Sports betting has a lot of dedicated and devoted punters, a lot of casual punters, and many sports fans who simply like to bet. All sportsbooks around the world, including the best betting sites in Norway, are fully aware of the fact that not all bettors are the same. They have different needs, variant behaviors and attitudes, and approaches and ways to process their bets.
Let’s see the three basic types of bettors and describe their defining characteristics and features.
The professional bettors
Professional bettors are the bettors who have decided to wager on sports to obtain long-term value and benefits. They may (or may not) be sports fans, but their love or enthusiasm for sports is not necessarily the main driver behind their love for sports betting.
Professional bettors have a strategy and a bankroll management plan in place, and they are oriented toward the long-term results and outcomes of their wagering activity. They are not betting just to entertain themselves or generate some profits. They are in for the bigger picture.
Professional bettors bet regularly, not just when a match interests them. They even bet on events they don’t follow or games they are not genuinely interested in.
They see betting as a skill-development and skill-application process, which can be implemented irrespective of their love for a sport. They manage to develop an interest in a sport if they have an interest in betting on this sport. Take, for instance, the growth of NFL fans in Europe which has been mostly fueled by the growth of NFL betting in the region.
Professional bettors look for an edge in sports wagering. Betting by heart, betting based on their intuition or guts, does not have a place in their approach. Everything is calculated, evaluated, and assessed, including data, statistics, and information.
Professional bettors gradually develop experience and expertise, which they try to capitalize on when they pick wagers. They have greater knowledge of all the different types of bets and the various betting markets, and most frequently, they don’t just confine themselves to the basic markets.
The recreational bettors
Unlike pro bettors, recreational bettors wager occasionally and casually. There is nothing systematic and planned in how they place their wagers. Instead, these bettors, now and then, wager on a game either because they want to increase their engagement while watching it or because they feel they have an edge.
Recreational bettors don’t necessarily have a strategy, and the truth is that they will be more apt to wagering based on their intuition or by heart. And because they don’t have a strategy, they are not concerned with long-term results and profitability. They are concerned with betting and winning all at once!
Recreational bettors usually select straightforward betting markets, but complexity does not seem to bother them. They are more likely to place parlay bets, for example, because they add excitement and they are seen as more fun for those punters. And although they won’t go for the simple outright winners, they don’t go as deep as making more sophisticated bets.
For recreational bettors, there is a balance between wanting to make profits and enjoying placing bets. There is neither one nor the other in their purity.
The fan bettors
The fan bettors are the punters mostly defined by their relationship to the sport and less by their relevance to betting. They are die-hard fans of sports or die-hard fans of certain teams and athletes and bet mostly because they want to express their support to the ones they favor.
They are absolutely devoted to wagering based on their feelings and heart; nothing strategic or systematic is going on with their choices. Fan bettors don’t have a plan, and their goal is not to have profits from wagers. Of course, profits are more than welcome, but moral and emotional satisfaction is more important than filling their pockets.
So, now that you have read about the three broad types of sports bettors, which one suits your style and approach more? Are you a regular, stats-oriented, and edge-looking bettor? Are you a casual, fun-looking, and engaging sports bettor? Or are you a die-hard fan who only wants to back his favorite sport?
