Profitable Sports Betting: Five Tips

The purpose of this article is to help YOU become more profitable. This article is NOT about using OddsJam – it’s about making money.

As context, my name is Alex, and I’m the cofounder of OddsJam. I started OddsJam to help sports bettors win, and I’ve personally used this software to profit close to $1,000,000 sports betting. It’s all documented numerous places, in various YouTube videos. All bets are, too.

I started out betting $5 to $10 per wager, so this isn’t about “bankroll.” You can make money sports betting. It’s about dedication, a persistence to beating the sportsbooks, day after day. If you are looking to get rich quick, then this article isn’t for you. To be honest, if that’s the case, then sports betting isn’t for you… You might as well go to 7/11 and play the scratch off lottery..

Whoever tells you that you can get rich quick sports betting is, unsurprisingly, full of BS…

I apologize for any typos, I’m a sports bettor, trader & gambler, but I’m definitely not a writer…

Tip #1: Track Your Bets

My first tip is to track your bets. This is critical. OddsJam has a free bet tracker, but you can also do it manually if you prefer. How do you improve if you aren’t measuring results? You can’t. You need to track your bets.

I mean, seriously, are there investors or day traders who don’t track their profit & loss? Of course not. I would’ve been fired from every job in the financial industry I ever had if I didn’t know my profit & loss… Yet, speaking to sports bettors all day long, it’s clear the vast majority of bettors do NOT know their profit and loss across sportsbook accounts…

It doesn’t matter how you are betting. Maybe you use your own model, your gut, or maybe you use OddsJam. I don’t know. The game always will go “over” or “under,” unless there’s a push. Thus, you’re always going to be at least 50% to win an over/under wager, even if you have no advantage. Most bettors think they’re “smart” when they win a bet, when, realistically, 50% of their bets would be won by randomly selecting over or under.

Knowing whether or not you have an “edge” and are a profitable sports bettors requires a large, large sample size of wagers. Show profitability over the course of 25,000 bets.

My bet tracker with Positive EV betting is below. Every sports bettor has winning & losing streaks. It’s just variance.

So, long story short, track your bets or don’t bet on sports… If you don’t, on winning streaks, you’ll think you’re the best sports bettor in the world. On losing streaks, you’ll think you’re having “bad beats.” Realistically, you’ll just be bleeding money to the sportsbooks because of the “vig” they charge.

Tip #2: Be Quick

Sports betting is a speed game. This is day trading. If you don’t know how to navigate the sportsbooks, then you will miss profitable bets. Profitable bets do NOT last forever…

Spend some time practicing navigating the sportsbooks. It’s critical.

If your dream house is offered at a ridiculously low price, you’d probably move quick so somebody else didn’t buy it first. It’s the same thing here. Sports betting is a market. If everybody starts hammering the Heat moneyline, lines will move towards the Heat. It’s really that simple. It’s supply & demand, just like the stock market.

Increasing your speed when navigating sportsbooks will help you make a lot more money sports betting.

Tip #3: Put in the Time

Sports betting requires time. You can make substantial profits sports betting, but you need to be fast + data-driven + put in time. Again, the market is constantly moving – you never know when the best bets are going to occur.

Randomly, just now on the OddsJam Screen, I saw this play on PrizePicks. They have Davis Mills’ passing yards line at over/under 190.5. Every other sportsbook is 223.5. You definitely want to be on that over if you use PrizePicks.

Now, sports betting isn’t passive income, but it is lucrative. I say this all the time, but a 3% ROI on a college basketball bet is ridiculous. Earning 3% ROI each day = 90% each month.

OddsJam has hedge fund traders and business owners using the product daily. It’s because they understand the power of compounding. Again, I started out betting $5 to $10 per wager. My initial bankroll was like $3,000. It doubled to $6,000 in one month of Positive EV betting. Then $12,000.

As a note, Positive EV betting doesn’t require that much time. It’s just kind of “more the merrier”… I’d rather have 20 Positive EV bets placed per day as opposed to 5. I’d rather have 50 than 20. More bets = merrier when you have an “edge.” In other words, since I know that I have an “edge” over the sportsbooks, my goal is to bet as much of my bankroll as I can every night. It never happens, but that’s the goal of a sharp sports bettor who has an edge.

Tip #4: Understand Variance

Far too many people lose 5 bets in a row and think they are horrible sports bettors. It’s just not true. If you invested in the stock market today, and the S&P500 went down 2%, are you a horrible investor? Is it a terrible idea to invest? Of course not…

I’ve had losing weeks. A lot of them. The thing is, I don’t really care at this point. I know I have the edge. One losing week isn’t anything to sweat. I treat sports betting like investing. If the stock market goes down 2% tomorrow and you lose $2,000, you probably don’t even notice. But if you lose $100 sports betting, you do. You need to view sports betting over a longer time horizon.

I understand that losing money sucks, but Positive EV betting is just logic. Sportsbooks have different odds from one another, so the easiest way to make money betting is to find those few, rare betting opportunities that have an “edge.” Out of the millions of odds on sportsbooks, there’s typically only 25-50 plays that have an “edge” at any given time. This is why most sports bettors cannot win long-term (and why sportsbooks are in business) – they can’t find those betting opportunities that beat the “vig.”

I definitely recommend reaching out to other OddsJam users who bet Positive EV. It just works. Ryan Jankowiak, for example, does not work for OddsJam but shares his plays on Twitter. There’s probably 20 people like him.

These people are identical to me. They understand compounding and variance. They’ve had losing and winning streaks. They understand how sportsbooks work (e.g. charging the “vig” or “juice”). They’re dedicated to beating the sportsbooks and making a lot of money.

Tip #5: Understand the Industry

People are always skeptical as to “why” OddsJam works. Most of the industry is handicappers – somebody watches sports and sells picks to you. Isn’t that how people make money?

The answer to that is “Come on…”

OddsJam has the most data at the fastest speeds. That’s why our customers have the “edge.” Data is all that matters. Every highly profitable firm in the financial / crypto industry is data-driven. It’s all about having the most data and the fastest speeds. That’s every successful hedge fund, etc.