Anyone genuinely made money betting on sport

[Purple7x08_24]

I'm skeptical of anyone with a long term and consistent strategy. I ran historical data from 2023 AFL season.

I selected Home teams with odds of less than $1.20

33 teams were filtered. Here were the results

7/33 were losses (21%).
2 were close wins under a goal

From $1.21 - $1.50 the home team won 38/54 (30% loss)

From $1.70 - $2.10 Home team won 21/39 (Near 50%)

Best case scenario below for double or nothing you make $1545

It seems to me like the statistics just don't add up to the value of the odds given the outcomes.

STatistically, I'm interested to see how other ranges fair but I think it will be more of the same.

And for anyone saying you could selectively pick those. Who would have been able to accurately pick say 20 consecutive legs? That would be about 5.5K

 

[Jugada]

If your strategy is 20 leg multis then yeah the statistics wont add up to profits

 

[ronpingwins]

I generally stick to 15 leg multis, that works for me

 

[MrsBlueSky]

Anyone genuinely saying they have made money out of betting on sport is a liar. Think of the things you could have better spent the money on....keeping the wife happy, that's a good start.
There's another thread: Attention all lads who make decent money betting - do you have to pay tax?
It should read can sports betting losses be tax deductible.

 

[ash_1050]

Overall I'd be well down, but treat it as entertainment rather than a financial strategy.

 

[burge13]

Down on AFL/NBA but treat that as entertainment.

Up good on boxing/MMA. Have funded a 3 week holiday in the USA, multiple trips to Melbourne/Sydney/Perth for events, 2022 AFL GF trip, kitchen/bathroom renovation over the last few years.

Winning can be done, looking at historical odds/results won't help disprove or prove that as everyone would cap those games differently prematch

If you think result A is a 60% chance of winning, bookies give it a 50% chance, bet
If bookies set it at 60%, and you have it 50% don't bet.

If your analysis is right long term, you'll be fine. Multis should be treated as lotto tickets for the most part

 

[Atavistic]

I made 8k on AFL last year, but I wasn't betting on H&A results (or not much anyway). Up about 2.5k this year. I really don't think it's as difficult as you're making out.

I bet bulletride has made money on sports betting this year.

 

[kickazz]

Time for a maths lesson on multis.


Let's assume the vig on an average bet is 5%. That is generous for the punter, it would be closer to ten and much more for exotic things like first goal scorer. But let's assume 5%

So on any given single bet, your expected return for 1 dollar is 95 cents. On average, random betting will give you that return. Good betting could overcome that and get you a profit.

On a double, this becomes .95 squared, or .9025.

On a ten leg multi, it is .95^10, which is just under 0.6.

So long term, on random 10 leg multis, you can expect 60 cents back on every dollar wagered. And that's assuming pretty sharp prices.

Multis are fun. But they are not profitable.

 

[HTPunter]

Yeah anyone doing multis & claiming consistent long term success is telling porkies. Of course they may have hit a couple of lotto ticket multis and be up but it’s not consistent & it’s luck.

 

[mookieb]

You can make money betting on sports but you need to have an extremely well-defined strategy, not be a degenerate gambler and some sort of edge or specialisation that sets you apart from the bookies.

Probably similar to poker where I'm guessing the top 5% are winners.

 

[McCluggages Luggage]

Down on AFL/NBA but treat that as entertainment.

Up good on boxing/MMA. Have funded a 3 week holiday in the USA, multiple trips to Melbourne/Sydney/Perth for events, 2022 AFL GF trip, kitchen/bathroom renovation over the last few years.

Winning can be done, looking at historical odds/results won't help disprove or prove that as everyone would cap those games differently prematch

If you think result A is a 60% chance of winning, bookies give it a 50% chance, bet
If bookies set it at 60%, and you have it 50% don't bet.

If your analysis is right long term, you'll be fine. Multis should be treated as lotto tickets for the most part

MMA is one sport I do believe people make a lot on, especially the older fans. One friend in TN doesn't really bet and has like 80% over 20k fights on tapology. He could have had millions if he'd bet since the early UFC/Pride days.

Most important thing is bankroll management using a strict percentage/square root on straight bets, as you said multis for lotto tickets. The only lock is on your front door, no all in bets. Otherwise you'll just be depositing each week like the coots shoving pineapples in the pokies.

