The Math Of Profitable Sports Betting

 I promise to keep this as simple as possible.  First, let's start with the basics.  What do those odds that you see (like +125 or -140) really mean?  As you probably know, any odds with a "+" sign means you will win more than you risk, and a "-" sign means you'll win less.  Of course, the former is less likely to win.  Let's turn those odds into percentages.

Here's how to change odds into percentages.  For odds with a "+", you take 100 divided by 100 + the number.  So for +150 the percent chance of winning is 100/ (100 + 150).  That comes out to 100/250 which is .4 or 40%.  So +150 odds mean you have a 40% chance of winning. +200 becomes 100/300 which is 33%.

For odds with a "-" it's only slightly different.  Take the odds number divided by 100 + the number.  For example, -150 becomes 150 / (100+150).  That equals 150/250 which is 60%.  This matches up with the +150 we did above.  60% + 40% = 100%.  -200 would be 200/300 which equals 66%.  Again, that matches with the 33% of +300.  

Ok, so now that we have that down, let's discuss what we're actually trying to do to make money.  Just like trading options, or anything else, the goal is to have a true winning percentage that's better than what you're getting from the market.  For instance, you'd love to get +150 (40%) odds on something that you're really +100 (50%) to win.  Doing trades like that over and over again results in guaranteed long-term money.

The whole point of using a service like OddsJam (linked below) is to find the spots where markets are mispriced.  Let's say we find this situation like I did today:

You can see FanDuel has the Over at +220.  But this is way out of line with everyone else.  The others are all around +125 for the over and -165 for the under.  They're basically saying fair value is about 145 (halfway between 125 and 165).  Let's see how we do here. we're getting +220 when fair value is probably around +145, which is 100/245, or 41%.

Now let's find out how profitable this is. Imagine we did this bet 100 times for $100 each time.  We should win 41 of those times, since 41% is fair value. 41 times we win  $220 each time (since we're getting +220),  59 times we lose $100 each time, since that's how much we risked and we lost. 41 * 220 is $9020.  After 100 times, we totaled $9020 in winnings and lost $5900.  Total profit is $3120.  Divide that by 100 (since we played 100 times) and you get $31.20 per bet!  That's a whopping 30% return.  Just an insanely good bet.

To be fair, there aren't too many bets that are quite that good.  But you can routinely get 10-20 percent returns.  It's really an incredible opportunity.  If you're reading this, then I'm sure you're no stranger to risk.  This is certainly worth the risk.

Again, the key to all of this is getting the data on every market for every bet.  It's way too big a job to do yourself, and you'll have to pay for it.  I use OddsJam and I love it.  They give a free trial and offer a 3 month money back guarantee.  I can't see any reason not to try it.  It takes some getting used to, but I can certainly help with that if you want it. Click the link below and get started. You won't regret it if you like to trade.

OddsJam

The Right And Wrong Approach To Making Money Betting Sports

 I've taken a lot of interest in sports betting recently, and if done correctly it feels exactly like trading.  First, let's go over the wrong way to look at it, which is how most people do it.  

I think the biggest hurdle to being successful is being a fan of the sports you want to bet on.  Let's use football as an example.  Most people who watch football every Sunday (and Thursday and Monday) have an opinion on how good each team is.  They have an opinion on what the spread in a game should be (or the over/under, etc.).  Unfortunately, they have a strong belief in that opinion and that's where the trouble comes from.  No matter how big a fan you are, no matter how much football you watch, you will never be better at making an accurate betting line than the sportsbooks.  Let me repeat that.

YOU WILL NEVER BE BETTER AT MAKING A LINE THAN THE SPORTSBOOKS.  As soon as you accept that, you can start winning.  Much in the same way your opinion on how to value AAPL stock doesn't matter compared to the big banks, your opinion on what the line should be doesn't either.

FanDuel is worth 20 billion dollars.  They are investing millions in creating these lines.  Planting yourself on your couch every Sunday does NOT qualify you to compete with them.  They make very accurate lines, and they also price in their profit (or juice, or vig, or whatever).  The advantage in making the correct line is all theirs.

However, that doesn't mean you can't gain an edge.  Unlike the stock exchanges, each sportsbook is a separate entity and they do everything independently.  That allows for some very good opportunities.  As good as the sportsbooks are, they don't always agree.  Imagine if the NYSE was pricing AAPL at $173 and the BATS exchange had it at $172.  You could immediately buy it for 172 on one and sell it at 173 on the other.  Or, just as importantly, if 6 exchanges had it priced at 173 and 1 exchange had it at 171, you could just buy it for 171 and keep it knowing that you have tons of positive expectancy.  It's much more likely that the 6 exchanges are correct and that the 1 exchange screwed it up, so you buy it at the incorrect price and hold it.

The key part of it is getting the data.  There's no way you can monitor the betting lines for every bet on every game on every exchange.  For that data, you'll have to pay.  Fortunately, it's not overly expensive and obviously the hope is that it will make you money.  I have one service that I use and I like it a lot. They give you the data and filter it so that the good opportunities are listed at the top.  I'm putting a link at the bottom.  It's called OddsJam.

I'm not a part of the company, just a satisfied customer.  They do offer a small referral bonus, so if you subscribe to them using my link I'd be willing to teach you how I use it to make money.  They have a free trial, which is how I got started.

That's it for this blog.  Next time I'll go into some of the math of sports betting, and how much you can expect to realistically make.

OddsJam Link: https://oddsjam.com/?ref=mjjiztyk