Best Betting Guide: Comprehensive Betting Guide For Beginners

In our attempt to enlighten our reader’s views and knowledge on betting, our experts have planned the best betting guide in a new edition of our new betting tips page. 

There is no doubt that betting needs top knowledge for punters to succeed on a significant scale. Our betting tips page is another way we think we can help you maximise potential profit-making avenues. Without further delay, we will delve into our new edition, which is a step-by-step process in our usual model.

What Is Sports/Football Betting?

Sports/Football betting is the activity of predicting sports events and football results, then placing a stake/wager on the outcome. Sports has a history that extends back to the Ancient world in 70,000 BCE. Sports have deep military roots, going back to the earliest days of organised play. 

There are hundreds of sports out there, if not thousands, and currently, football is without a shadow of a doubt, regarded as one of the most popular sports ever played in the universe. 

Football is played on a global scale, with the players being paid a huge amount of money to participate. It also generates huge revenue as a sport that unites people regardless of race, religion, culture, tradition, or colour.  

Fans of the beautiful game of football can be found in almost every country. They can be seen cheering on either their national or club team. Most of them even develop more attachment for their favourite clubs. To sum up, football is consistently ranked first among the most popular sports.

How Much Do People Engage In Sports Betting In Africa?

There are a number of factors which has been observed in recent years contributing to the rapid expansion of sports betting and their markets in African nations. One of these factors is the expanding usage of cell phones and mobile internet. These enable more individuals in African countries to participate in sports betting and make it more accessible for them to do so. Another is the average African’s passion for sports. When one combines these factors, a recipe for deep betting engagement can be seen.

When it comes to betting on sports, football is, by far and away, the most popular sport. In the United Kingdom, a study approximates that forty per cent of all wagers placed are on the sport of football. An in-depth survey conducted in Africa found that 63.21 per cent of gamers in Tanzania place wagers on football matches. 

In Ghana, the percentage of sports bets is roughly 50.55%, whereas, in Kenya, it is approximately 54.52%. While about 47.77% of bets in Nigeria are made on the sport of football, 58.73% of bets in Uganda are placed on the sport of football. The percentage of people who wager on football is relatively low in only one country, South Africa, at 29.21%.

Revenues from sports betting in Nigeria top $2 billion annually, making it the continent’s most lucrative market for the activity. In 2018, the industry of sports betting in Kenya brought in a total of $2 billion Kenyan shillings in revenue. The size of the sports betting market in South Africa is projected to be greater than one billion dollars. This makes it another big business. 

More On African Betting

In Africa, mobile phones are the most common device used for sports betting, and mobile transactions account for more than 70 per cent of the total number of transactions. The number of people using the internet in Zambia increased by 24% in just one year, making it one of the countries with the fastest-growing internet user population. Each year, there is a proportional increase in the total number of users who wager on sporting events in Zambia.

The rise of sports betting in African countries can be attributed to a number of different variables. One such variable is the rise of mobile technology, and another is the high unemployment rates which means a scarcity of work prospects. However, one of the biggest reasons is the strong passion for sports in the African region. Some locals just want to bet that their favourite team will win, and they derive unquantifiable joy from the actualisation of the possibility. 

Even if there are some worries about the possible adverse effects of betting on sports, the sector is still expanding at a rapid rate in Africa. Also, the prospects for the industry’s future are looking very positive. 

Betting Tips Africa maintains that it is crucial that the industry’s regulators and stakeholders work together to ensure that the sector operates responsibly and ethically. This helps to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for all participants as the industry continues to expand.

Also, Betting Tips Africa has sections devoted to revealing the gambling situations in African regions. You can read up on the gambling situations of countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania by clicking on the relevant link. 

Best Betting Guide: The Beginner’s Way

It is a difficult and lengthy journey from being an amateur gambler to being at least a semi-professional tipster. To achieve this is no mean feat, talkless of towing the path to becoming a full professional punter. To make the cut, a lot of trial and error, knowledge, research, focus, energy, and enthusiasm are needed. However, only a small number of people who bet on sports believe the assertion that betting professionals who work in the sports betting industry actually put in the same kind of effort and dedication as any other worker in an office setting.

Betting Tips Africa has long been offering helpful information that enables punters to continue to improve their betting strategies even in the present day. In this edition, we will be helping betting beginners with information via our best betting guide to help them understand betting better as well as help them make the step up to the professional level. 

Betting Tips Africa strives to supply all of its readers with the knowledge and resources required to successfully place better quality bets on football. To get more information on winning football bets, you can refer to our Soccervista section by clicking here. You can rest assured that you will be getting information worth a ton of gold. 

