Most people who want to place bets on sports are fans to begin with. It isn’t unheard of for a gambler to place some sports bets, especially during big games like the Super Bowl or the NCAA basketball Final Four, but for the most part, sports bettors are sports fans looking to use their knowledge of a game or of a game’s players to earn a little extra cash. Being a fan of a particular sport, a team, a college or professional squad—these are all precursors to placing sports bet. Sports betting is also a way for a fan to get in on the action of the game, with something more than self-respect at stake.

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All gambling is mathematics, even games of chance. If you understand the math behind the game, you understand the game and can give yourself an advantage. For many games, like penny slots or poorly placed roulette bets, are so bad that smart bettors earn their advantage by avoiding them altogether. In sports betting, the math is more complicated. Depending on your favorite sport, you may need to think about things like bye weeks, underdogs, quarterback ratings, and injuries with the same fervor other connoisseurs reserve for fancy winces.

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So how difficult is sports betting math? The math behind placing a winning bet is fairly complicated, but the way to stay ahead of the bookmaker is rather straightforward. If you collect on 52.4% of your bets, you’ll break even. We’ll have more details on that number later, including why it takes more than 50% wins to break even, but first some general knowledge about sports gambling and the numbers behind it.

Sports Betting Basics

The easiest way to demonstrate the math behind a sports bet is to make up an example. Let’s say you and your buddy walk into a casino, each with $200 burning a hole in your pocket. There’s a big game on tonight, the Cowboys and the Redskins, so you wander into the sportsbook to check up on the latest news about the game. While you’re sitting there, you see the wagering board, with some funny numbers on it. It looks like this:

• 428 Cowboys +175
• 429 Redskins -4 -200 38

Some of this is easy enough to read. The Redskins -4 means the Redskins are favored to win and must do so by at least 5 points for a bet on the ‘Skins to pay out. The next number (-200) is the moneyline, in this case the Redskins are a 2/1 favorite. The last number (38) is the total, the over/under of the expected number of points scored in the game.

More on Placing Sports Bets

Look at that over/under number, in this case 38. If you or your buddy thinks this is going to be a particularly high or low scoring game, based on your knowledge of the team’s offenses and defenses, or information about a hurt player or bad playing conditions, you can place a wager on the total of points scored.

So how is a guy supposed to know how to literally lay down a sports bet? You need to know three things:

#1 – the type of bet you want to make
#2 – the number of the corresponding team you have chosen and
#3 – the amount you wish to wager

Knowing all that beforehand gives the ticket writer the details he needs to write the ticket without having to bend over backwards to process your bet.

Tipping and Sports Betting

We haven’t even gotten to the meat of the sports math yet, and we’re already talking about tipping the staff behind the window? Yep. Here’s why.

If you place two $100 bets, and you win, you’ll collect $440. You should consider leaving a tip around five percent of your winnings. Yes, that’s a $22 tip, but you just made a huge win, and surely you can spring for a twenty-spot for the guy who helped you win it. If you tip around the five percent mark regularly, when you win, you’re way more likely to get free drinks, which is about all you’re going to get comp-wise at the sportsbook.

So, back to the basic math of sports betting. You and your buddy, after much deliberation, decide to each place a $100 bet on your favorite team. What now?

To bet on the Redskins using the point spread, your bet is called “laying the points.” For your bet to pay off, the ‘Skins have to win by five or more to cover the spread. Remember, if the ‘Skins win by exactly four, the game is a push, and both sides recoup their bet. Another alternative is called “taking the points” with the Cowboys. That means the Cowboys have to lose by three or less for your bet to win, or if the Cowboys win outright. So you and your buddy go up to place your $100 bet, and you find out that the standard straight bet at any bookie pays 11/10. That means you have to bet $110 if you want to win $100. You and your buddy pay the bookie $110 and sit down with drinks to watch your bets come in.

These are deceptively simple bets. Deceptively because they make it look like the outcome of the football game is like the outcome of picking marbles out of a bag. Put one black marble and two white marbles in a bag, pull one out at random, and there’s your football game. After all, the odds are the same: 2/1 for white.

But we, as sports fans, know that the mathematics of a sporting event is much more complex. Sports bettors deeply involved in their hobby will subscribe to weather bulletins from major cities that take part in their sport, making huge wagering decisions based on a few mph of wind in one direction or another. Then there’s the unknown—does a player get hurt in the first quarter? Does weather become a factor? Is a particular player “in the zone?”

