For avid sports betting fans, turning their most beloved pastime into a full-time profession seems like a great deal. You may have spent hours daydreaming and wondering if the dream could ever become a reality.
But first, you must dedicate yourself to the craft entirely. Becoming a pro sports bettor takes more work than you can imagine, but the rewards are immense.
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So, let’s look at how to become a pro sports bettor so you can start winning at online sportsbooks.
Most of the sports betting math is relatively basic and easy to comprehend. Pro sports bettors will need to understand things like probabilities and odds well. Pro sports bettors should have the ability to keep their emotions in check. Allowing a string of losses or a bad week to go on tilt can bankrupt a sports bettor. Jul 12, 2017 To void betting with money you can’t afford to lose, manage your bankroll like a pro. If you have a budget of $500 for betting through the NFL, make sure you keep each bet pegged at anything. View our latest sports betting articles featuring free expert picks. We offer picks for against the spread, over/unders, moneylines, futures, and more bets.
It’s No Walk in the Park
The life of a pro sports bettor isn’t a reprieve from your 40-hour workweek. But it will most certainly shake up the monotony of everyday life.
To be transparent, not everyone is cut out to be a pro sports bettor. For gamblers willing to make the sacrifices to succeed, it can be gratifying.
No pro sports bettor comes close to even a 75% winning percentage. That would be insane.
They lose plenty, but if they win close to 54%, they make a decent profit. They earn enough that the wins outweigh the losses, and they can stay afloat.
Why Be a Pro Sports Bettor?
Becoming a pro sports bettor is such an appealing career choice because there are so many distinct advantages.
Pro Sports Betting Picks
To begin with, being 100% in command of your daily grind is incredibly attractive. Total control over your workweek is what I’m talking about here.
Most of the work you put in as a pro sports bettor can be done when it’s most convenient.
As with most anything, there are exceptions to the rule. Generally, life as a pro sports bettor will put you in charge of your schedule.
The freedom to make your own schedule is priceless. Take it from somebody who enjoys this perk. It’s the best feeling in the world to be where you want to be when you want to be there. Of course, my wife sometimes has other ideas.
In addition to deciding when you work, you’ll benefit from choosing how much or little you work. In the beginning, you will likely still be working another job to ease into the transition. Whenever you decide to cut the cord and go full bore, you should expect to put in tireless hours as you get started.
Once you have established yourself into a routine and are comfortable in your new career, you can choose to work more often or less often. This will depend mainly on your own goals and outside commitments.
The flexibility doesn’t end there either. You’ll also have the luxury of choosing where to work. Thanks to smartphones, tablets, and laptops, you aren’t spending long hours at the sportsbook.
Professional Sports Betting
Here are some other reasons to become a pro sports bettor—the dress code, earning potential, and the pure adrenaline rush.
Characteristics of a Pro Sports Bettor
There are no prerequisites to becoming a pro sports bettor. Any gambler with the necessary determination can succeed in this field.
There are, however, personality traits that lend themselves to improving your chances of success. If you plan to be a pro sports bettor and find yourself lacking in any of the following areas, you may want to work on these.
You don’t necessarily need to be a die-hard sports fanatic. You never want your emotions to interfere with making the best picks.
Being interested in sports will hedge against things getting stale. As we’ve all learned at some point in other work lines, the promise of money won’t always be the draw needed to keep you on the hook.
I already mentioned the importance of knowledge. The critical aspect is to continue learning about your craft, strategies, the sports, leagues, and teams you are betting on. Do your research.
There isn’t a professional gambler on the planet that has maintained long term success because of luck.
Having a proclivity for numbers is as vital to your success as knowledge for a pro sports bettor. You don’t need a PhD in mathematics to carry the load. Most of the sports betting math is relatively basic and easy to comprehend. Pro sports bettors will need to understand things like probabilities and odds well.
Sports betting can be rewarding and is as exciting as it sounds. Just remember to always take the good with the bad.
Be realistic. You won’t win every sports bet. In fact, just breaking even is a great start. That is going to take winning about 52% of your bets. This is a marathon, not a sprint, so don’t expect to make a million in your first month.
Set Goals
You’ll want to keep tabs on your progress and have an eye on your spending. To help with this, you need specific goals to work toward.
Don’t go down the road of many hopefuls and set goals that are simply too big too early. Set a realistic goal for your first year’s earnings and steadily work towards that number.
Some sports bettors will set monthly goals. Don’t fall into this habit. Because of the unpredictability of sports betting, a bad week can sidetrack an entire month.
Remember it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Keep Detailed Records of Your Wins and Losses
You will be more successful at fine-tuning your approach when you have an accurate record of your best and, as importantly, your worst bets.
Look for patterns that have emerged in your wins and losses.
You should know that and leverage your strengths into more profits. Always analyze your strengths and weaknesses. You can’t stay away from weak points in your betting game if you don’t know what they are. You don’t want to arrogantly assume you don’t have any.
Manage Your Bankroll Effectively
All gamblers need to stick to a firm staking plan. This is even more important if you want to become a pro sports bettor.
Pro sports bettors do not have the luxury of taking enormous risks.
