Make Money Sports Betting And Trading – 7 Methods For Finding An Edge

You need an edge in the sports betting markets to make money.

Finding An Edge – Sports Betting And Betfair Trading

First off what is an edge in sports betting and trading?

An edge is the reason that you make money from sports betting.

A simple example of an edge that is well documented and used by many is matched betting and arbitrage. Matched betting involves using bookmaker promotions to make frequent profits. Arbitrage capitalizes on bookmakers being slow to move their odds allowing profit to be made on all outcomes.

However the trouble with these edges is that it isn’t easily scalable and it relies on soft bookmakers. Who eventually won’t want your business and limit you to pennies.

That leaves a lot of people searching for an edge that is sustainable over the long term. An edge that offers more scalability and the potential for larger profit.

But what processes can you use to find an edge?

Lets have look at some potential ways to find an edge in both sports betting and sports trading.

Past Data

One way of looking at finding an edge is to analyse past data. This may reveal profitable trends that potentially still exist in the current markets. Which then can lead to a profitable betting strategy.

Two big advocates of this type of analysis are Cassini. The man behind the sports betting blog green all over, who frequently puts up betting systems based on past profitable trends.

Jon Roberts the man behind the software Predictology. Is also a fan of using past data to look at building profitable betting strategies for the current betting markets.

Is there a downside to using past data?

Well just because something has happened in the past doesn’t guarantee it is going to happen in the future.

However it is certainly a good indicator to use and might highlight some area’s that could be exploitable.

Modelling

If you have an interest in sports betting. Then you will have probably come across a few mathematical models that people use to try and find value in the betting markets.

For those that are mathematically minded. Developing a sports betting model might be the answer to developing an edge.

It is thought that many of the largest betting syndicates in the world use mathematical modelling for sports betting.

One such syndicate was the legendary brain trust headed by Billy Walters.

Lets take a look at a few models which have been used to try and find value in sports betting.

Elo Ratings

The idea of Elo ratings is that each team has a rating. Stronger sides will be given a higher rating compared to weaker sides. For example Manchester United would be given a higher rating then Brighton.

Elo ratings are constantly changing, they are calculated based upon the results of matches. When two sides play, the winner of a match will gain a certain number of points in their rating. The losing team loses the same amount.

The number of points won or lost in a match will depend on the difference in the Elo ratings of the teams. By beating stronger teams a side will increase there points by more then by beating a weaker side.

Applying Elo Ratings To Sports Betting

Poisson Distribution

Poisson distribution is a mathematical concept. Used for translating mean averages into a probability for variable outcomes across a distribution.

This is used in football betting for example to calculate on average how likely a team are to score a certain number of goals.

Here are some good articles on Poisson distribution in betting.

Poisson Distribution: Predict the score in soccer betting

Football Prediction Model: Poisson Distribution

Expected Goals

In football the expected goals model has risen in popularity lately. Being used quite often in post match analysis by television pundits.

Expected goals is a metric which assesses every chance, it is a way of assigning a value to every attempt at scoring a goal. Each attempt is given a value based based on the expectancy of how likely it is to be scored.

For example an effort from less than six yards out in front of goal was given a rating of 0.91xG. It was such a good chance it should be scored 91% of the time.

Using an expected goals model could indicate how “lucky” or “unlucky” a teams results have been. Which could indicate value on teams that may have been performing well on expected goals but not getting the results.

An analysis of expected goals models

Live Pictures

They say a picture paints a thousand words. Often live pictures can tell you much more about a game then the in play stats.

We live in an age where there are free streams of football games all around the world. On a given day you can watch the Japanese league in the morning, the Romanian league in the afternoon and finish off with La Liga at night.

There are quite a few football traders for example that swear by trading only with live pictures.

Psychoff may be one of the best known football traders in the world. He has stated on his twitter account that he makes his goal alert trading decisions based on watching live games. Surprisingly also stating that he doesn’t use statistics for these trades.

