still have a complete handle on your deposits, withdrawals and overall bottom line no matter what.

For those who bet more frequently, then tracking your results is a key step to take on your quest for long-term success. By tracking diligently, you’ll gain a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses, and also clarity on when you may need to adapt your approach.

Any cons of tracking your results?

The biggest downside to tracking your betting results is the time commitment. Those who enjoy doing record-keeping may actually enjoy it, but the practice can be pretty tedious for those who aren’t into it.

On the bright side, the process becomes much quicker as you gain more experience. If you build it into your routine and keep up to date regularly, the time commitment will eventually become less.

What should you be tracking?

Tracking your results can provide you with a great perspective on your overall performance, but what you learn will only be as good as the information that you’re covering. At a minimum, you can start with tracking the following:

For efficiency purposes, do your best to get in the habit of tracking your wagers as soon as you place them and updating the results once they’re settled. It’ll be much less time-consuming if you do it this way as opposed to playing catch-up.

In addition to your betting results, keep a running ledger of your deposits and withdrawals. This will help keep you even more focused on your bottom line, as well as how much you’re spending or earning on an overall basis.

Sports Betting 101

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Digging even deeper

If all of your wagers are always the same, such as on spreads or player props, then you can stick to the simple approach we outlined above. However, many bettors vary their bets more.

Once you have the basics down, separate your results by the types of wagers that you place. You’ll still want to have an overall view of your success rate, but dividing the results into categories may help point out any strengths and weaknesses.

As an example, let’s say that it’s NFL season and you have a three-pronged betting approach: spreads, player props and moneyline parlays. You’ll want to track each bet individually, and also group them into specific categories.

From there, you’ll be able to dig deeper into your results. You may find that you’re having most of your success in one category and may want to spend more time there while dialing back on the others. And you’ll be able to spot any trouble areas that much easier.

Ways to track your results efficiently

The goal of results tracking is to improve your game, but the natural instinct is to want to get it done as quickly as possible. To do so, you’ll have to focus on what works best for you.

For some, that could be as simple as the pad-and-pen method of writing down your bets as you place them, followed by going back to tally up the results. Others may prefer to use a spreadsheet or other online method to plug in the data.

In both cases, the efficiency will come by simply staying on top of your tracking. If you take care of the input as you place your bets and tally things up before starting again, it’ll get to the point where it’s simply not much of a hassle.

Many online sportsbooks provide detailed tracking information in your account section. You can easily track all of the ins and outs, and look at the results section for specifics as necessary.

Analyzing your performance

OK, so you’ve been regularly tracking your results. What are you looking for after you’ve tallied up all of your wins, losses, deposits and withdrawals? For starters, look at your overall success rate. Are you winning more than you’re losing and showing a profit? If not, then why not and where have you been going wrong?

Next, drill down into the successes and failures even further. Is there any common ground, such as having success with a specific type of wager while struggling elsewhere? On funding, you’re looking to make sure that you’re staying in your lane. You should have a specific betting budget in place and stick to it no matter what.

By analyzing results and your deposit history, your strengths and weaknesses will become more apparent. You’ll be more likely to make the necessary changes to your sports betting approach as a result. In a perfect world, improvement to your overall bottom line will follow.

Top benefit of results tracking

At the end of the day, there are simply no guarantees when it comes to betting on sports. However, there are ways that you can improve your performance over the long run. Tracking and analyzing your results is one of them.

In virtually any area, knowing what isn’t working is a key step toward figuring out how to make it better. Tracking your results helps you spot any trouble areas. From there, you can adapt your processes and/or eliminate the areas where you’re struggling.

Additionally, knowing where your strengths are can help you to further focus your efforts. If you’re finding success with specific sports or bet types while coming up short in others, the places you should be spending the bulk of your time are pretty clear.

Results tracking is not the golden ticket that will lead to success. There’s no such thing when it comes to sports betting. However, if you take the time to do it and learn from your results, you can still make some notable progress.