Full time sports betting?
 

How hard is it make a living out of sports betting? I've a friend in the early stages of doing this, too early to tell yet how he'll fare in the long term but I'm thinking of looking in to based on his results so far. Is anyone here a professional sports bettor and what % of all bettors are good enough to make a living at it?

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

1. Drop out
2. Lay 25% of your bankroll on the Pats -7.5
3. ???
4. Profit

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

I don't know the number but it's very very very low. Like less than .1%. It's a very hard living. It's not something you just "get into". It takes years and years of discipline. You'd be better off playing poker.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

[ QUOTE ]
1. Drop out
2. Lay 25% of your bankroll on the Pats -7.5
3. ???
4. Profit

[/ QUOTE ]

i bet wvu -6.5
i bet 4 team teaser that included Florida -2.5
I bet these hard
I cried
I cant sports bet for two weeks cause now I have no gambling funds.....waaaaaaa

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

The problem with sports betting for a living, is that in order to know for sure that you are actually a winning bettor, and not just running hot, you will need a very large sample size. You really won't ever be able to get the sample size you need, because you can't just work at it 40 hours a week. There are only so many games each week, and once you handicap them, you just have to wait till next week. So after 20 years, you might be able to look at it and say 'meh, I guess I'm not really a winner at this.' Oh well, that's life...

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

In order to make a decent living at sports betting, your friend will need a few things:

1) Ability to consistantly beat the books on at least one sport (more is better).

2) He'll need a large enough bankroll to allow him to have bet sizes large enough that a ROI of 2-3% on will return enough to support him in the lifestyle he'd want.

3) He'll need a lot of discipline - in what he beats, in dealing with losses (and wins), in bank roll management, in bet size management, etc.


There's more, of course. I'm sure others will add..

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

If you aren't sure you can make a living out of sports betting, then you aren't ready for it.

Go to BBV and read posts by people who are running bad at poker. It's possible to run bad at poker for a very long time. Fortunately for them, poker players usually have the luxury of being able to complain that their AA all-in pre-flop lost yet again. As frustrating as that can be, at least there is comfort in knowing you got your money in as a large favorite.

You'll very rarely find that large of an edge in sports. Neither will you have the assurance that you got your money in as a favorite. Downswings occur more often in sports betting than poker and IMO they are even more damaging psychologically. At those times you'll need to rely on your time tested conviction. Thus if you aren't sure now, you aren't ready for it.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

[censored]. This [censored] be ez f'real. If I can do it, anyone can. Holla!

Not really. ROIs should be >3%. Most of the ROI quotes you see are basically rubbish. If you work backward through the numbers and find what the soft side of an arb would give out... You would be >3%. You do need to have discipline and bankroll and short term expenses saved up.

Handicapping is overrated. I handicap no sports and manage to pay my bills just fine. Obv its something that I'm working on and I'm very good at the other things I do, but you don't need to study NFL football or anything of the sort to pay the rent.

The swongs are pretty bad. But yeah I'd be surprised if even 1 out of 100 who're long term winners can hack it as a pro for more than a couple years.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

If he is smart enough, skillful at his craft, hard-working, curious, persistent and has self-control ... then it really isn't that difficult to do well. While I think many people have these qualities and could make a living betting sports, I think the vast majority don't even think about it or try to do it. That's because they are doing really well in their jobs, why quit a $200K job with health benefits (especially if you have kids), 401K, company stock options, etc. and take the plunge into something that seems a lot more volatile and risky ... and probably frowned-upon by other members of society, including the family-in-law.

The reason why so many people fail at sports betting may have something to do with the people themselves, rather than the difficulty of sports betting. Sports betting (and gambling in general) draws in people who enjoy gambling, and often enjoy it too much.

In my opinion, it is the rare person that can succeed in other industries who decides to choose sports betting instead and not be a person with a gambling problem. Most people who choose sports betting etiher have a gambling problem or they are having a tough time succeeding in other industries.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

[ QUOTE ]
why quit a $200K job with health benefits (especially if you have kids), 401K, company stock options, etc. and take the plunge into something that seems a lot more volatile and risky ...

