You can always just bet on games without placing any money at first. Take your time to look at the spreads, do research, formulate opinions. Eventually you should get pretty good and after enough practice pets you start placing real money. I believe this is sure fire way to start out well and not just jump in head first.
I agree in your idea, because gambling is not so easy that you should more strategy, and most especially self control. Before you gamble make sure that you have already accept the risk and dont serious it, and dont get addicted.
That idea was good, but the most important is self-control, and we must have that thing so we can prevent the big lose. Many gamblers can prevent themselves from losing more money, but after they played for some time, they are losing their self-control, and they continue to play because they want to chase the win money and they want to feel that. That will be a problem for them because they don't have a big chance to get the big win money.