Can You Make Money Sports Betting
If you know that a 52.4% record will mean you break even, the simplest way to turn sports betting into a career is to bet enough so that a 53% winning record will bring in the kind of money you want to make. Another example. Your luck will vary from person to person but you can make some big money. I bet full time for a couple years. It was stressful, exciting, and I felt like a lab rat running to the sports book all the time.
If you want to know how to make money sports betting, you’re probably already a sports fan.
I have bad news for you – most sports fans lose money sports betting.
That’s because they have biases and prejudices toward and against teams that wouldn’t exist if they weren’t fans.
In other words, it’s hard to make money sports betting unless you’re objective about the teams’ odds.
But if you’re a fan who can set aside these notions, you can probably win money sports betting.
This post introduces some ideas you need familiarize yourself with to pull off this feat:
You Must Understand Some Math to Make Money Sports Betting
To break even as a sports bettor, you need to win 52.4% of your bets.
Some people might be confused by that, thinking that if they win 50% of their bets, they should break even.
And anything above a 50% win ratio should result in profits, right?
Wrong.
While it’s true that most bets have a 50% probability of winning based on the point spread, the bookmakers make you wager $110 to win $100. (You’ll sometimes run into books which want you to risk $120 to win $100, and you’ll also find some that want you to risk $105 to win $100.)
If you’re losing half the time, but you’re losing more money than you’re winning the other half of the time, you’re going to lose money in the long run.
Imagine if you place 2 bets, winning one and losing the other.
You win $100 on the bet you won, but you lose $110 on the bet you lose, which leads to a net loss of $10.
And that’s just the beginning of the math you need to understand to make money sports betting.
More about Sports Betting Math
Let’s look at a more detailed example, just to give you a clearer idea of what I’m talking about when I say you need to understand the math behind sports betting.
You go to your favorite bookmaker’s website, or visit the book at your favorite online casino, and you see the following posted:
Buffalo Bills -3
New Orleans Saints +3
The team with the – sign next to it is the favorite. To determine the winner of that bet, you subtract 3 from their score before comparing it with the other team’s score.
The team with the + sign next to it is the dog. You get to add 3 to the team’s final score for determining which team wins.
In either case, when it’s not listed, you’re expected to wager $110 to win $100.
Those point spreads are also called the lines.
The book creates the line so that they don’t get an overwhelming loss when the favorite beats the dog. If there weren’t a line, everyone would bet the favorite and win most of the time.
The point spread creates a situation where you (theoretically) have a 50% probability of winning.
The lines are set by the handicappers working for the bookmaker. And for the most part, they’re good at their job.
The lines aren’t always right, though, and when they’re wrong, you can profit.
How to Use Moving Lines to Track Sharp Action
A “sharp” is an educated, winning sports bettor. Sharps generally bet large enough amounts of money that bookmakers will adjust the point spreads (“lines”) to stimulate action on the other side. If you watch how the lines move, you can track the sharp action and make betting decisions based on what the sharps are doing.
One thing to look for is called “reverse line movement.” That’s just a fancy way of describing when the line moves away from the side with more money bet on it – the popular side.
That’s easy enough to do – find a line that moves from +7 to +6, for example, then look at how many people are betting that side of the match.
Now you know which side the book is trying to stimulate action for.
Combine this with shopping lines from one bookmaker to another, and you have a powerful tool for placing bets with a positive expectation.
Be a Contrarian
You can find plenty of websites that estimate what percentage of the action is on one side or the other of a sporting event. For example, you might find a football game where 70% of the public is betting on one side, and 30% of the public is betting on the other side.
If you bet with the 30% rather than with the 70%, you’re being a contrarian – you’re betting the other side of the event from what most people are.
I like to root on underdogs, but as it turns out, betting on an underdog to cover results in a higher percentage of bets won than betting on the favorite.
It won’t result in a high enough percentage to make you profitable in the long run, though – you’ll still need to pick and choose.
But betting underdogs is a great starting point for a winning sports betting strategy.
Manage Your Bankroll Appropriately
You might have heard the expression “on any given Sunday.” This refers to the possibility of an upset in pro football – on any given Sunday, any team can win, regardless of what people might think.
This means that no matter how confident you are in your bets you still might lose.
And, in the short run, you might lose a higher percentage of bets than you expect.
What does this mean in terms of managing your bankroll?
It means that you shouldn’t have too much of your bankroll in action on any given bet.
For example, suppose you’ve found a bet that you’re confident has a 65% probability of being a winning bet. That’s a stellar percentage; if you won 65% of your bets in the long run, you’d be breathing rarefied air. You’d be the Warren Buffett of sports betting, in fact.
