I have been betting on sport for many years and while I had some good runs, it is only in the last 2-3 years that I have been able to pip the bookmakers on a consistent basis.

This has certainly coincided with my taking the “game” more seriously and I spend a lot of time analyzing my betting patterns as I believe that in even in a heavy loss there is a lesson to be learnt.

In past articles I have touched on issues like discipline and the need for a dedicated bankroll but in recent weeks I have become aware of another driver which I believe may be essential to sports betting success. It sounds obvious but simply put, I hate to lose!

Yes none of us enjoy giving the bookmakers our cash but when I started betting I had the attitude that losing is just an inevitable part of the game and I quickly shrugged off the bad days. Lately though I have noticed that I take longer to forget about a poor weekend and I spend many an hour silently chastising myself for mistakes made.

At first I was concerned about this change in behavior but I have begun to wonder whether this determination to avoid losing is in fact a good thing? It has resulted in my being far more selective with my bets and while losses do occur I have noticed a strong ability to bounce back from bad weekends as opposed to going on a run of them as I had done in the past. Is there a link between bouncing back from defeat and the unwillingness to accept it? I can’t prove it but I think there may well be.

The reason I am writing on this topic now is that I happen to be coming off a bad weekend where heading into the final rugby game I tried to force a profit and took spread bets which even as the game kicked off I could tell offered little upside.

I was high on France points and it was clear that negative opponents and a wet field were going to keep them to a minimum. I have banked the lesson and moved on but I won’t forget the pain of the loss and will use it instead to drive me forward as I look to claw things back this weekend.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 25^th of November 2010.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and presents a sports betting radio show every Thursday night from 22h00 – 22h30 on 1485AM Radio Today or Channel 169 of the DSTV Audio Bouquet and to get on his free weekly e-mail list just send a message to brent@goodforthegame.co.za titled “Best Bets”.

You can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/brentgraham or get on his mailing list by dropping him a line at brent@goodforthegame.co.za