With live pictures you can pick up on adjustments in tactics. In football games you can read the tempo and flow of a game. See the weather conditions, body language of players. Having live pictures can often give you a lot of extra information when deciding to make a bet.

Combined with knowledge of the sports and teams. Live pictures might be enough to give you a profitable edge in the markets.

Beating The Closing Odds

In sports betting. If you can consistently beat the closing odds at sharp bookmakers. Then its likely that you are consistently finding value.

Major sports betting markets are pretty efficient. There has been quite a few studies which have shown this using Pinnacle’s closing odds as an example.

Because they are so efficient if you are able to constantly beat the closing odds (after the inclusion of vig). Then you will most likely have found yourself a profitable betting system.

In fact the profitable sports betting tool Trademate is based on this very concept.

Trademate scans for odds across a high number of bookmakers. When it finds odds that are higher then those at the sharp bookmakers it advises a bet.

This is also known as value betting.

It is perhaps one of the simplest ways of finding value in the sports betting markets.

If you are looking for high turnover and a proven method of making money. Value betting is probably one of the easiest ways to do this.

The drawback to this style of betting is that it again relies on soft bookmakers.

Experiencing The Markets

This could probably be classed as using past data.

However specifically relating to Betfair trading I think it deserves its own section.

Experiencing the markets over and over can really help you see potential opportunities for profit.

I will use football as an example as this is the sport I trade the most.

A lot of my own pre match trading strategies were created by watching lots of market movements. Noting odds days in advance for games. Tracking what the odds were leading up to game day and eventually noting the closing odds.

If you do this you start to see patterns and understand what moves a market pre match.

Team news is always going to have a big effect on the market. But by watching markets I also learnt that performances mid week for teams playing in Europe will effect prices for games at the weekend.

If there is a question mark on whether a key player is likely to start, early odds movement can often be a good indication on how likely they are to play or not. As people with this information already will get their bets on before its public knowledge.

Caan Berry has also stated that he records all the horse racing markets he trades. So that he can experience these markets again and build better judgments for future markets. Allowing him to react quicker if future markets trade in a similar way to one he has already experienced.

In Depth Knowledge

As noted earlier in this article. The markets with the most amount of money traded are usually the most efficient.

However odds makers don’t put a huge amount of attention on some of the sports/events that don’t attract the big money.

For example the odds in the Portuguese second division are not going to be as efficient as the Champions league. So for a hardcore fan of the Portuguese second division, value might be easy to spot at first glance.

In lesser known sports/leagues an in depth knowledge may be enough to give you a profitable edge.

Contrarian Betting

The sport of mixed martial arts is still fairly young. Betting on the UFC is growing and odds makers are getting better at pricing up fights.

However if you have an in depth knowledge of the sport then there is great value to be found.

Given that you don’t see fighters week in week out. Along with the promotion of UFC being akin to pro wrestling with a narrative often being written. Occassionally you see some lop sided odds as the betting public often follow the narrative being portrayed.

The best example of this is when Ronda Rousey fought Amanda Nunes.

Rousey was coming back after a year layoff on the back of vicious head kick loss. In a fight where she showed serious flaws in her fighting style.

Nunes was the new champion who had shown to be well rounded and was running through top level competition. On top of that she had shown she was an elite level striker, striking was Rousey’s biggest weakness.

All the media and promotion of the fight was behind Rousey comeback and somehow Nunes was odds of 2.8 as the defending champion come fight night.

The odds were way out of line due to the media being behind only one fighter.

Whenever the media are heavily behind one team/athlete. It is always worth looking at it from a contrarian point of view.

Summary

So we have looked at multiple approaches in finding an edge in the sports betting markets.

Depending on your personality and your own skill set some maybe more viable then others

Often a combination of the methods above will be used to find value.

Finding a long term edge in the Betfair trading or sports betting isn’t easy. But for those that do find them the rewards can be huge.