 

[burge13]

MMA is one sport I do believe people make a lot on, especially the older fans. One friend in TN doesn't really bet and has like 80% over 20k fights on tapology. He could have had millions if he'd bet since the early UFC/Pride days.

Most important thing is bankroll management using a strict percentage/square root on straight bets, as you said multis for lotto tickets. The only lock is on your front door, no all in bets. Otherwise you'll just be depositing each week like the coots shoving pineapples in the pokies.

MMA used to be a piece of piss a decade ago. Any actual fan capped the fights more accurately than the bookies did

Obviously they move lines according to money but if you weren't putting down massive money it was easy side hustle kind of income.

 

[4THAWN]

Boxing/MMA are some areas where you can find strong edge, but are also time/effort intensive and at the end of the day if you are making good money out of it you'll find lots of other issues (restrictions etc) popping up that slowly degrade your edge. Even 2-5 years ago it was a lot easier to beat the main MMA markets. Important to remember these are global markets now and there's quite literally hundreds/thousands of people analysing these fights weeks out now - markets are a lot more efficient and its less rewarding to put in the hard yards early to establish your edge. You used to be able to easily tape for the upcoming Sunday on a monday/tuesday and uncover big edges - these days you more likely need to be doing your work 2-3 weeks in advance to sustain a large edge (which is a lot easier said than done when 2-3 fights per week are cancelled/changed/replaced)

You CAN definitely win on these markets, just need to realise its time/effort intensive and over time continually getting harder. Plus the way MMA/boxing scheduling is, can be tough mentally during losing runs to stay focused if say, a 10 card losing run spans 3 months of real time time. Versus betting on something where you can turn over more money like racing where the "last race is never run" - you might go on a 20 bet losing streak that lasts 2.5 days not 2.5 months. Not to say you can't/won't have month long losing runs in other sports/racing but the Sunday to sunday grind of MMA/Boxing means 3 bad events in a row could wipe out months and months of hard earned profit.

As far as other sports, you are naive to think there aren't people making good money in just about any sport (outside of novelties / meme sports). AFL/NRL/f1/Soccer/Tennis you name it, there's people smart and dedicated enough to beat it. But that is a very very small subsection of the people who bet on those events. And the majority of people who do win over a year on an AFL season are lucky not necessarily +EV. Plenty would hit a $2000 multi once in the year and lose $1500 across other bets trying to re-create the magic, leaving them "winning" for the year - but not +EV.

Just touching on multis, it's not correct to say as a blanket statement "Yeah anyone doing multis & claiming consistent long term success is telling porkies" - many smart punters will actually use multis to their advantage in order to get around restrictions/limits as well as multiply their edge across two bets (where they see value across multiple selections). I.e. if you've rated X a $1.50 chance and Y a $1.30 chance but they're both $2 odds on books, you can take the multi at $4 which you've rated a $1.95 chance. Not to say most/many people actually achieve this - but its something to think about. Yes you are correct the vast majority of punters taking multis will be bad bets.

 

[Hamingja]

Time for a maths lesson on multis.


Let's assume the vig on an average bet is 5%. That is generous for the punter, it would be closer to ten and much more for exotic things like first goal scorer. But let's assume 5%

So on any given single bet, your expected return for 1 dollar is 95 cents. On average, random betting will give you that return. Good betting could overcome that and get you a profit.

On a double, this becomes .95 squared, or .9025.

On a ten leg multi, it is .95^10, which is just under 0.6.

So long term, on random 10 leg multis, you can expect 60 cents back on every dollar wagered. And that's assuming pretty sharp prices.

Multis are fun. But they are not profitable.

Very generous at 5%. The type of markets in same game multis would be 20%+ on most of them.

 

[kickazz]

Just touching on multis, it's not correct to say as a blanket statement "Yeah anyone doing multis & claiming consistent long term success is telling porkies" - many smart punters will actually use multis to their advantage in order to get around restrictions/limits as well as multiply their edge across two bets (where they see value across multiple selections). I.e. if you've rated X a $1.50 chance and Y a $1.30 chance but they're both $2 odds on books, you can take the multi at $4 which you've rated a $1.95 chance. Not to say most/many people actually achieve this - but its something to think about. Yes you are correct the vast majority of punters taking multis will be bad bets.

True.

