Sports betting in Canada is now legal and states are moving to allow more and more operators to offer top wagers for the country’s most beloved disciplines.
For many, this means the possibility of adopting a new hobby that has the added advantage of possibly producing some side income if they play their cards right.
However, since betting is a risky activity, here are some quick rules on how to bet on sports in Canada without losing your shirt in the process.
#1 – Establish a monthly budget
Betting on your favorite sport and team can be a thrilling experience but it can turn addictive quickly and that is a dangerous position to be in when the risk of losing money is present.
Therefore, most bettors should protect themselves from this caveat by establishing a monthly budget for their betting activities that limits their losses in case things go south.
How much you are willing to devote to betting is entirely your decision but, as a rule of thumb, it should not be an amount that causes sleeping troubles.
#2 – Focus on calendar-heavy months
Calendar-heavy months are those when most sports events take place and they are typically the best time to bet as you will have a wider range of choices for the disciplines, teams, and matches you will be betting on.
On the contrary, calendar-light weeks and months will force you to pick wagers you may have never placed if there were more options on the table.
#3 – Narrow down your focus
Most bettors are great at analyzing and predicting the possible outcome of a handful of matches at most. The reason for this is that there are so many variables involved in the process of assessing who might be the most likely winner that widening your scope will just reduce the odds of success.
Whatever sport, league, and team you feel you understand the most should be the one that gets the bulk of your betting budget.
#4 – Chose a regulated betting site
What you bet on is just as important as where you bet at when it comes to online sports betting. Considering that this activity is now legal, it would be much safer for Canadians to pick a site whose parent company is domiciled at home or at least in a top-tier jurisdiction like the United States as that would facilitate the process of failing a complaint in case something doesn’t work as expected.
Moreover, apart from choosing the safest site, it is also a good idea to analyze what the site has to offer compared to others starting with sign-up bonuses and including other features such as the minimum bet you can place, the number of sports, matches, and types of bets you can make, etc.
#5 – Limit the size of your bets
If you want to make the most out of your betting budget, limiting the size of each individual bet is the way to go. This avoids the natural desire that humans have for being right big as money is spread across many different wagers.
In summary, the goal is to develop a system that has a high win rate, this being the percentage of bets that result in a favorable outcome. If you bet too much on something, chances are that you will blow up the monthly budget so fast that you might feel tempted to “temporarily” expand it so you don’t have to wait until the next month kicks in.
Do yourself a favor and don’t risk more than 5% of your total budget on a single bet, not even if the whole world is telling you to do so. Stick to your system and you’ll improve your odds of producing a positive outcome while stretching your monthly allocation in the process.
#6 – Research betting systems and strategies
If you are new to betting, it might be hard to find a good place to start. This is when time-tested systems and strategies can help you out in getting your feet off the ground. It is not like there is a perfect system that will make you rich – if there was one, we would all adopt it.
However, these systems tend to rely on objective data and they can be fine-tuned based on your unique insights and preferences.
Research the web, browse through the multiple alternatives, and test some of them out. Eventually, you will identify which ones stand out from the rest.
Bottom line
Sports betting can be a fun activity if you enjoy a discipline so much that you feel you can make some money out of your interest. Following some of the tips we shared above you may find it easier to get started in Canada now that this has become a legal hobby for people to enjoy.