[aweber listid=”4880758″ formid=”2074540215″ formtype=”webform”]

Looking to make money from the sports betting markets.

Get A Free Trial Of Our Number One Recommendations Below.

Why Social Media Tipsters Want You To Lose

If you like to bet on sports and are on social media you will have probably noticed there are a huge amount of tipsters and challenges going on.

One of the most common challenges is to take a relatively small amount of money say £10 and attempt to turn it into a £1000. This is done by rolling over your stake with each bet until a profit of £1000 is made.

Why Social Media Tipsters Want You To Lose

Challenges like these have become very popular with a number of these pages having hundreds of thousands of followers. Now I understand why these challenges are popular its like buying a lottery ticket. You have a small initial layout with the potential for a big win. One big thing a lot of these tipsters and pages fail to mention is they want you to lose.

This is how they make money. The business model for these twitter tipsters or facebook pages is to make an income as a bookmaker affiliate. Enticing new customers and being given a share of their losses is where their profit is made. Normally it will be between 10-30% of a referred players losses.

Whilst they might “boom” every winning tip and tell you they have made thousands in the past two weeks. Over the long term they only make money if you lose. Do you really want to follow betting tips from someone that profits only if you consistently lose? Seems like that would be a bad idea.

You will consistently see these types of tipsters pushing bookmaker sign ups. Claiming big profits whilst never recording past results and highlighting wins but barely acknowledging losses.

In conclusion following these types of challenges and tipsters is not going to make you money in the long term. Possibly you could get lucky and turn £25 into £1000 or you might go on to lose £2500 by following a 100 of these challenges that don’t come off. The only people that are making money from these challenges are the guys running these twitter accounts and facebook pages. Not the people following them.

Is it possible to make money from sports betting?

So can you actually make money from sports betting?

Yes you can but it isn’t as easy as following some dude who says he will turn £10 into a £1000 in 10 bets.

It is said that only 1% of people betting on sports make a profit. If you compare the popularity of these tipsters and pages to the small amount of people following websites/blogs that give out solid sports betting advice. It’s easy to why the overwhelming majority of people lose money betting.

Social Media Tipsters — Matched betting profits from April 2017

If actually making money from sports betting and trading does appeal to you. An effective and profitable approach to take is matched betting.

I have written an article detailing how to make money from matched betting here. This approach uses bookmaker promotions to guarantee a profit. There are hundreds of these offers available and if you are looking to make some extra money this is a great way to do it. It is probably the most consistent way to make money from sports betting.

Something else you may want to consider is looking into betting exchanges and sports trading. I have outlined how betting exchanges function is this article. In general they will offer you much better odds. They differ to bookmakers as they don’t make money on player losses. Rather they take a commission on winning bets or stakes which means that they also don’t ban winning accounts.

Please share this article if you know people that are following these shady social media tipsters. So at least they become aware they are betting on the advice of people that want them to lose.

If you want to start profiting from sports betting and trading. I recommend this service which currently contributing the biggest profit in my 50k in a year challenge.

Jonas Gjelstad – High Stakes Poker To High Stakes Sports Betting

Jonas Gjelstad – High Stakes Poker To High Stakes Sports Betting

Who Is Jonas Gjelstad?

Jonas Gjelstad is a high stakes poker player who turned his attention to sports betting. Originally from Norway Jonas started playing poker at a young age.

Starting at low stakes sit and go tournaments before transitioning to heads up games. Jonas Gjelstad eventually Specialised in the game of PLO and quickly made his way to some of the higher stakes games online.

At the age of 20 years old he was appointed as an instructor for well known poker training site CardRunners.

Finding Value In Sports Betting

In the last few years Jonas has turned his focus towards sports betting.

Value betting was the approach that Jonas used initially to become a profitable sports bettor. Jonas stated that he would manually compare the odds between the sharp Asian bookmakers and soft European ones.