How Do Bookies Make a Profit?

Just as we finish ruminating on the concept of the difficult math at play in the background of major sporting events, we’re going to turn right back towards the simpler side of sports betting. Bookies make a profit because of vigorish. What’s vigorish?

Look at the above example again. You and your buddy each paid $10 to the bookie to place your bet. That’s what the standard 11/10 odds in sports betting are all about. You bet the Cowboys and your buddy bet the Redskins, a total of $220 bet. The sportsbook has to pay back $210 to the winner, leaving a nice $10 profit no matter what happens on the football field. That $10 built-in profit is called the vigorish, and it’s the final monkey wrench in the gears of sports betting.

Obviously, sportsbooks are going to take more than two bets on any game, but this example is for simplicity’s sake. Looking at the total number of bets on different games over the course of a week and adjusting the moneyline and other numbers is another way the bookie makes a profit. Adjusting the odds a tiny percentage point in either direction will affect the balance of beats and make the book more likely to turn a profit no matter what.

Essentially, a bookie is a person who holds on to money from bettors then pays them if they win and keeps their money if they don’t. That’s what the job is boiled down to its essence.

When a bookie sets odds for games, he will build what bookies call an “over round” into his set of odds. Another slang term used for this formula is “the juice.” For the sake of simplicity, let’s look at a boxing match where both contenders are equally talented, of equal stature, etc. Since they both have an equal chance of winning, a casual bet may be even money. You put $20 on one guy; your friend puts $20 on the other. Whichever fighter wins awards the bettor with the total of $40.

Bookies don’t offer even money like friends in a casual betting situation. In the above example, with two evenly matched boxers, a smart bookie will offer 5/6 odds for each. That way, a $10 winning bet would only return $8.30 plus your stake. What does this do for the bookmaker? He can float an equal amount of money on both fighters, winning no matter which fighter actually wins. If they take $1,000 worth of bets on one boxer and $1,000 on the other, the bookie would take in $1,000 but only have to pay out $830, for a guaranteed $170 profit regardless of the outcome.

Bookies look at the weight of their books all the time and adjust odds and other factors to make sure their books balance. Though it isn’t possible to completely balance a book, bookies that go too far out on one side run the risk of losing money, and losing money in gambling is the fastest way to find yourself in another industry. All of these factors are why bookies generally root for the underdog—too many favorites winning in a sport with a short season (such as the NFL) can cause a bookmaker to lose money, while a bunch of upsets (like you generally see in college football) is a guaranteed profit for the bookmaker.

The short answer here is that bookies making money has nothing at all to do with your betting. It is almost unheard of for a single customer to be allowed to place enough bets to sink a single book all on his own. High rollers in sports betting get special privileges in terms of their maximum bet size, but these privileges often change with the bettor’s luck—maximums get raised after the bettor sees big losses and decreased (sharply) when the bettor starts to get lucky.

In short, a sportsbook’s profits aren’t necessarily impacted directly by the way an individual bet is called. Unlike casino games or slot machines, where it’s you against the house, sports bettors fuel the bookmaker’s business and only rarely is an individual bettor betting against the bookie.

Sports Betting Odds

Remember at the beginning when we talked about the magic number necessary to guarantee a break-even week in sports betting? If you read enough about sports betting, you’ll hear this number repeated often: 52.4%. If a bettor can win 52.4% of his bets, he’ll break even. Where does that number come from?

When betting the spread, you get odds of -110. Sometimes, sportsbooks will offer a -105 line as a promotion or to welcome new business. But for the most part, if you’re betting the spread, you’re getting -110.

We draw that 52.4% break even number right out of the odds. -110 is equivalent to 11/10. That means if you bet 21 games, you’d have to win eleven of them and lose ten of them to break completely even. Even at -105, you’d still have to win an astounding 51.2% of the time just to break even.

If you don’t trust the basic math behind this break-even principle, look at another real-world example. Let’s say you get really into sports betting after your Cowboys cream the Redskins and you go home with a nice fat wallet. You then bet on the next 10 Cowboys games, winning six times and losing four times.

