How to Manage Emotions

Emotion will likely play a big part during your betting experience  and understanding how to control those is important. When placing a bet, you should always ask yourself why you have come to that decision. Is the bet adding value to your experience and what was your process in coming to that decision?  

Betting with your heart

This is where the decision is based on an emotional connection to what you are backing. Whether this is picking your lifelong supported team to win the league or favourite horse to win, you should ask yourself if the added value to the experience is matching what you are planning to spend on it.  As a fan you will feel great if your team wins and that emotion will be present whether you have backed them to win or not. 

If you are placing a bet like this you should understand where the decision has come from, if it is solely because of an emotional connection you should think smartly about how much you need to spend on this. Paying less for the same outcome is definitely responsible play!

Betting with your head

In comparison to using your heart to inform your decisions, a bet placed on the back of you doing your research and is not influenced by factors such as the team you support is a better strategy and one that will create an experience of value in the form of entertainment.

By removing the emotional element, you can make decisions which are based on information relevant to the event.

You will also be better placed to reflect on the outcome of your bets and give you an opportunity to learn from your previous bets and improve your decision-making process moving forward.

Reacting to outcomes

When you place a bet, you should be aware of the possible outcomes. How you react to those outcomes is an important part of betting and is a skill. 

Long term goals

You should always consider your long-term goals for betting. The outcome of a single bet should never cause you to overreact, this goes for both winners and losers. 

 

Staking plans allow you to do this effectively. If you back a winner, you shouldn’t over react by increasing your stakes or frequency of bets. Equally if you back a loser, chasing that loss is not something which pays off in the long term. Each time this approach is taken you are diluting the experience of entertainment and replacing it with less enjoyable things. We do not want anyone to to take that approach.

Further reading

Betting involves emotion and that is a big part of the enjoyment. As with many other factors it is how you control them is the key to having fun. Have a look at some of our other articles below.