[/ QUOTE ]

well, it doesn't hurt if every job interview ends in rejection. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

by the way, the steps to profit should clearly begin with:

1. find A+ rated book offering 800-1 on tigers to win world series

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

The key to being a good sports bettor, which i consider myself to be, perhaps the top 1% of all bettors world wide, is to have lots of friends, lots and lots of friends, its really just about knowing people, say you have 500 friends, i have a lot more, but i won't give you the number.so your 500 friends, wait make that 1000 friends, i have more but you should shoot for 1000 and you call them up. i call my friends up every day maybe every 2 days if i have flu, but your calling and calling calling, wow you'll get used to it. now this is the important part, you gotta make sure that about 100 of these friends are degenerate gambooooling freaks, you probably saying what? were do i find good friends like that...well heres the catch, there not actually your friends...yep its out. so be really good friends with the 900 other people and just 'friends' with the gambooola's...so you call your really good friends up and say hey sam i need 10 dollars, and sam will say yah man here's 20 dollars, well you make that phone call 10 times that 200 dollars, you make that phone call 100 times that 2000 dollars, yep that math is right, 2000 dollars, now you got a bankroll, so you go to the track and you find your 100 'friends' and you bet them all 20 dollars on the oilers game next week. but heres the trick...well i can't tell you the trick or you;d all be making money this way.........so you triple your money, then you go back to your good friends and pay them back...well i do this every day and i'm making like 750k a year, [censored] that guy who talks about family and health care, how many people die on the phone??? how man people get hurt at the race track...yeah... it is the secret of life. but keep it hush hush

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

There is some truth to what you say if you are only a handicapper and only betting sides and/or totals that you handicapped. But there are a lot more other things going on. In each of the last three years, I made more than 3,000 different bets per year. I did not lack for sample size in my wagers, and I thought each one was positive EV when I made them.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

[ QUOTE ]
In order to make a decent living at sports betting, your friend will need a few things, in increasing order of importance:

3) Ability to consistently beat the books on at least one sport (more and more widely-followed is better).

2) He'll need a large enough bankroll to allow him to have bet sizes large enough that a ROI of 2-3% on will return enough to support him in the lifestyle he'd want. And the knowledge to know he shouldn't pass up even a dime of EV+.

1) He'll need a lot of discipline - in what he bets, in dealing with losses (and wins), in bankroll management, in bet size management, etc. And probably no gamble in him.


[/ QUOTE ]

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

Naj,

That [censored] is bad. I don't know why you're quoting it. The third part is fine, but the 2nd is horrid enough to make me wanna vomit. Unless he cites 2-3% as a minimum floor similar to a margin of safety.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Naj,

That [censored] is bad. I don't know why you're quoting it. The third part is fine, but the 2nd is horrid enough to make me wanna vomit. Unless he cites 2-3% as a minimum floor similar to a margin of safety.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think that if you're just starting out, it IS good advice to have a large enough bankroll that a 2-3% ROI can support you. Yes, you should probably be getting a better ROI than that on average, but it's entirely possible that even if you're getting your money in you could end up only winning 2-3% purely due the downside of variance. Add in that this is someone inexperienced with no known track record, even if we give him credit for being a winner in the long-term, he could very well make a few bad bets during the learning process that drag down his ROI at the beginning.

If a ROI of less than 2-3% is unnacceptable to you, your bankroll probably isn't large enough to embark upon this path, which is how I intereperted the original post. And I agree. If this is what you mean by "minimum floor" or "margin of safety" then perhaps you agree too. Otherwise, would you care to explain why you think this isn't good advice?

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

BJJ,

I think you should be looking for significantly higher than 2-3%. That is what I meant. Also you shouldn't be looking to maximize EV as that can lead to unnecessary and damaging swongs. Theres a lot to be said for just making a living on line movements and math. This is by far the easiest way to support yourself.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

I didn't really think too much about the ROI%, I agree you should be looking for >>> 2-3%, but maybe that is a good starting point for people, as if they cannot make that number than they should pretty much forget about it w/o very large bankroll.

I agree, and have said repeatedly, that line moves and shopping and arbs are far easier and more profitable, all things considered.

on ROI
 

3% ROI is on the high end IMO.

Re: on ROI
 

Without a time frame, I'm not sure how to evaluate 2-3% ROI. For a week, it's obviously high. For a year, it's very low.