That 60% betting record (with the odds of -110 that is traditional for against the spread bets in football) will leave you with a profit of $160. Think about it—your $600 profit from your 6 winning bets minus the $440 you lost on losing bets leaves $160. It took you $1,100 to win $160, meaning you have to bet $6.87 to win $1 on average. So you see the small differences between a 52.4% winning rate and a 60% winning rate—inside those 7.3 percentage points lies hundreds of dollars in profit.

Now imagine instead that you lost one of those six winning bets, leaving you with a 50% betting record. You spent a total of $1,100, won $500, and lost $550. That means overall your 50% record drained your wallet by $50. That’s where the vigorish will get you. Not even winning half the time is good enough to break even in sports betting.

Professional Sports Bettors

Believe it or not, some people really do bet on sports for a living. Maybe they work part time at a sportsbook or in some other marginal job in the casino industry, but there is a group of gamblers who bet on sports for their life’s work. With all the math swirling around in our heads after the last bit of the article, it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to do this for a living.

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. After your successful Cowboys experiment, you decide to invest $10,000 in sports gambling over the first four months of the following football season. That $10,000 is set aside to win or lose in sportsbooks.

You plan on betting on 160 games during your investment period. You dream of a 55% winning record because your win-loss with a 55% winning record would give you an 88-72 record. That’s an expected profit of +8.8 units. How did we get to that number? To calculate your units, subtract the total of your losses (multiplied by 1.1 to include the vig) from your wins and you’ll get your unit profit.

Placing $460 bets on each of these games, a number pulled from some quick and dirty math about how much you could afford to bet in a single week’s NFL play without blowing your bankroll, would result in a $4,048 profit if you maintain that 55% winning record. Turning $10,000 into $14,048 in just four months is an investment return of 40.48%. I dare you to ask your bank for that kind of return on your savings account.

But that’s all assuming you can pick the winner 55% of the time. Do your research, look into the records of professional sports gamblers. 55%, while not impossible, would place you among the elite sports bettors in the country, if not the world.

Professional sports bettors have to worry about variance more than any other type of gambler. Working against the forces of variance means managing your bankroll over the course of the season to avoid the negative possibilities that could totally empty your wagering account. Professional sports bettors have the time and resources necessary to calculate these variances, and there are even a few pieces of software out there that can help you figure out your ideal bet in the face of negative variance. But the bottom line is that professional sports bettors would dream of having a 55% winning record, simply because it guarantees you’re beating the house.

Pro bettors make their money on bets that sportsbooks offer that give them even the slightest betting advantage. The key to becoming a profitable sports bettor is being able to find advantages, opportunities where the line a book is offering is vulnerable.

This is why many long-term sports bettors are math freaks. Good sports bettors understand statistics, particularly what are called inferential statistics, though any higher math will help when it comes time to place a bet.

Here is what a professional baseball bettor might do in his head. After looking over statistics from MLB (kept religiously by all sorts of bloggers, data archives, and magazines) between the years 2000-2010, he notices a particular statistic pop out. For example: when the home team starts a left-handed pitcher the day after a loss, that team wins 59% of the time. Good sports bettors can do this sort of math in their head or very quickly on paper. From that bit of information comes a new betting theory—look for game situations that mirror the above example and bet on them. That means he’ll only bet games where the home team starts a left-handed pitcher the day after a loss. Does he just jump in and start betting based on this back of the napkin math? No way. More statistical analysis is required—he may find that this was a fluke for that particular decade and isn’t a trustworthy statistics, or he may find an even more advantageous bet based on his original theory.

Pro sports bettors also keep near-obsessive records of their bets. Obviously, no edge in sports betting lasts longer than a single game. Taking proper records will also help you test theories, like the above one about left-handed pitchers and losses. Without taking good records, no sports bettor’s bankroll will last very long.

What Is a Good Record for Sports Bettors

So, at the end of the day, what could you call a “good” record for a sports bettor? Most casual gamblers looking into sports betting see a pro advertising his 1100-900 record and shake their head a little. How could such an abysmal record be something to be proud of? That’s a 55% winning percentage, and it indicates to those in the know that this bettor is actually turning a profit placing bets on sports.

A good record for a sports bettor is any record equal to or larger than 52.4%, because that number or anything higher means you’re not losing money. A 53% winning record, while not impressive on paper, means you’re actually beating the sportsbook and putting money back in your pocket. Ask your friends that play the slots or play online poker how often they end up putting money back in their pocket.

