Making a living from sports betting
Yes, sports betting can be a job !
Some people only do sports betting at first for fun, then with practice, a few euros of winnings, the question arises for some, the dream: making a living from sports betting! Is it possible ? Answer is clearly and trully affirmative. However I will qualify this notion of dream throughout these few lines.
Indeed, first of all, we must put into perspective the contribution of mathematics in games of chance, and definitively forget a miraculous math formula which would make anyone who knows it and knows how to use it win every time.
Then, the gains are made in the long term, you must accept to lose regularly, and take interest and regularly calculate your ROI and ROC.
As in financial trading, the gains are generally not incredible: apart from quite exceptional luck (as in a very risky accumulator bet, read also diversifying your strategies ), the gains are a simple multiple of the stakes. To earn enough, you must therefore have a large bankroll for betting: and bet a lot, often.
And of course, this previous "a lot, often", combined with the fact that methodically controlled bets gives an obvious consequence: you will have to spend time there.
Spend time there, regularly, demonstrating method and little by little expertise? that’s not the definition of a job??
Spend time there?- Initially, with a low bankroll (100 euros?) and therefore little risk, it is a matter of developing an overall winning strategy, in the long term.
- refine then this strategy: distribution between low-risk bets with low return, self-build martingales, and risky bets with high return
- When you arrive at a strategy with a fairly stable return, you increase your bankroll dedicated to this strategy. The return is retained, but as the stakes increase, the net profit also increases proportionally.
On the other hand, once this is in place, as it is the winnings which feed and increase future bets, the winnings will increase more and more quickly, and all this is done without risk (more precisely, with a risk that we will have learned to control, to master, before). Mathematically, this way, the bankroll increases exponentially.
All this is still a bit theoretical, of course.
Concrete example, quantified, estimated
We therefore start with a bankroll of 100 euros, our initial investment, which we distribute as follows, from the 1st of the month to the 1st of the following month:- 10% (that is, initially 10 euros), bet 10×1 euros in 10 value bet situations. Of course, this remains risky, and this part will have to be reduced or slightly increased depending on the results, that is to say our ability to correctly evaluate value bets (follow the news, the tipsters, etc.). Favor low odds and safe events here (odds of, roughly, 1.1 to 1.4).
- Some independent martingales, 3 for example, martingales with a fixed profit of 1 euro and with odds of around 3 ( martingale on draws for example).
We keep the history for the 3 independently in order to continue each one until we win the desired bet, here 1 euro.
We use the fixed gain martingale calculator to compute the successive bets with the corresponding odds: each martingale starts with an investment of 50 cents and arrives at approximately 10 euros after 10 games with a probability of less than 1%. This is rare, and we can tolerate it. - Likewise, 1 or 2 martingales on a loser.
Especially during a championship or major competition, there are many players or teams that we know will lose quickly (it is very predictable for many Grand Slam players that they will not go through 2 or 3 rounds for example).
We are not taking much risk at the moment with our bankroll of 100 euros. The idea is to seek, for several months if necessary, to achieve this objective, and above all, to stabilize there.
Once this ROC has been achieved stably over several months, with a stable and reproducible strategy , we can for example
- add 100 euros to our bankroll the following month, therefore doubling the bankroll. We then maintain our strategy by also doubling all bets. It is not a question of increasing the number of bets and risk-taking.
The ROC being stable, it will remain the same, and the net gain will also be doubled: around 10 euros now; It's not huge yet, but it's taking shape. - if the ROC actually remains stable, we credit our bankroll (which has already increased by itself from previous net winnings) again by 100 euros, and we of course maintain our strategy by multiplying our initial bets by 3.
Here too, again, the ROC must still not move, and the net gains therefore multiplied by 3. - We continue like this, month after month with two guidelines:
- the objective is to continue to keep the ROC stable
- gradually increase the bankroll, maintaining our strategy and only increasing stakes proportionally
The essential criterion to monitor is the stability of the ROC.
With a bankroll that reaches a few thousand euros, the winnings will then reach a few hundred euros guaranteed.
Then a bankroll of a few tens of thousands of euros, for gains (always around 5/10%) of a few thousand euros: a real salary!
Simulator: evolution, month after month, of the bankroll 
The following simulator computes and shows the evolution of the bankroll month after month, according to the 2 main parameters: the ROC (which we managed to stabilize from one month to the next) and the personal contribution to the bankroll.
We then select the number of months, and the evolution of the bankroll, month after month, is then calculated and automatically updated.
After how many months is the net gain from one month to the next suitable as a salary?
For example, with a ROC of 10%, a monthly investment of €150, after 20 months a net monthly salary of just over €1000 is generated.
Try it:
Monthly evolution of the bankroll:
Raed also: