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Our star contributor from Five To Follow is back with a new series advising punters on how to take a professional approach to profit on football

Professional sports trader and Goal.com contributor Pete Nordsted begins a new betting guide series with his exclusive analysis and insight on how to turn a profit by punting on football. Mr. Nordsted's three draw strategy in our weekly series Five To Follow earned a 15 point profit last season.

Over the next few months I am going to periodically look at the basic betting fundamentals and explain in my articles strategies that will build up into a comprehensive betting guide. My guide is aimed at the beginner and the aim of the series is to prevent the novice punter from falling into bad habits and set them on the way to becoming a more professional and profitable gambler.

We are going to get started this week by looking at one of the fundamental aspects for any punter and what is known in the industry as the betting bank.

The Betting Bank

The reason most people fail to profit from betting is they do not take a disciplined, business-like approach to their football selections. Instead of punting money that they have set aside as a betting bank they effectively gamble out of their pockets by deciding how much they can afford to use as a stake on any given day.

For example, one Saturday afternoon a punter may have £20 available to play with in his pocket and so places a £10 bet on Liverpool to beat Arsenal at 6/4 (2.50). Liverpool then go on to win and our punter feels that he is on a lucky roll so later that afternoon he then decides to place £35 (His original £20 + £15 winnings received from the Liverpool bet) on Spurs to win at Stoke at odds of 5/4 (2.25).

Unfortunately this bet ends up being a loser and at the end of the day he is -£20.00 and has lost all of his available betting capital for that day. Whereas if he had placed £10 on Liverpool to win and £10 on Spurs to win in single bets he would now be +£5.00 in profit and showing a difference of £25.

If the above sounds familiar, then you are not alone as there are thousands of punters whose betting habits reflect the above every weekend. No wonder there are a large amount of bookmakers in the Sunday Times Rich List.

"A bad punter is a bad punter no matter what amount of money he is betting. Take a disciplined, business-like approach to your football selections" - Pete Nordsted

To combat this erratic approach it is essential to set up a betting bank and the main rule is the money should not be needed for any other purpose and if the money is needed for anything then you simply should not be betting in the first place.

Now the next part is to divide your bank into equal units. I personally look to use a 25 point bank. If you have £100 spare for betting then each point is worth £4 (£4 x 25 points = £100) and using this method provides the following advantages.

When putting on a bet you are then comfortable with the amount you are staking and it takes the emotion and fear out of placing the selection. Emotions and betting are not good bed fellows.

You can start with a relatively small amount of money. Do not be frightened of starting with a small amount, just because you have more money does not make you a better gambler. Remember, a bad punter is a bad punter no matter what amount of money he is betting.

Dividing the bank into 25 points allows for a good number of losses because no matter how good you think you are a losing run is inevitable and even the very best go through a poor run of form.
Now this is far from glamorous and the saying here should be 'get rich slowly’ but this steady approach whilst backing value selections should see your betting bank grow steadily and slowly throughout the season. 

At times you will be treading water and taking two steps forward and one step back but the price of discipline and patience is what you have to pay in order to make a long-term profit.

Pete Nordsted is the co-author of the Premier Football Betting Handbook 2011/12 which is released on July 15th. The follow up to last year's successful book offers a comprehensive guide of the best markets for this season's forthcoming Premier League season and how to profit from them.

The book can be pre ordered by going to the following link at Harriman House or is available in the Kindle Store at Amazon. For more about his work see Premier Betting.

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Got a question for Pete? He can be reached via betting@goal.com.