When the soft bookmakers offered greater odds then the Asian markets they would often become value bets after market movement. Jonas would take these value bets whenever they appeared.

Automating the process of finding value bets was one of the next steps in Jonas’s sports betting journey.

Jonas Gjelstad and some of his colleagues created a value betting tool which was later released to the public as Edgebet (which then later became Trademate.)

Finding himself limited from the majority of the soft bookmakers Gjelstad turned his attention to beating the sharper Asian betting markets. Applying what he learnt from studying the markets whilst value betting Jonas developed a way to profit from the sharper bookmakers.

In a video series which profiles Jonas Gjelstad’s sports betting activities he states that he turned an initial bankroll of $10k into $1,000,000 over 12 months time.

Whilst little is known about the way Jonas approaches the betting markets and how has been so successful. The way he has quickly progressed in both the poker world and sports betting world are pretty unheard of.

It will be interesting to see what the future brings for Jonas Gjelstad.

One thing is for sure he is obviously somebody who has mastered the art of gambling.

Resources

Jonas Gjelstad profile – video series

Looking to make money from the sports betting markets.

Check out our recommendations below.

Accumulator Betting Tips – Can accumulators be profitable?

Accumulator betting profits

Is there a way of making long term profits from accumulator betting?

Accumulator’s are a bookmaker’s best friend they love them.

In fact you very rarely see a bookmaker highlighting a winning punters success. If however that punter hit a 16 team accumulator for £150,000 you might here about it.

Those bettors that are able to find value week in week out against a bookmakers odds over the long term. Will likely find themselves limited to pennies or unable to bet.

Accumulator betting profits — My weekend accumulator

Why then do bookmakers love accumulators?

Bookmakers love accumulators generally because it compounds their margins.

A bookmaker margin is basically the percentage of profit a bookmaker would make if the amount of money bet on all outcomes of a game were equally balanced.

For example if a bookmaker has a 5% margin on a game this would mean they would expect to make £5 for every £100 staked on the game. In a way this is similar to arbitrage betting if a bookmaker has a perfectly balanced book then they are guaranteed a profit no matter the outcome.

So bookmakers in general love accumulator bets because its compounds that margin for them with each selection. A 5% margin on a single bet becomes much more with each selection that you add.

Making a profit from accumulator betting

It is possible to make a profit from accumulator bets and like all methods of betting its about finding value.

I have written about using Asian bookmaker to find value bets with softbooks before. We can use this same approach when making an accumulator have a positive expectation.

For this approach we need to find two or more value bets with the same bookmaker. Then put them in an accumulator.

You can see from the above that Marathonbet have Osasuna at 7.10 whilst Pinnacle have them at odds of 6.61. The no vig odds are 6.74 which indicates Osasuna are a value bet.

Betting in this way is still going to be very volatile but if you are going to place accumulators bets you may as well look for value whilst doing it.

Accumulator betting profits

Using bookmaker promotion’s against them

The best way to make money from accumulator betting is by using bookmaker promotions against them. Oddsmonkey is an excellent matched betting service and has something called the “Acca Matcher” which was created just for this.

Accumulators are such a big money earner for soft bookmakers they want to entice people to bet on them. A popular promotion is “back 5 selections get a free bet if one loses.”

This offered by William Hill, Coral and Ladbrokes alongside several other soft bookmakers.

Accumulator betting tips — Oddsmonkey’s Acca Matcher find the best value accumulators available

Selections from the bookmaker are found by Oddsmonkey which are close in price to the Betfair lay odds. This means generally they are close to the true odds.

The Oddsmonkey “Acca Matcher” then uses the Betfair odds alongside the bookmakers money back promotion to show you the expected long term value of placing that bet. There is also the option to lay these selections on the betting exchanges to guarantee small profits.

This process can also be done manually by searching for odds close to the Betfair lay price yourself. Oddsmonkey just enables you to do it quicker and works out the calculations for you.