Re: on ROI
 

let me rephrase because I think we are thinking different things, and its a confusion due to semantics. When I say 3% ROI, I mean over the total amount of money bet. The total money bet is churned over and over every week. Say you put 10K into action (on average) every week and have a 20K bankroll. Over a 20-week season, you'd be betting 200K (on average) while using a 20K bankroll. So 3% of 200K = 6K ... but 6K of a 20K bankroll is 30%.

Re: on ROI
 

[ QUOTE ]
3% ROI is on the high end IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, you're very wrong on this and so is your book. You can bet line movements for this and higher.

This is for normal sides/ML/totals etc. Your futures etc can and should push >50% if not higher before you start hedging etc.

Re: on ROI
 

[ QUOTE ]
Without a time frame, I'm not sure how to evaluate 2-3% ROI. For a week, it's obviously high. For a year, it's very low.

[/ QUOTE ]

ROI is clearly per dollar bet. Not for a time period.

Re: on ROI
 

how many bets is considered significant? What is the equivalent of say 100k hands of poker?

Re: on ROI
 

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, you're very wrong on this and so is your book. You can bet line movements for this and higher.



[/ QUOTE ]

Please give me an example.

Re: on ROI
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, you're very wrong on this and so is your book. You can bet line movements for this and higher.



[/ QUOTE ]

Please give me an example.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm... Work back through the Pinny expected loss per dollar for the avg high volume arbitrageur. The long run is fairly quick with this. Avg negative ROI there is around 3.6 to 3.9 which implies at worst a corresponding positive ROI of at least this level at other books. If you throw in any actual bonus dollars (which I'm sure you are excluding and as I am for pure ROI discussion) you can quickly earn a fairly nice living. The swings are much greater, but I'm sure you can manage to get several nice plays per day at a decent Kelly stake with a mid five figure to low six figure bankroll and a small amount of talent.

There is really no reason to handicap games if you're going to earn such a small ROI, there are many people who are able to beat openers for double digit ROIs. There is really little reason to spend hours and hours analyzing information for an edge smaller than you can get just staring at a monitor.

Re: on ROI
 

[ QUOTE ]
how many bets is considered significant? What is the equivalent of say 100k hands of poker?

[/ QUOTE ]

It depends...

First of all, you don't really need to play 100K hands of poker to know if you are a winning poker player.

Let's say you have 50K hands in a certain online NLHE game (same site, same stakes) and you have a 14 PTBB (28 big blinds) win rate. The question is not if you are a winning player, but what your true winrate is. Many people on 2+2 don't seem to understand this distinction, which is why you see people making all kinds of absurd claims as to how many hands you have to play in order to "prove" you are a winning player.

It is the same with sportsbetting. It depends what kind of winrate you are putting up.

If you've placed 5K straight bets against a dimeline, and won 2900 of them (a incredible win pct of 58%), you are a winning bettor. The chance that you are just getting lucky is infintesmal.

If you've won 2750 of them (a very good win pct of 55%), the chances you are just running good is just 0.012%.

If you've won 2700 of these bets (win pct of 54%), the chances you are just running good is up to 1.2%.

In these examples, running good means that your true winrate is somehow known as being 52.4% (which would be breakeven on a dimeline).

If you wanted to know if you are bettor than a 50/50 handicapper (as opposed to wanting to know if you can beat a dimeline), then you would need much less bets in your sample. For example, if you win 1100 out of 2000 bets, you are definitely better than a 50/50 picker.

Most 2+2 nits seem to think you need to play 1M hands of poker (regardless of winrate), win 5800 out of 10K bets, or run a MLB Monte Carlo simulation 1M times to get a significant sample size. None of that is close to being true.

Ignore most of what you see on here with regards to sample sizes, unless you don't see the humor in the following exchange (from Dumb and Dumber):

Lloyd Christmas: What are the chances of you and me getting together?

Woman: 1 in a million.

Lloyd: So you're saying there's a chance!

Re: on ROI
 

I agree that 2% is pretty much the absolute minimum acceptable.
Don't believe me? Go here, plug in -100 and 51%.
3% seems reasonable, neither pathetically low nor absurdly high.

Re: on ROI
 

PO,

That was excellent. In the same token if you're winning at <1PTBB in a high variance style, you might need 5 million plus hands to determine if you are even a winner.

