Sometimes a handicapper picks winners at the rate of 68% and sometimes they are correct 50% of the time. It varies from day-to-day, week-to-week and month-to-month. But the fact is if a handicapper can average 55% on wins, they are going to make you money with their picks. They are going to make a lot of money. And making money is the name of the game when it comes to sports betting.
Some bettors scoff at the idea of pulling down 5% on their bets, which is basically what your profit on a 55% winning percentage. Would you really scoff at 5%? If you’re able to average 5% each week that you bet, you’re going to make a lot of cash over the course of a year. How much?
Let’s say your starting bankroll is $5,000 and you make 5% on that. That’s $250 the first week. The next week it’s $262.50 and the following week you make $275.60. In a year, you could be up by $15,000. That’s based on $5,000.
Instead of 5% on your cash, let’s consider 5% on your betting units. If you play 10 units per day, you have 1 more unit every other day with a 5% return. You’d make between $15,000 and $20,000 in one year! That not only sounds good, it sounds realistic.
Of course it’s not that simple. In order to realize an average return of 5%, sports bettors need to do a few things. First, they need to diversify. In other words, they have to bet on more than one sport. Diversification allows bettors to exploit spreads, lines and over/unders from various sports and it simply offers more value-based lines from which they may choose.
That means being open to betting NFL and college football, NBA and college basketball, baseball and hockey. That’s right. Each of these six sports will offer you value-based wagering opportunities. The problem is none do so in great quantities all the time. Thus, there is the need to diversify and wager on various sports at once.
To make 5%, you’ll need to commit to betting 10 to 15 units per day and to understand that you will face some tough times when you cannot buy a win and some great times when everything seems to result in your doing everything right.
To win consistently, you must be able to ride out the bad times when the only consistency you find is in the fact that you’re losing. Bettors who are able to do this know how to practice sound money management techniques. That means never panic betting or trying to make up for loses with one big bet. Both of these practices are foolhardy and very dangerous.
It’s very important that the sports bettor take the long view. This is not about betting every once in awhile or wagering on just the NFL or tossing $5,000 on one bet and cleaning up. In order to make solid, steady profits, you have to bet in the same way—with solid facts and a steady strategy. This is the way to win and to build a profitable sports betting business.
By reinvesting the cash you make, raising your unit bet according to your growing bankroll (remember 2% of $10,000 is $200 and 2% of $5,000 is $100), and showing patience, you can turn that $5,000 into over a million in less than 8 years. Is this a guarantee? No, it can’t be. But it can happen if you keep reinvesting your profits into your sports betting business.
However, remember that your wagers are only as good as your sports betting strategy, which includes your ability to conduct research, crunch numbers, determine and weigh intangibles and much more. But if you do possess the skill and commitment that needed, then you can certainly be one of sports betting’s success stories.
In the end, the successful bettor is working at generating a sound and solid profit over time. As they learn the craft of handicapping, employ various tools and even hire a pick service, they become more adept at their job, which is to pick winners. It’s that simple in sports betting—you have to pick winners. And you only have to do it 55% of the time.
Treat sports betting as a business and it will show profit like any well-run business. Be sure to keep up on trends, developing situations and current changes in the game, sports betting and on teams. Be a serious collector of facts and stats and do the work you need to do to make sound bets. These are the keys to success. Continue working at it and enjoy the ride. It is a great one!