Our experts also provide tips and predictions that actually achieve success in football bets. It is common knowledge that football is the sport on which the majority of wagers are put. So, you can refer to our tips and predictions page by clicking here to get direct information on bets to stake. 

Best Betting Guide: Who Are Beginners In Betting?

Beginners in betting are the newbies or individuals who are just getting introduced into the world of betting. These sets of people need proper guidance and support to enable them to find their feet quickly without losing too much money. Those who do not have a guide or adequate knowledge tend to lose much of their money before getting the hang of betting.

When something like this happens, it is highly likely that such a beginner loses interest in betting due to frustration. However, it must be said that a huge chunk of successful punters self-taught themselves, albeit with a bit of research

So, as a beginner in betting, one can only be blessed if there are more experienced gamblers on hand to help.

Best Betting Guide: Who Are Veterans In Betting?

As the word implies, veterans in betting are highly experienced gamblers who have possessed quite a vast base of experience in betting. These set of punters may be self-taught, and they may have also had help when they were once beginners. Most punters in this category came into it through a lot of trials and errors, and a lot of them have tried to pass on their experience to upcoming punters. 

Best Betting Guide: Types Of Bettors

To help betting beginners make the leap into experienced betting veterans, we have put together the very best betting guide, which will help very much in this regard. However, before we delve into the steps that help a beginner understand betting better, as well as transform them into an experienced punter, we need to understand the two types of punters or bettors. 

Casual Bettors

The majority of people who bet on sports do so on a casual basis. This segment of the betting market is significant. These categories of bettors take pleasure in watching sports and have extra money that they are willing to spend on betting. However, they have just little knowledge about what is happening in the world of sports betting. 

As a casual bettor on sports, they do not really place huge bets on any one game or event because they don’t keep much money for betting as they are not heavily invested in the activity. Again, another point of fact is that casual gamblers do not attempt to turn a profit consistently over the course of a sports season to build up their overall bankroll.

To determine if a punter is a casual sports bettor, a bit must be known about such a person. Such a gamer will be most likely to place most of their bets on their favourite team or sport. They also plan to stake on less than five bets per week. Lastly, this category of bettors plans to engage in sports betting with a small budget or bankroll.  

Full-Time Or Professional Bettors

Professional punters are those who take betting seriously and are willing to put in the work to make a continuous profit on any wager. This category of punters does not stake a bet just for the fun of it. Every bet is targeted at something, and the basic aim is to win it. A percentage of professional punters have normal jobs which they do aside from betting, while others take betting as a full-time job.

Punters who take betting on sports as a full-time occupation put in a significant time commitment, and it calls for a high level of personal risk on their part. However, many people who fall into this category and bet on sports for a living successfully do so, thanks to the incisive decisions they make regarding their wagers.

To determine if a punter is a full-time or professional sports bettor, a bit must be known about such a person. Such a gamer will most likely do thorough research before making a betting decision

They also plan on betting as much as possible per day, week, month, and year while being willing to wager large sums of money at one time. Lastly, the professional category of bettors plans to engage in sports betting with a large budget or bankroll.  

Best Betting Guide: Steps For Beginners To Get Better At Betting

As promised earlier, this edition will be focused on helping betting beginners with information via our best betting guide to help them understand more about betting. Furthermore, this edition will be helpful in teaching them how to make the step up to the professional level. Steps to achieve this are stated below;

Rule 1: There Are No Safe Bets In Sports Betting

There is one rule set in stone in betting; generally, you either win or lose. The same applies to sports betting and every other form of gambling in the universe. There is a misconception that this best betting guide must address before betting beginners begin their foray into the world of sports betting. 

There are not going to be any sure or safe bets today or tomorrow. Even people who have once used the shady side of sports betting known as match-fixing have, on multiple occasions, said that manipulations that were apparently meant to succeed without a doubt did not work.

As a consequence, there cannot possibly be any 100% sports betting tips for games as they are played out fairly in sporting terms. Tips and predictions can only be analysed using statistical methods coupled with other factors and some help bring profits

Only betting beginners who understand and accept this concept should be the only ones to go further into football betting across the sports betting world.

Betting Tips Africa possesses one of the best tips and predictions pages in the world. Our experts spend hours on hours to forecast the best betting market and tips for our readers. You can visit our tips and predictions page here to give yourself more ammunition in the fight to make more money via sports betting.

Rule 2: Know How Much To Bet

Knowing how much to stake on each betting slip or betting round is a highly underrated but important skill in betting. You, as a punter, do not want to end up selecting numerous highly risky games on your bet slip and then staking a huge amount of money on it. 

