I started betting on the last European Football Championship at bet-at-home and at bwin. That was my first contact with football betting. During this time I also looked on both platforms to see what I could still bet on. Tennis was added. I didn’t know my way around other sports, so I preferred to keep my hands off it. In the beginning I simply made the standard bets on victory or defeat. In the course of time, however, I read myself and also bet on other positions. I have always avoided betting on things that were too unlikely.

In tennis, I had a pretty good strategy. I bet on the player with the better odds before the match. The one where I could win the most. As soon as the match started, I waited until he took the lead. As a result, the odds usually changed so that I bet on his opponent. This often gave me the chance to win the difference. In the end it was never much money, but I found it quite lucrative.

I did it similarly in football. I always bet first on the team where I could win the most. As soon as this team took the lead through a goal, I bet on the opponent. Unfortunately, the system didn’t work here as often and as well as it did in tennis. Unfortunately, in the end it was more often the case that the better team really won.

I changed the strategy for the 2018 World Cup. Here I gave 50 tips in the run-up to the World Cup. As a rule, I bet on the favourites. During the World Cup I held it as described above. I also bet on halftime results. That worked more or less well. On the whole, I came out with about plus / minus zero. In the meantime I have made quite bigger profits. I used them again and again. Sometimes I won something, sometimes I lost something. But in the end I landed at zero.

I have always played only with small amounts. I never bet more than 10 Euro on anything. On the one hand I didn’t want that and on the other hand I found it exciting to suddenly get 5 Euro out of a 1 Euro bet. Of course it would have been more exciting to get 500 Euro out of a 100 Euro bet. But it was too tricky for me. Furthermore, I still wanted to see it as a game of chance. I only ever did that with money that I could do without. So I never bet money that I didn’t have. For the sake of simplicity, I only played with money I had on my PayPal account. That was the safest deposit option for me. I didn’t want to play with a credit card because I wouldn’t have had an overview of the amount I had deposited. I either didn’t know about the other options offered by both providers, or it was too cumbersome for me. I liked PayPal. I would continue to handle it the same way.

I liked both platforms. I didn’t exactly compare the odds. Probably one platform had better odds than the other. But that was too cumbersome for me. In the end, I wanted to have fun. I had it with both providers. I assume that I will also bet on future major events. It’s just too much fun for that.

What I didn’t enjoy were the apps. Actually, I only used the bwin app. But it was too cumbersome for me. Maybe it’s because I only used an old iPhone 5. Anyway, I found it difficult to keep track of the bets there. I preferred to do it on the computer. There was also a bigger screen. Maybe I’ll try to play with the app again for future bets, but currently I don’t know why I shouldn’t use the computer.

As a conclusion I have to say that I really enjoyed all this. That’s why I’ll probably do it again in the future. Of course it wasn’t so nice when the bet went wrong. But especially during the World Cup 2018 I found so much interest in games that I would not have watched otherwise. I was able to cheer better. Let’s see if I’ll dare to bet more on other sports in the future. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about football and co. Otherwise I would have used something there, too.

 
Experience report written by Stephan, 44 years old, close to Karlsruhe