Bookmaker’s accumulator promotions are a great way of creating accumulator bets with a positive expectation.

I hope this article has given you a few ideas on how to make money from accumulator betting. When used correctly it can be a good way of keeping under a bookmakers radar whilst still extracting some value.

Understanding Variance in Sports Trading and Betting

Understanding Variance in Sports Trading and Betting

Variance can be defined as the expectation of the squared deviation of a random variable from its mean, and it informally measures how far a set of (random) numbers are spread out from their mean.

If you struggled with that don’t worry your not alone. This definition doesn’t help those of us that are not very mathematically minded but there is a simpler way of looking at variance.

Variance is one of the key reasons why a lot of people struggle with sports trading and betting. It is something that I myself struggled with a lot when I first started sports trading and betting.

Understanding Variance in Sports Trading and Betting — Heads or Tails?

If we look at a coin flip there are two outcomes heads and tails. An equally weighted coin means that there is a 50% chance of it landing on either heads or tails. The nature of variance however means that if we flipped a coin a 100 times it may land on heads 63 times and tails 37 times or heads 44 times and tails 56 times.

The results of a 100 coin tosses would not be exactly 50/50 very often.

We know however that with a fair coin toss the odds are 50/50. With a greater volume of coin tosses the number of heads and tails recorded should move closer to evens.

Understanding Variance in Sports Trading and Betting

Variance exists in sports trading and betting. There are several variables that we need to take into account when we looking at variance in our own betting and trading results.

We need to be aware of the odds that we betting/trading, the sample size of results that we have and what our expected edge is in the market we are trading or betting in.

It is important to develop a better understanding of variance as a sports bettor or trader. When we don’t understand something it often to leads to feelings of frustration and anger.

These feeling often have a negative effect on our sports trading. By breaking down and understanding the different aspects of sports trading we become better more profitable traders.

I am not an expert in probability and statistics it is something I am constantly learning about and trying to develop a greater understanding of. Luckily we live in an age were we can easily access articles and books published by experts in these fields.

Here is some recommended reading if you want to develop a better understanding of variance.

Its all about variance

Luck vs skill in sports betting

Sports Betting Bankroll Management

What is a sports betting bankroll?

In the simplest terms a sports betting bankroll is an amount of money that we set aside for sports betting. We don’t use it to pay the rent or bills it is a completely separate investment that is solely used for sports betting.

As somebody that has been betting on sports and trading sports for a living the past two years I can say one of the biggest factors in being successful in both is treating them as a business and having proper bankroll management. Lets look at the difference between good and bad bankroll management.

First lets look at bad bankroll management.

What is a sports betting bankroll Bobby — Bobby the bad sports bettor

This is Bobby the bad sports bettor. Bobby has a spare £100 every week after he has bought food, paid the bills etc. Bobby isn’t bad at finding value bets however he no idea of good bankroll management.

Bobby likes to make two bets a week for £50 each, if they win next week he splits his winnings into two bets again and bets for example £100 on each game. Bobby does this until he either reaches a total of £1000 and withdraws or loses his money and starts again.

He does not think long term or record his bets but for every time Bobby reaches £1000 he loses £3700 trying to get there. Bobby is a losing sports bettor.

Sports Betting Bankroll Management

Lets look at good bankroll management. Bobby learns good bankroll management and decides to put aside some of his wage that he has for recreational use.

Bobby has a bankroll of £1000 and uses bets between 2% to 5% of bankroll depending on the odds. When Bobby bets on odds between 1.5-2.0 he uses 2-3% bets, odds below 1.5 he uses 3-5% of his bankroll and bets above 2.0 he uses 1-2%.

This is very solid bankroll management and allows a very steady progression in his bankroll. Bobby records his bets and sees over a year that for every £1000 he bets he is making a profit of £55. Bobby bets £10,000 that year and makes £550 in profit for a 5.5% return on his investment.

Bobby has become a winning sports bettor as he has learnt proper bankroll management.