This could ruin your betting money, also known as bankroll. It is much more sensible to stake low on numerous games with high odds, which means a lesser probability of winning. While it makes sense to stake a bit higher on games that have a higher probability of winning

How Much Can I Bet?

As a punter, the amount of money you put into a game is ultimately up to you. However, a decent rule of thumb is to bet no more than you can comfortably afford to lose. This has been a general gambling rule since its inception. Betting on sports and sporting events is more like a marathon than a sprint. There will be happy days when you win, and there will also be sad days when you lose.

As a direct counter to this, we advise punters to take a flat-betting approach. This betting approach implies placing the same wager on each game and risking no more than one per cent to five per cent of your bankroll on each individual bet. 

As earlier highlighted, your bankroll is the initial sum of money you have available to use for betting purposes. If you are starting with a bankroll of €100, for instance, you shouldn’t risk more than €5 on each game that you play.

Bettors are adequately protecting themselves from the possibility of losing their whole bankroll during a losing streak by using the flat-betting strategy. Also, the strategy positions them to achieve a return on investment (ROI) that is positive when they are successful.

Rule 3: Take Bankroll Management Seriously

As previously mentioned, bankroll is the money a gambler/gamer/bettor/punter sets aside for the sole purpose of betting. Bankroll management is the correct usage or the process of using money set aside for betting in the most efficient way. The first thing you need to do as a punter is to start a betting bankroll that is distinct from the money you use in your day-to-day life.

Bankroll management proves useful in any circumstance in which a punter is tasked with determining how best to put his financial resources to work. To summarise, bankroll management is not just about the teams that you bet on but also about the amount that you bet and how frequently you bet. 

When it comes to managing your bankroll effectively, the most important thing is to take precautions against the losing streaks that are inescapable in any form of gambling from time to time. 

For example, if you have a bankroll of more than €200 for betting on sports, the size of your typical single wager should be approximately 2% of your bankroll. Any roll that is less than €200 should only make bets that do not exceed €5 in size. 

Betting Tips Africa maintains that it is always to your advantage to place more wagers with a lower proportion of your bankroll, depending on each individual wager. Although these may seem like insignificant amounts, following this strategy will allow you to build your roll over time and keep you from going bust or bankrupt in the process.

Rule 4: Find Out Your Strengths and Weaknesses 

Due to the fact that real money betting requires the risking of real money and not a simulation, you need to keep careful tabs on how far you’ve come as a punter. This is part of what separates the casual bettors from the professional category punters. 

It is possible to keep track of all of your wagers across almost all sports by using dedicated apps which are available on the internet. There are apps available that have won multiple awards and are completely free to download and use. Some of these apps offer fantastic features, which include live bet cover probability and odds shopping. 

These apps are valuable because you, as a punter, will be able to identify where your strengths and weaknesses lie as you start betting. You will be able to determine if you are more successful when betting on the English Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, NFL, or NBA. You can also determine if you thrive when taking player props or over/unders. This information is very good to know as it can help you to maximise your winnings.

Rule 5: Take Your Research Seriously

Do not make the mistake of thinking your favourite Bookie is there to help you make money. The companies that establish sports betting platforms, casinos, and poker rooms are all in it to make a profit off you. To be fair, they are in luck as betting generates a significant amount of revenue for them. 

These establishments invest enormous amounts of time and resources in order to collect as much information as they can so that they can increase their chances of success to the greatest extent. So, you can’t expect to beat their preparation through guesswork except on some lucky days. 

You do not need to feel intimidated or afraid by these companies’ research because you are capable of conducting your own research if you put your mind to it. This is what separates the betting beginners and the veterans, and our best betting guide is here to open your perspective.

You need to acquire as much knowledge as you can about the teams and the sport. Make use of search engines like Google, Bing, and co to get information. Social media like Twitter and Instagram are also quite useful when seeking to improve your understanding and familiarise yourself with as much analysis as possible. 

As a punter looking to step up, you need to be sure that you have a good understanding of your personal statistics. Furthermore, you need to understand winning percentages as well as return on investment. While these may be difficult, you need to take them seriously, as the time you spend doing research can help you secure your bankroll.

Rule 6: Be Safety Conscious

Actually, this should be the number one concern for every punter, whether beginner or professional. In recent years, sports betting has emerged as a gold rush for those who are able to carve out great bets.

As is the case with all other gold rush-type industries, con artists, fraudsters, and cybercriminals are plentiful. These criminally inclined individuals are fully ready to take advantage of beginners in any sports betting situation or any situation resembling a gold rush. 

