Depending on how much you like to bet, the chances are that you won’t really be able to understand people that place wagers at the opposite end of the scale. If you limit yourself to betting one or two pounds a week, the idea of placing bets worth tens of thousands of pounds will seem absolutely wild.
Equally, if you’re the sort of person who chooses to place large bets, the likelihood is that you won’t be able to get your head around people who only place seemingly insignificant sums of money when they use their betting accounts.
The reality is that people who place smaller bets are probably doing it ‘right’, insomuch as they bet for the enjoyment and entertainment of it rather than because they’re trying to win a lot of money. Betting is a losing game in the long-run, which is why it is so important to have a sense of control over the wagers that you place.
People that opt to place small wagers are doing so for the anticipation of winning, rather than the amount that they might win at the end of it all. Some people don’t bet in an attempt to win large sums of money.
Why People Bet
Ultimately, the big question around betting is why people do it. Everyone will have their own reasons, but understanding what they are is key to being able to figure out why someone will or won’t do something.
For some, the entire purpose of gambling is to try and win money. They might want to double their investment, say, or even deliberately opt for bets with long odds in the hope of winning really big. Whatever the wager is that they choose to place, they believe that luck will shine on them and win them money.
This is in spite of the fact that the evidence is there to suggest that that isn’t ever going to happen. Many people set up direct debits for the National Lottery and EuroMillions, seeing money depart their account every month without ever seeing a decent return. Even though they know that the odds are 1 in 45,057,474 for the Lotto and 1 in 139,838,160 for the EuroMillions, they keep on playing in the hope that one day they will be the ‘1’ and their lives will change forever. For those people, it is about the money first and foremost.
The same can probably be said for people who bet thousands or even tens of thousands of pounds each time they place a wager. They want to increase the money that they have available to them, so they go big on their bets in the hope that they will be able to do just that. For such people, it is unlikely that there is any actual enjoyment when it comes to betting. Instead, it is about the money and very little else. The likelihood is that they will bet on ‘sure things’, even though such wagers don’t exist, because they just want the money.
Those that place much smaller bets, meanwhile, are doing so for the anticipation and the enjoyment. It is not unheard of for people to place bets that are as low as ten pence, wagering no more than a pound during the course of a week. The likelihood is that they will lose money in the long-run, never winning more than a few pounds. The chances of such people winning a large sum of money are virtually nil, yet they persist in placing these sorts of bets because, for, them, it isn’t primarily about the money they could win.
Anticipation As Reward
For some, placing bets will never be about the amount of money that they might or might not win. Instead, it is all about the anticipation that they feel waiting to find out whether their wager is going to be a winner or not. Picture a group of people stood around a roulette wheel, for example. For them, the most exciting moment of the entire exercise is when the croupier releases the ball and it goes spinning around the wheel. At the moment, anything is possible, which is makes the process so exciting for them and others.
The ball could land in a slot that means that they lose all of their money, or it could land somewhere that means that they get some money back. It is impossible to tell what is going to happen during the moment that the ball spins around the wheel, so some simply love the anticipation of the result more than the result itself. The consequence of this is that the size of the bet that they place doesn’t matter. How much they win isn’t important, with the anticipation of the possibility of winning being its own reward in their eyes.
The Purest Form Of Betting
There is an argument that people who only wager small amounts of money are actually engaged in the purest form of betting. As far as the authorities and those in charge of the licensing of gambling companies are concerned, betting should never be about how much or how little you win during your betting session. Instead, it is all about the actually act of placing wagers, irrespective of whether they are successful or not. This means that those that choose to place relatively small wagers are actually engaging in the purest form of betting.
If you bet ten pence and lose, doing so ten times before walking away, you have placed ten bets and lost a pound. Provided that is all you do during the period of time that you have assigned to bet placing, you will have experienced the anticipation of winning a bet on ten occasions and lost an amount of money that is affordable to the majority of people. You have enjoyed the part of betting that most people like without suffering the consequences that some have to suffer through. You might not win much, but you won’t lose much either and that is what it is all about.