I hope this answers the question what is a sports betting bankroll?

Whilst also giving some pointers on good and bad bankroll management.

Useful resources and links

Profitable betting strategy

Using the Kelly criterion for betting

Profitable betting strategy – Don’t discount short odds

All bettors hope to stumble upon a profitable betting strategy and sometimes they can be fairly simple.

So I have admitted to being somewhat of a gambling geek I have spent lots of time reading forums, blogs, books and whatever I can get my hands on that is betting/trading related.

I am always looking for a profitable betting strategy. One theory that I found interesting is the favourite-longshot bias in betting.

Here is some reading material for some of you that this might interest.

https://www.gamblingonlinemagazine.com/gambling-features.php?articleID=35

https://www.football-data.co.uk/blog/favourite_longshot_bias_football.php

https://www.progambler.co.uk/favourite-longshot-bias-in-fixed-odds-football-markets/

In a nutshell if you don’t want to read through those articles it shows that by blindly betting on every favourite you would lose a lot less then if you blindly bet on every underdog.

Bookmakers exploited the fact that a punter was more likely to back at higher odds. Given the chance to risk say £10 to win £90 then they would be to risk £10 to win £2.50. This lead to longer odds being much poorer value and further away from the real implied odds.

It indicates that is easier to find value in favourites then it is to do so in underdogs. A lot of the research I have read was from many years ago so I wanted to see if this trend is still prevalent in today’s markets.

Profitable betting strategy

Looking at Pyckio a tipster site that has ranked thousands of tipsters we can see that the number one tipster bets at average odds of 1.28 (at the time of writing) going by the name of PistolPete with 6.1% yield over 568 bets.

He has achieved this by betting exclusively on low odds in Tennis. This is one indicator that the favourite-longshot bias is still prevalent at least in Tennis.

Profitable betting strategy — Betting short odds on tennis has shown to be profitable.

My second indicator was a service called Banker Bets which also focuses its betting on short odds over varying sports.

Over two years the service has banked an increase of 192.90% to the average available odds (meaning this could have been bettered by selecting the best odds available at the time.)

Spurred on by the success of the two above tipsters I then looked at how I could emulate their success and improve upon it. Another profitable betting strategy or theory known as value betting or chasing steam exists.

It basically states that by bettering the odds available at the sharpest bookmakers Pinnacle, SBObet etc in efficient markets such as the Premier League you will have a value bet. A value bet is a bet that has a greater chance of winning then the odds imply.

This wasn’t too difficult to do especially at the lower odds. Bookmakers such Ladbrokes, Betvictor and William Hill often had better odds then the sharper bookmakers. The exchange Smarkets with its 2% commission alongside another low commission exchange Matchbook also often provided greater odds then the sharpest bookmakers could offer on several occasions.

Using these two theories alongside some filters such as no injuries to key players, no heavy weather conditions, no major changes to a side I have small yet profitable sample size of bets to suggest this is worth continuing with.

From October 2015 to February the 14th I looked at home teams between the odds of 1.2-1.6. I only bet on teams that I was familiar with and had easy access to likely team formations, general team news etc.

The teams I chose were

Man City
Arsenal
Man Utd
Chelsea
Tottenham
PSG
Juventus
Atletico Madrid

After 53 bets at a level stake of £100 per bet the profit and loss was £618 with an ROI of 11.6%. The only overall losing teams over this period were Chelsea with a loss of -166 from £700 staked and Man Utd with a loss of -29 from £600 staked.

This is a small sample size however it is encouraging and with in play betting and trading an option there are ways which may improve this method.

For example teams such as Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid that often start home games as 1.1 or below. In cases such as these we could explore the half time market or over 1.5 goals market in play.

There are many angles to take with this type of betting/trading.

I hope that this article has given you some insight into the profits that can be obtained from short odds. It could be a betting angle that is worth looking into.

Looking to make money from the sports betting markets.

Check out our recommendations below.