But if you have a bankroll of $10,000 and wager all of it on that one match, you have a 35% probability of losing your entire bankroll.
This means starting over and building a new bankroll, which takes time.
And when it comes to winning at sports betting, time is money.
You’ll see varying estimates of how much of your bankroll you should risk on any single bet.
Your tolerance for risk should determine your bet sizing, but 1% to 5% of your bankroll is a good guideline to follow.
If your tolerance for risk is high, bet up to 5% of your bankroll on each bet. With that $10,000 bankroll, you’d limit the size of your bets to $500.
You can adjust those bet sizes based on your confidence level in your picks.
If you’re sure about a bet, you might wager $200 or $300 (2% or 3%) on it even if you’re risk averse.
Limiting the size of your bets prevents a series of upsets or a run of bad luck from running you out of the hobby.
Don’t Buy Picks
Here’s the problem with buying sports picks:
The people selling these picks are usually no better at picking winners than you are.
Companies that sell sports betting picks are called tout services. They have an interesting history.
I have a friend who worked for a tout service in Las Vegas back when they still used call centers and 900 numbers to sell their picks. He explained to me one of their strategies with their customers, which I’ll share with you below:
In a room full of touts over the phone, half the room would sell picks on one side of a game.
The other half would sell picks on the other side of the game.
This would result in half their customers winning each week, while half their customers would lose.
If any of the losers called to complain – and they often did – they’d give them a free pick on the Monday night football game.
And they’d follow the same strategy – give half the losers one side while giving the other half the other side.
Half their losers won their money back and became satisfied customers, buying more picks.
I also read a story in a book about gambling about a gentleman who started his own tout service via a 900 number, and he let his 5-year-old son make all his betting picks for him.
The kid got lucky and was right 60% of the time in his first season.
It was dumb luck, but if you’d used his service, you’d have showed a profit that season.
I saw a tout selling an entire season’s worth of picks for $3000.
What kind of winning percentage would you need to see to generate a positive ROI on that $3000?
That’s a sunk cost, so you’d need to win more than $3000 for that package to be a profitable deal.
You already need to win 52.4% of the time to break even, and you need to win 52.5% or more to be profitable.
If you make less than $3000 profit, you’re still losing money.
It’s hard to make money betting on sports when you have an upfront investment of $3000.
Conclusion
Yes, you can make money betting on sports. People do it every day.
But it takes a smart approach, preferably a contrarian one. You need to thoroughly understand the math and manage your bankroll appropriately.
Most importantly, you should avoid buying sports picks from experts who might not really even be experts.
Sports betting for a living is probably a dream job for many people. The number one reason people get into sports betting is to try and make money.
You might get lucky early on in your betting career but in the long term it is extremely tough to make money from the sports betting markets.
How do you bet on sports successfully?
There are a few simple methods which actually do make money long term.
Which are also relatively easy to learn.
Make Money From Sports Betting
What Methods Should I Use?
First off let’s take a look at matched betting. Which has also been known as bonus abusing or bonus whoring in the past.
Matched betting is great and personally it has made a huge difference in my life.
I used profits from matched betting to pay for the deposit on my first house. To pay for holidays, gifts for my family, It’s given me a reliable source of income that I never expected.
Matched Betting
Matched betting is using bookmaker free bet offers combined with bettingexchangesto guarantee that a profit is made no matter the outcome of a sporting event.
The easiest way to explain this is with an example.
Lets take an offer I received from Betstars as an example.
The sign up offer is bet £50 at odds over 1.5 and get £20 free.
I open my Betstars account and look to make a bet of £50.
For this initial bet I am looking to find a close odds match between Betstars and the betting exchange that I use Matchbook.
I find a close match in odds in a game between Wolves and Norwich City.
The odds of Wolves to win with Betstars are 1.62, this is above 1.5 so it qualifies for this offer.
I place a bet of £50 to return £80.77 , which should Wolves win pays out winnings of £30.77.
Then I go over to Matchbook to place a lay bet.
A lay bet is when you effectively take on the role of a bookmaker. With this lay bet I am saying that should Wolves win I will pay out £32.03 however should Wolves fail to win then a profit of £49 would be made.
Lay bets are options only available with a betting exchange.
If you don’t have a betting exchange account.
My recommendation is Matchbook.
Lets look at the three possible outcomes of the game.
Wolves win – £30.77 is won with Betstars, £32.03 is lost with Matchbook
A total loss of -£1.26 is made.
Wolves draw or lose – £50.00 is lost with Betstars, £49.00 is won from Matchbook
A total loss of -£1.00 is made
The £20 free bet will be credited from Betstars no matter the outcome of the game.