A -110 wager, standard for spread bets in the NFL, gives the house a built-in advantage of 10%. It means that even if you do win, and you line up to collect your $100, some sucker behind you just spent $10 to hand the casino $100.

A good record for sports bettors is any record that ensures they at least break-even. If you bet 16 games this NFL season and you won 9 and lost 7, you probably made money. And taking money away from a casino is always something to be proud of.

Other Advanced Sports Betting Strategy Articles:
» Future Betting Strategy
» NFL Bye Week Betting Strategy
» Parlay Betting Strategy

Sports Betting Break Even Video:

In the video above I go over the break even % for sports betting, and we take a look at the difference between hitting 52% and 53%. I also quickly show the amounts of profits you can expect if you can hit 55% consistently.

There’s a reason that the popularity of sports betting has exploded in recent years. In fact, did you know that during the last recession, the gambling industry relentlessly continued to grow? That’s because, in times of desperation, many people try their luck and think of ways that they can turn their hard earned money into…well, even more money. But can you make money from sports betting?

Everyone is attracted by the thought of making easy money. When you’re slaving away in your 9-5, struggling to make ends meet, it’s only natural.

But the truth is this. Making money from sports betting is HARD. Very hard. But if you’re serious about becoming better at sports betting, this article will help.

How to make money from sports betting

Skills and Attributes

One thing that you must understand when you start sports betting is this. It’s got very little to do with how good you are at predicting individual events.

You’re going head to head with the bookmaker. You’re going to war with them, so you better be prepared.

The biggest bookmakers employ hundreds of smart people to enhance their profits. They obviously make their profits from you losing. See the problem here?

Mathematicians, programmers, sports experts.; They create tools that accurately predict the probability of a whole host of events.

Maths

A strong ability with numbers is probably the number one skill you need to bet successfully. Surprised that it isn’t sports knowledge?

As I said, betting is about probability. You have to be able to compete with the statistical models churned out by teams of betting experts. The key is to find value and spot where the bookmaker has priced something incorrectly.

Sports Knowledge

To be honest, sports knowledge isn’t a prerequisite to being successful at sports betting. In can, in fact, get in the way. Your opinions can go against what the numbers are telling you.

But it does help to have a knowledge of how sport works. A passion and interest in it is also helpful, because you’re going to be watching it an awful lot if you want to gain an advantage over the bookie!

Motivation

Successful sports betting is hard work. It’s not about watching a game with your friends and opening up your betting app and placing a bet.

Successful gamblers spend hours or days planning a bet. They study the numbers and news in the minutest of details.

This is why most people aren’t even remotely successful with betting. They see sports betting as easy money and aren’t willing to put in the hard work.

Discipline

Gambling is a very emotive process. The highs and lows when you win money are some of the most compelling motivators around. It’s one of the reasons that people become addicted to gambling. They don’t bet to make money anymore. They gamble to chase those emotions.

Having discipline over your emotions and your money is vital.

Preparation

So you may have been getting the feeling so far that this isn’t going to be easy. You’d be right. But it isn’t impossible. Before you start placing bets, there’s some prep you need to do.

Bankroll

To get off to a good start, you must put your bankroll aside. Place it in a separate bank account. Then write it off in your mind, because you may NEVER see that money again.

Staking Plan

The only way to take advantage of incorrect prices is by having a sensible staking plan. The goal is for long term profit, and to do that; your stakes must be consistent.

This means only betting between 2% & 5% of your bank. The percentage you choose to place on the bet varies depending on your confidence.

What & When

Sports betting is available 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. Yes, that’s right, you can even bet on Christmas day! Once you’re done with the present-opening, Bucks Fizz-drinking and cracker-pulling, obviously…

It’s for this reason that you need to get clear on what you’re betting on and when. You need to set strict rules for yourself so that you can ensure you stick to them when your reasoning goes out of the window and your emotions are telling you to bet.

You also need to get clear on exactly what your strengths are. Where can you find the edge? Which sport? Which markets?

Don’t become a jack of all trades. The only way to get an edge over the huge teams the bookmakers employ is to become a specialist in one sport, perhaps one competition, and just a few markets.

Strategies

You need to think carefully about what strategies you bet on, and how you’re going to apply them to the markets you have chosen to focus on.

