For most people betting on sports is just something that they do on a weekend when they are watching Premier League football or horse racing on the TV, yet for others it’s a serious business and even a full-time job that makes them money.
But, can you actually make a living out of betting on sport?
Ask that question to your mates down the pub and they’ll probably laugh in your face, telling you stuff like “the bookies always win” or that “it’s a mug’s game”. In summary, the answer to your question will probably be a big fat no. And you’ve certainly heard about betting sites that accept credit cards, so sports betting just got a whole lot easier.
However, despite the majority of people thinking that professional gambling is just a myth, there are ways in which you can make consistent profits when it comes to sports betting, especially online. Of course, betting involves some kind of luck, which is where the “Mug’s game” comes in to people’s thinking, but there are methods of reducing that risk and that is where professional gamblers and traders like to work.
In fact, with a little time and patience you can do the same and start to make a living out of betting on sport. With that in mind, here are a few hints and tricks as to what making a career out of sports betting can involve.
Matched Betting
It’s a phrase that gets bandied about a lot when it comes to sports betting, but very few people actually understand what it involves.
In its simplest form, it is a method of betting on sports that involves earning risk-free profits by using bonuses, promotions or free bets. It basically takes away the gambling aspect of your bet and guarantees you some kind of profitable return. For that reason, it’s a great way to start on your sports betting career, as it takes away the risk of blowing your bankroll in one hit.
Arbitrage Betting
Once you’ve got your head around matched betting, the next thing to pursue is arbitrage betting. It sounds a bit complicated, but it really is quite simple.
Often referred to as “arbing” or “sure betting”, once you are armed with the correct tools, it’s an extremely profitable way of making money from sports betting. Professional gamblers ‘arb’ sports betting sites by covering their bets on all outcomes of an event, and then profit from the difference in the odds that their bets were placed at.
As a general rule with arbitrage betting, you back high and lay low. This means backing value odds with a bookmaker and then laying against that bet on the exchange at low odds. This is basically the way in which sports betting traders work and make money.
Value Betting
Once you’ve got set up with both matched betting and arbitrage betting, then you should have a nice bankroll that enables you to move on to the new technique of value betting.
This is where you take calculated risks in order to make a profit, so it’s quite as easy to make money as the previous two methods. Winning and losing is part of the package when it comes to value betting, but it is your “edge” that will mean you are likely to make decent profit in the long run.
Gambling professionals who use the value method of betting tend to operate across bookmakers accounts, and in some cases, through betting exchanges such as Betfair or Matchbook. Whatever sports bookmaker you decide to use, it’s important to remember that value betting pro’s treat their sports value bets as if they were investment in the financial markets, so important to know about what you are betting on.
Just taking a random punt, is basically just normal betting, so you need to try and identify an edge over the bookie so that you know when the odds are at the right price for you to place your bets in order to make a long term profit.
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