Emotional Control in Sports Trading: How Emotions Influence Your Results
One of the pillars for a profitable gambler (be it a trader or a punter) is emotional control. Along with the technical part of finding good opportunities and managing your bankroll, mastering your emotions is key to staying on course for the long term on 22Bet. If this is your difficulty, don’t worry: understanding your own emotions is not an easy task and one of the biggest challenges in sports trading.
How does emotional control work in the sports trade?
Emotional control is nothing more than the popular way in which we approach emotional intelligence, defined as follows by herself:
Emotional intelligence is our ability to recognize and understand emotions in ourselves and others and use that awareness to manage our behaviors and relationships. In other words, it is an essential exercise in self-knowledge. As human beings, we will hardly have the ability to neutralize our emotions. However, when you know how to deal with them, you will notice a great personal advantage, which prevents common mistakes such as exaggerating the amount used in your bets or despairing when dealing with a bad run. It is also worth noting that emotional intelligence is not something that only allows benefits in sports trading. You will also notice advantages in your relationships, your work (if you don’t live exclusively from sports trading), or even simple day-to-day decisions.
The sports trader’s main doubts about emotional control
The emotional control theme is quite broad and therefore raises many doubts among sports investors. With that in mind, we’ve listed some of the most frequently asked questions in our community as Psychology helps guide our behavior.
Can I celebrate a goal?
Celebrating Goal, a widespread debate in the sports trading community is about celebrating a goal in favor. Some argue that a trader should be cool and face a goal in his favor as a routine. Thus, the celebration, according to this point of view, would be something “unprofessional.” On the other hand, some like to celebrate a profit made in the market.
How does a result streak influence my behavior?
My behavior in the routine of a sports trader may not be obvious the weight of a result sequence — whether it is positive (sequential profits) or negative (sequential losses). In both cases, the biggest problem is the effects that these sequences can trigger from a behavioral point of view. Are they:
Euphoria: in a positive sequence, it’s natural for you to feel good and think air that has complete control of its profits. Here, the danger is classic mistakes like thinking you can bet on anything without criteria (due to the good time) or even leaving your bankroll management. Be careful.
Discouragement: similarly, in a negative sequence with successive losses, it is normal for you to feel discouraged or start to question whether you have a profile for sports betting. Reds require concentration to improve, without letting thoughts of quitting dominate their minds.
Why do I bet the game goes against me?
Another typical behavior for a sports trader is to think that the market is against him or that things go wrong when he bets. The truth is that this is very self-centered thinking and has nothing to do with reality.
The game happens as it has to be. And while the ball is rolling, no one on the field is concerned about whether or not you made your bet. Therefore, the relationship between your investment and the result of a match is simply non-existent. Avoid outsourcing the responsibility for your decisions, as they do not help your evolution.
How to get my family to accept sports trading?
The relationship between a sports trader’s activity and family relationships is another very common challenge. We still have a powerful feeling of prejudice towards our activity. However, we need to understand each other’s values in life. Your family does not need to accept or agree with your activity, but there needs to be respect—something that goes both ways. Try to explain what you do, but don’t push if you feel the other party doesn’t show any real interest. Also, it is worth extra care with your behavior while operating. If he’s too reactive or irritable, it negatively affects how other people view our activity. It won’t do anything to accept your role as a sports trader.
What are the main problems for a sports trader?
Two are the main points of a sports trader:
- fear of losing money
- anxiety
However, our interviewee points out that gamblers often use cliches and hide the real problem. For example, is your biggest difficulty the fear of losing money? Or is this not an excuse for another fear (such as failing in the activity)? It is essential to understand the real root of the problem to act on it and improve your behavior on these negative feelings.
Ludopathy: the risk of addiction in sports betting
Most bettors come to the sports betting market with the illusion of easy money or getting rich with a passion. However, they forget that, like any activity, sports trading requires dedication, patience, and a long-term time horizon to produce results. Thus, this illusion can lead to other psychological factors, such as ludopathy, which is defined as follows:
Ludopathy, or pathological gambling, is a psychological disorder characterized as maladaptive, recurrent, and persistent gambling behavior. People who suffer from play disease are often also associated with other conditions, such as drug or alcohol addiction. In other words, here we are talking about addictive behavior on the part of the gambler, whose consequences can be very serious. Below are some of the typical behaviors of someone who suffers from ludopathy:
- Anxiety for the time of the game you bet on
- Need to invest large amounts
- Using sports betting as an outlet for other problems
- “Hide” results and the number of games with lies from close people
If you identified yourself with this profile, don’t despair. Anyone can be exposed to addiction. The important thing is to understand the situation and seek professional help not to affect your personal life.
What is the importance of emotional control in the sports trade?
As we have seen, emotional control is a very broad concept that appears at various points in our professional activity. Therefore, its importance is entirely justifiable: you need to manage your emotions to reap good results in sports trading. To make all this even more practical, let’s ask how you feel in the market? What are the thoughts that pop into your head during an operation? Are you afraid? Anger? Sadness? Happiness? These are the five primary emotions, and from identifying them, you can start working on your behavior.