Using a free bet
Can You Make Money Sports Betting Parlay
The Wolves vs Norwich match ended up being a draw.
£49.00 was won in Matchbook and £50.00 was lost in Betstars.
The £20 free bet was credited straight after the game.
Now we go through the same process as before and look for a close odds match between Betstars and Matchbook.
However due to this being a free bet I look at higher odds in order to make as much profit as possible from the free bet.
I find a close odds match between Betstars and Matchbook at high odds.
Atletico Madrid were taking on FC Copenhagen in the Europa League that night.
FC Copenhagen were priced 16.00 with Betstars and 17.00 with Matchbook.
So I placed my free bet by backing FC Copenhagen for £20 to win £300.
I placed my lay bet on Matchbook risking £280 to win £17.50
Lets look at the three possible outcomes for this game.
FC Kopenhagen win – £300 is won with Betstars, £280 is lost on Matchbook.
A total of £20 profit is made.
Atletico Madrid win or the match is a draw – £17.50 is won on Matchbook, £0.00 is lost on Betstars as it was a free bet.
A total profit of £17.50 is made.
Taking into account the initial £1.00 lost on the qualifying bet with Wolves and Norwich.
You can see I am guaranteed to make either £16.50 or £19.00 from this process.
Video Walk Through Of Matched Betting Offer
Watch this video on YouTube
Where Can I Find Matched Betting Offers?
There are lots of these sign up offers where you can follow the same process.
New bookmakers appear quite frequently.
A quick google search for bookmaker sign up offers will bring up hundreds of results.
However my advice would be to join a matched betting service such as Oddsmonkey. They take out all the hard work and give you step by step instructions for each offer.
This will save you so much time in the long run and also should stop you making any errors which could cost you.
Oddsmonkey (read the review) is a company that has long been providing matched betting and arbitrage software for other companies.
They now however have their own dedicated service.
Offering an extremely in depth and content rich service that also offers arbitrage and value betting software.
It gives you all the tools that you need to succeed in matched betting.
How Much Money Can Be Made From Matched Betting?
It is possible to make a lot of money matched betting.
In my own personal experience I have been able to make over £10,000 a year.
If you utilize everything that is available to you then I believe this is achievable for most people.
There are other individuals I know that are making much more and are able to make this a full time income.
So we have taken a good look at making money from sports betting through matched betting.
Now lets take a look at another method which will enable you to make more long term profits.
Arbitrage Betting
An arbitrage bet is when you can cover all outcomes of an event and guarantee yourself a profit.
Personally I like to use arbitrage betting with bookmakers that either.
1. Don’t offer regular bonuses.
2. Have banned me from bonus offers but will still allow me to bet.
To show an example, my Paddypower account is limited.
This means that I am not able to receive promotions.
Paddypower though are a good bookmaker for arbitrage and I am still able to place bets with my account.
Arbitrage Example
In order to find arbitrage bets you really need to use software.
For this example I will use the Oddsmatcher software that comes with Oddsmonkey.
I find a good arbitrage bet with Paddypower and the betting exchange Smarkets.
(Which allows lay bets and functions like Matchbook)
Hibernian vs Celtic is showing as a 7.82% arbitrage bet.
So I log in to my Paddypower account and back Hibernian at odds of 9.0. Risking £40 to win £320.
I then go over to my Smarkets account and place a lay bet with the aim to win back the £40 I risked on Paddypower.
This works out at a potential loss of £287.87.
Ultimately this means that I am only risking the £0.80 (Smarkets charge 2% commission on my lay bet).
In order to win £32.13 (£320 – £287.87.)
Now this is my personal preference as I like to put my profits on to one outcome. This is because I find it much quicker and often the value side is with the soft bookmaker.
However you could average the profit out across all outcomes. So that you would make money no matter the the final outcome.
Using the Oddsmonkey calculator you can see that the profit would be £3.13 across all outcomes with a £40 stake.
Simple but effective
You might be thinking wow this is awesome. Free money for the rest of my life!
Unfortunately bookmakers will eventually limit your account to pennies if you are arbing. Even in some cases close your account.
However sometimes this can take years. Given that bookmakers only want losing players then it makes sense to hammer them for as much profit as possible. Before those limitations come.
Interested in learning more about arbitrage betting?
If you want to make low risk profits from the world of sports betting. Matched betting is a great way to start and arbitrage is an excellent method to keep the profits coming.
Make Money On Sports Betting
These are two simple low risk methods that will allow you to potentially make tens of thousands of pounds profit from the sports betting markets.
Can You Really Make Money Sports Betting
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