9. Making Betting Selections

Having established that using a good Selection System is an absolute must, just how does the average Bettor actually go about making his/her betting selections? Our research has shown us that the two principal approaches taken are as follows:

• Those who are more conservative look at the "Short Odds" calls, and plays safe by selecting only those matches where they themselves feel very confident about the outcome.
• Those who are more adventurous analyse the matches and Odds on offer, and then make selections based on their own gut feeling about how the matches will turn out, making sure that the Odds on offer match their concept of a "value" bet.

The important thing to note here is that neither of the above approaches is "systemised", although those in the first group believe that they are limiting losses while increasing their winning chances. But what the majority in that first group generally do not take proper account of is how the Bookies have fixed the Odds to ensure that they, the Bookies, will come out on top in the long run. So if you bet on ALL the "favourites", eventually you are still more likely to lose money than make money! It is therefore essential that you become very selective in placing your "favourites" bets.

The second group fares a lot worse because, unfortunately for them, the variance in the "value" range will be different for each of them, and it will also vary considerably from bet to bet, making the concept of "value" betting meaningless. The reality here is that the majority of those people do not have any means whatsoever of identifying "true" value bets.

The problem is, most people wouldn't know where to begin if they had to devise their own worthwhile Selection System, and those clever enough to be able to do so simply wouldn't have the time to do it (it is a very arduous task).

In fact, there are only two groups of people who do bother to spend the time and money to do so properly: (i) Bookies and (ii) Sports Tipsters. However, while you can be 100% sure that all Bookies operate a good Selection System (but they won't share it with you), you can be sure that 99% of so-called "expert" tipsters don't. In fact, the number of soccer betting tipsters doing a proper job on the Internet can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The reality of the matter is this: if you don't have a Selection System that is sound in every respect, then you are just as badly off as if you had no Selection System at all! And even if you find a good tipster service, you must still exercise a great deal of caution in making your final selections, looking carefully at their success rate for the specific type of tips they are offering. If you fail to do this, then you can be certain of one thing: you will lose all your money somewhere down the road!