Re: on ROI
 

[ QUOTE ]
There is really no reason to handicap games if you're going to earn such a small ROI, there are many people who are able to beat openers for double digit ROIs. There is really little reason to spend hours and hours analyzing information for an edge smaller than you can get just staring at a monitor.

[/ QUOTE ]If my math is right, that means hitting over 57.5%, equivalent to a no-vig line of -136 (while getting -110). Is this seriously possible by just following line movement? Don't slow-moving books usually wait on posting their lines until they've stabilized a bit?

Edit: Also, are we talking daily sports (baseball/basketball) or football?

Re: on ROI
 

there goes thremp giving away his ricebowl again... somewhere on planet earth hogua is shedding a tear

Re: on ROI
 

calm,

No chance you can hit line moves for double digits. You can, however, if you are good at handicapping beat openers for double digits. I might have been confusing. There is little to no chance of you getting an ROI of >5% on line moves even if you're hot hot hot and at soft books, well maybe at soft ones for a short short period. Regardless, I came out blasting this ROI of 2-3% when I heard it originally and will stick by it again. If you can beat WA lines for 2-3%, you're a moran of the highest order and probably need to spend time line shopping cause you're already a sick handicapper.

Re: on ROI
 

[ QUOTE ]
calm,

No chance you can hit line moves for double digits. You can, however, if you are good at handicapping beat openers for double digits. I might have been confusing. There is little to no chance of you getting an ROI of >5% on line moves even if you're hot hot hot and at soft books, well maybe at soft ones for a short short period. Regardless, I came out blasting this ROI of 2-3% when I heard it originally and will stick by it again. If you can beat WA lines for 2-3%, you're a moran of the highest order and probably need to spend time line shopping cause you're already a sick handicapper.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I guess I got confused because the rest of your post just talked about arbitrage/line shopping.

Re: on ROI
 

Calm,

No worries. But yeah, there is really no reason to be selling yourself short and hitting opening numbers at a 3% clip and then thinking you're awesome because someone claims it is (Not to take anything away from the information King Yao has provided), but there is a lot better.

Note: Your ROI should go down if you include hedging in your dollars wagered and even if you don't it should go down as optimal growth recommends a hedge on any lines that have significant movement even if the hedge is -EV.

Re: on ROI
 

Well the guy I was referring to has been winning for a while and has called 9 out of his last 10 bets correctly, with 2 of them being picking one team to be winning at half time and the other to be winning at the end of the game. He knows his stuff and seems to be at last realising the importance of bankroll management which was killing him previously along with some careless bets.
I'm just waiting to see how he'll handle the enivitable serious prolonged downswing and how he'll do over a serious sample size. I think he might be overly optimistic on how well he can do but I do think he could be a long term winner which would be a great achievement.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

dont do it unless you have access to LOTs of team info, especially injury statuses. i have a friend who worked as the number cruncher for a bookie and he said there were only 3 guys who were positive in the long run out of hundreds of bettors. at best maybe .5-1% of them winners. those are terrible odds.

they had so much inside info, def some access to injury reports that the booking house would change the lines depending on how they bet...

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

[ QUOTE ]
dont do it unless you have access to LOTs of team info, especially injury statuses. i have a friend who worked as the number cruncher for a bookie and he said there were only 3 guys who were positive in the long run out of hundreds of bettors. at best maybe .5-1% of them winners. those are terrible odds.

they had so much inside info, def some access to injury reports that the booking house would change the lines depending on how they bet...

[/ QUOTE ]

HYACHACHACHAHCHAHCHACHAHCHA

This type of stuff puts me on tilt.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

Best way to make a career of sports betting is to run hot for a year and then convince a lot of people to pay you for picks.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

crockpot just got served [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

[ QUOTE ]
crockpot just got served [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

See his problem was convince people to pay then run really icy cold. If it was running redonk hot, I'd be trying to get invites to the hookz and blow parties he'd be having in his place next to Dr. Bobs.

Re: Full time sports betting?
 

RE: OP

Started while I was in university casually. Took me 4 years to get good at it. Been doing it "professionally" for 12 years. Have a great life. I look at my friends from law school and I work 1/4 of what they do and make considerably more. Wouldn't want to do anything else.

The concern I'd have is the OP hasn't given this much thought. It seems that a friend has had a hot run and based on that this looks like a cool way to make a living. This is a dangerous way to think. Based on that alone I'd say stay with the 9-5 job.