Your income depends on every bet you make. Bankroll management will make you or break you as a pro sports bettor.
Even the most analytical mind on the planet is wasted if you can’t manage your money correctly.
Check Your Emotions at the Door
Sports bettors that bet on a team because they want the team to win are doomed to failure. Always bet based on your best analysis of the matchups. Anything less than that is going to be a genuinely tragic and unnecessary setback.
This can spell disaster for some pro sports bettors. You eventually will take a string of losses. That feeling of euphoria from winning beckons you to double down and get it all back in one fail swoop. Avoid this mentality like the plague.
Become a Master of Your Discipline
Self-control and discipline are paramount to your success. It will be easy to get carried away sometimes. This is why it’s imperative that you set firm guidelines and stick to them.
A work schedule for a pro sports bettor may look different for everyone. I suggest going hard to begin, but not so hard that you burn out. After you have spent a few months as a pro sports bettor, you will then have a much better idea of how to maximize your time efficiently.
Know Your Worth
Sports betting can be anything but predictable. There are going to be times where your winning percentage will be far below what is needed.
Don’t let your confidence waver. Sports bettors can fall into the trap of making small safe bets when this happens. Stay focused on finding value and know that bad days are just that and not the end of the world.
Conclusion
The life of a pro sports bettor is sure to be as exciting as it is unpredictable. Taking the proper steps and putting in the research ahead of launching into your new profession will continue to pay dividends far down the road.
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Do a quick Google search, and you will be swamped by dozens of websites that will promise to equip you with sports betting strategies that will make you invincible. You've got statisticians, marketers, betting experts, strategy consultants, mathematicians, and a lot of others, each proclaiming to have hit upon the elusive success formula that can help you beat the odds and regularly rake in thousands in winnings, week after week. Are all these 'experts' worth following? Ask yourself, do you have the time and mind-space to do so? These strategies, tips, and tactics will help you maximize your winnings, stay safe and secure, and above all, enjoy your sports betting.
Keep An Edge in Whatever Sports Betting You Do
There's a reason why it's called sports betting, and not sports gambling. That's because you can have an edge in your adventures in sports betting, unlike gambling, where you are always operating at a disadvantage, or playing with very little edge. The thumb rule of making it big is - don't do what everybody else is doing. As a beginner, it's natural for you to align your interests with what the public opinion is. However, note that your dream of making sports betting a major contributor to your financial independence plan is contingent on you identifying your style, original way of thinking, and above all, not following the herd.
Manage Your Bankroll
This is the oldest and yet the most useful tip you will ever encounter. To void betting with money you can’t afford to lose, manage your bankroll like a pro. If you have a budget of $500 for betting through the NFL, make sure you keep each bet pegged at anything between 1 to 5% of the bankroll. This helps you avoid catastrophic situations of losing a lot, or ending up chasing losses only to end in debt.
Do Your Homework
Here's a school lesson, back to haunt (just kidding) you. Luck will help you win every now and then, but not always. Remember, most sports bettors don't do any kind of research before they place their bets. This means that every incremental effort you put in analysis and background research will put you ahead of hundreds (if not thousands) of fellow sports bettors. Here's the minimum that you can do, to begin with:-
Understand the strategic aspects of the sports you are following for sports betting
- Subscribe to at least 2 newsletters dedicated to a sport (ideally, these newsletters should be competitors)
- Invest time in learning the basics of statistics to be able to make informed decisions when confused
- Record your sports betting choices and their outcomes, to be able to make course corrections when need
- Bookmark a sports betting resource website like Bet-Bonuscode, which offers tremendous insight from the world of sports betting, including strategies and news.
Devise A Strategy, and Stick With It
Much like everything, sports betting is often overcomplicated. It's too tempting to explain all kinds of outcomes with all kinds of theories. You'd do well to distance yourself from non-value adding analysis and theorization. Selection bias, model over fitting, and over optimization (among others) are cardinal sins of sports betting that can hurt your chances. Instead, be confident of your strategy, and give it time to yield results. Of course, you'd need to keep monitoring outcomes and doing course corrections, without significantly altering your core strategy. Do not fixate on numbers. A simple strategy backed by intuitive logic is your strongest asset.
Don’t Fall For Baits
Take it from us, you will never be too far from a sports betting website that will sell you a dummy. Then, if you also manage some part of your sports betting offline, you’ve got to be well aware of the pitfalls. Sadly, there is a lot going around in the cyber-sphere that can disrupt the activities of straight thinking sports betting enthusiasts. Websites try to lure bettors by floating unrealistic bonuses and special promotions, only to cut them a shady deal later on. The thumb rule to remember is – background research. Before you decide to join a sports betting network, before you decide to follow an expert’s quick course in sports betting, do your homework, read reviews, look for demos.
Final Thoughts
Sports betting is exciting, rewarding, and entertaining. Adopt all these basic tips and tactics, and you will not only enjoy sports betting more, but will also earn more from your adventures, and will stay safe and secure from scammers. Remember, sports betting is best managed on strong grounds of financial discipline, and must be backed by your willingness to invest time and thought in bettering your understanding of sports.
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