These strategies will further enhance the rules you put in place, and you must stick to them, otherwise you risk losing your edge.

Mindset

To be successful, your mindset is crucial. It isn’t an easy fix, and it’s something you need to change over time.

Here are a few things that you need to train your mind to accept if you actually want to make money:

Don’t Chase Losses

This is perhaps the most difficult thing to master when sports betting. Why? Because money is linked deeply with your emotions.

Money is the thing that your brain links to a lot of the core emotions that drive every human on earth, like fear. Fear is obviously your body’s natural emotion to help you survive.

So when you grab that money and place it on a horse, your brain isn’t thinking “Oh, I’m throwing some spare cash on this horse for fun!”. It’s thinking “Danger! Money = Food = Life or Death.”

That’s why the emotions behind your gambling can be so intense. It’s why some people feel physically sick when they lose a bet.

It’s also for that reason that people decide to chase losses. That’s why sports betting is so difficult to do in an unemotional and detached way. You are fighting the natural instincts that have been built into humans over hundreds of thousands of years!

Slow & Steady Wins The Race

The natural instinct of many people is to try and hit the jackpot every time. That is why accumulators are one of the most popular bet choices in sports betting – particularly football accumulators.

It’s important to get into the mindset of being happy with small gains. Forget the get-rich-quick mindset; This is all about small, incremental profits over a long period.

There may even be long periods of time when you go without profit. This is when you need to have faith in your sports betting strategy.

You Won’t Win Every Bet

You need to come to terms with the fact that you won’t win every bet. Far from it in fact.

It’s all about the long term process and gaining a few % of profit. That’s why your numbers need to be planned to precision from the outset.

It takes a lot of nerve to go on long losing runs. But they will come, and before you start, you have to decide whether you can ride them out.

General advice

You should, by now have got the impression that sports betting successfully is difficult. Very difficult!

Bookmakers closing accounts

We need to tell you that, unfortunately, the game is rigged. Once you start to be successful with sports betting, the bookmakers will show you the door.

They have developed sophisticated algorithms that rate every player based on their win rate, how sensibly they stake. They have a rating for every single customer.

Read our post on account restrictions.

The second that you start to show that you aren’t going to be good for business, then the bookmakers will dramatically lower your stakes. We’re talking about maximum bets of £1.

Be Sensible

It takes a special kind of person to be successful with sports betting. You must show unwavering positivity throughout.

You are going head-to-head with multi-million pound businesses on your own, and when the inevitable losses follow you will doubt yourself. That doubt is incredibly difficult to let go of.

But it’s natural, and you have to know when to quit. Millions of people know that they should quit betting, but they fail to and end up developing a problem.

Or, you could just turn the table on the bookies and stack the odds in your favour for once…

Guaranteed Profit

How many times have you heard the sentence “you’ll never beat the bookies”? Probably lots. And for good reason. It’s very difficult to do so with sports betting as the odds are stacked in the bookie’s favour.

But there is a way to completely turn that on its head and stack the odds in your favour for once.

How?

It’s called matched betting and it’s a method that is now being used by millions who’ve realised that it’s incredibly hard to win with sports betting alone.

How To Make Money Sports Betting Uk

The great thing is, you don’t have to be good at betting. You don’t even have to have placed a bet before.

Whether you have experience with betting or not, you will have seen the free bets that bookmakers advertise on the TV.

This is their way of luring potential customers. The industry is so competitive, with hundreds of bookmakers. So they need a way to hook customers into signing up for their service.

Unfortunately, there are stipulations attached to these free bets, and customers usually lose money when they sign up. Before you are allowed to withdraw the free bet, you must wager it 5x. This makes profit extremely difficult.

This is where matched betting comes to the rescue! Matched betting allows you to bypass these terms and conditions and extract that free bet. You can take that money straight from your bookmaker to your bank account with ease.

Because of the huge number of bookmakers, there is literally thousands of pounds worth of free bets. This is so much more lucrative than sports betting, and it is for that reason that the bookmakers are scared.

You see, it’s completely legal, and there isn’t much they can do to stop it. Find out more in our ‘Is matched betting legal?‘ post. Millions of people from all walks of life are now taking this path and have quit sports betting.

How To Make Money Fast

Want to give it a go?

The great bit about that is that one service has laid it all out for you. No hours wasted frustratingly searching through Google looking for answers.

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