Indeed, the industry was valued at a staggering $218.5 billion in the most recent appraisal, demonstrating its immense appeal. If you’d like to get involved in the fun, there’s no harm in trying your hand at the pastime. Although there’s no guaranteed way to beat the odds and ensure you come out on top, here are a handful of hints and tips which could help improve your performance over the long term.

Find a reputable site

First and foremost, you want to guarantee that the bookmaker to whom you’re entrusting your hard-earned cash is legitimate. Tried and trusted operators, like the Casinowinner sports betting portal, will display their credentials and the relevant licenses they hold on their website. If in doubt, it’s worthwhile reading up on customer reviews of the site in question, just to make sure the odds aren’t stacked against you any more than they need be.

Stick to what you know

Your best chance of winning a bet is by leveraging your own familiarity with a sport and finding an outcome that’s likely to happen. This becomes infinitely harder if you start laying wagers on markets you know nothing about, so it’s sensible to only ever bet on sports and matches that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. If you fancy a flutter but there’s nothing available at the present time, wait until there is.

Find promos and bonuses

With such a wide variety of bookmakers and betting sites available online, competition for your custom is rife. In order to entice you into their domain, almost all sports betting operators now offer casino codes and promotions which will give you some sort of incentive for depositing your funds with them. By scouring the market to find the best deals, you can often lay more wagers using less money.

In-play opportunism

As well as anticipating the outcome of a sporting event before it has started, live betting now allows you to access in-play matches and lay wagers as the action develops. This can be a great way of obtaining preferable odds. For example, if the favored team in a soccer match falls behind, their odds will shoot up – but you might fancy them to engineer a comeback. In which case, backing them to do so could return you a handsome profit.

Get mathematical

Just as counting cards can help you to overcome the odds at table games, playing the percentages could give you an edge over the house in sports betting. Those are the findings of one study published in the New Scientist, which saw a mathematician and his wife leverage 10 years of historical data to gain an 8.5% return on their investment over several weeks of gambling. If you have a head for numbers, this approach could be the one for you.

There is never a sure-fire way to win every bet you wager, but careful forethought and simple strategizing could maximize your chances.