In the world of sports betting, these individuals can frequently be found on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You, as a punter, need to be smart and steer clear of them by avoiding some common pitfalls. 

These individuals may try to win you over by claiming to have sure games, fixed odds, or premium VIP channels where you can make money. Do not fall for these scams, as they are only focused on making away with your money. If you need any assistance with your bets, you can refer to our tips and predictions page by clicking here. Be rest assured that you will only find information worth your time. 

Be careful of accounts that make claims of “guaranteed wins.” Also, avoid accounts that their owners have an unhealthy preoccupation with displaying their high-roller lifestyle and do not have a verified win/loss history. Another major warning sign is the absence of positive comments or reviews from other customers.

Rule 7: Take Advantage Of Rewards And Bonuses

Betting platforms offer rewards and bonuses to punters to entice new gamers to register at their site while keeping the veterans coming back for more. While these platforms may have their interest in mind when offering these bonuses, the promotions are no doubt beneficial to punters. 

Due to the heated competition among Bookies, the majority of online betting sites are constantly on the lookout for new patrons. To get a bigger share of the betting population, many of them provide special sign-up bonuses that you may take advantage of to extend your bets and assist in alleviating any losses you may incur. 

So, do not be afraid to enrol in loyalty programmes offered by online betting sites; these sites frequently reward repeat customers with unique offers. 

In our previous edition of betting tips, we have made a compilation of the types of bonuses and every other information on bonuses worthy of revelation. You can refer to the edition by clicking here. Be rest assured that you will find every information you need on bonuses when you read through the article. 

Rule 8: Take Away Your Sentiments

This rule divides the betting beginners and the professionals. Serious punters are not expected to stake on their favourite team. They are also not expected to bet on any team they support. If you will be doing so, you should do it from a place of objectivity, rather than sentimentality. 

You undoubtedly have some teams that you prefer to root for as your club. However, if you restrict your wagering to only those games in which they have a chance of winning, you could end up losing everything. 

When it comes to gambling, the numbers are the most important thing to keep in mind. You need to keep this in mind in order to ensure that you are betting with your intellect and not your heart.

Rule 9: Set Your Limit And Do Not Diverge From It

Even if it seems like a basic betting rule, it is quite easy for a gamer to let him or herself get carried away in the excitement of the moment. This is a very straightforward way to go bust or bankrupt. To avoid this, punters need to make sure they are aware of their limitations while making sure not to push past them. 

Some respectable websites, such as those hosted on Betting Tips Africa, provide ways to assist punters in doing so. These bookmakers give their patrons the opportunity to set, increase and quickly decrease spending restrictions. They can also temporarily suspend their accounts if need be or even limit the amount of time they spend on the website. 

This is a very important aspect of our best betting guide, as it is a key difference between seasoned gamblers and amateurs.

Rule 10: Make Sure You Narrow Your Focus

As the old saying goes, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” This saying is a real deal in sports betting as one huge and typical error that a lot of people who bet on sports make is they don’t hone in on one aspect of the game. 

A sizeable number of sports bettors, rather than concentrating their wagering efforts on a small number of sports in which they have a deep level of expertise, place wagers on virtually every sport imaginable. With the volatility or nature of this tactic, punters who practice such will inevitably find themselves placing bets on sporting events that they have a limited understanding of. This will inevitably raise the risk of their long-term financial loss.

We advise punters to stay with what they are familiar with rather than attempting to wager on everything available. If you are new to betting on sports, Betting Tips Africa recommends that you begin by choosing the sport that you are most knowledgeable about and betting on it. This will allow you to significantly improve your odds of coming out on top of your wagers.

As time goes by, your expertise and experience will grow, and then you will be able to broaden the scope of the sports on which you place bets.  

By Sofoluwe Mayowa

Mayowa was born and bred in Nigeria. As a kid, he has naturally always been in love with sports, especially football being his most loved sport. Having gained admission into a higher institution, he moved in to play for the school team but was turned down several times. He managed to get into the school team in his final year and was able to win two trophies, a personal award of excellence whilst taking home the “Best defender of the year award.” Shortly after leaving school, he moved to an independent grassroots club where he worked his way up until he could play at a semi-professional level. He had to stop playing the round leather game and focus on other things due to a lack of sponsorship and funds to get into a proper football academy. Mayowa first got involved in the world of sports betting in 2009 when Nairabet began its operations in Nigeria as the first Sportsbook in the country. He gathered a lot of practical knowledge about betting through this opportunity. Since then, he has always loved to pass his knowledge through writing and hopes to help many others in the world of sports betting along the line.