If you can work yourself a real edge like 5% or so then over a few legs that can compound nicely. For example if you figure you know two or three AFL teams that market consistently gets the wrong price on H2H, parlaying those two or three games each week would be a good move. But if you are going north of ten legs I'd doubt very much you'd have an edge on all of those markets - bloody rich punter if you did.

 

[kickazz]

Very generous at 5%. The type of markets in same game multis would be 20%+ on most of them.

SGMs are different beast entirely given we are dealing with non-independent events.

I recon these have been getting slowly worse, too. For example, I for fun would put one on that often started with two legs, on team winning, and one player from the opposition being an anytime goal scorer, or to get 2+ goals or something.

Because one of these events occurring makes the other also occurring less likely, the price you get for combining them would be a*b plus a bit, and that made sense.

I'm now starting to see instances where you get a price of basically a*b or even a*b minus a bit. Bad enough that the prices on the exotics components are poor.

 

[McCluggages Luggage]

SGMs are different beast entirely given we are dealing with non-independent events.

I recon these have been getting slowly worse, too. For example, I for fun would put one on that often started with two legs, on team winning, and one player from the opposition being an anytime goal scorer, or to get 2+ goals or something.

Because one of these events occurring makes the other also occurring less likely, the price you get for combining them would be a*b plus a bit, and that made sense.

I'm now starting to see instances where you get a price of basically a*b or even a*b minus a bit. Bad enough that the prices on the exotics components are poor.

You will find some examples where goal scorers in SGM multiply correctly or even over but it will usually be a pretty huge long shot with like a midfielder to kick 1 or 2 and a KPF to kick 5+. Usually on sportsbet the powerplay brings SGM's closer to properly multiplied odds.

Or you can just pick 1 goal scorer from each game as a standard multi and you can combo them as well, at least on sportsbet.

 

[Bucking Bronco]

Time for a maths lesson on multis.


Let's assume the vig on an average bet is 5%. That is generous for the punter, it would be closer to ten and much more for exotic things like first goal scorer. But let's assume 5%

So on any given single bet, your expected return for 1 dollar is 95 cents. On average, random betting will give you that return. Good betting could overcome that and get you a profit.

On a double, this becomes .95 squared, or .9025.

On a ten leg multi, it is .95^10, which is just under 0.6.

So long term, on random 10 leg multis, you can expect 60 cents back on every dollar wagered. And that's assuming pretty sharp prices.

Multis are fun. But they are not profitable.

This is false.

If say there are 3 teams all paying $1.90 and you want to bet them individually, but in the manner of a multi (all in each time), and you want to start off with $100, your profit if all 3 win will be:

Saturday afternoon game - $100 x 1.90 = left with $190
Saturday twilight game - $190 x 1.90 = left with $361
Saturday night game = $361 x 1.90 = left with $685.9

Total money returned = $685.9 ($585.9 profit)

If you just put all 3 in a multi, and used $100, and had it compound naturally off each leg winning, the result would be:

$100 x $6.859 (1.9 x 1.9 x 1.9) = $685.9 ($585.9 profit)


So there is no difference from betting selections in a multi, or individually. Vig is vig.

You also have the added bonus of a lot of soft books offering a price boost, and if you have shopped around to bet the multi at the book with best odds/ stalest odds, you can theoretically be making a more +EV bet than if you took them at somewhere individually with no vig at all.

Of course people will say multies are square, etc, but if you stake accordingly (accounting for the probability of each leg in the multi winning), it can have a pretty similar outcome to just betting selections individually in the long run.

I wouldn't recommend anyone doing it unless they are an expert at what they're betting on, as the probability can oftentimes be the hardest thing to gauge, especially if you're just betting off "feel".

 

[Bucking Bronco]

If the thing you're betting at $1.90 can be bet for $2 elsewhere, then yeah, you're correct -- and re-reading what you wrote, I assume that's what you're referring to.

But if it's something like player disposals like what I was thinking and $1.90 is the market price everywhere, then, no there is no difference.

As long as the odds you're taking in the multi are somewhat close to the highest odds available, with your typical price boost there will be no "extra vig".

If you were planning on betting 3 X $1.90s at Sportsbet, there is no compounded vig from taking them in a multi vs taking them all individually is what I'm trying to say.

 

[kickazz]

Bucking Bronco yeah that's kind of what I mean if the price you are getting is below fair - like you said, whether you play the multi or parlay the bets manually, it is the same vig - I guess my point was that after three bets that vig becomes large, kinda like compound interest in reverse.

It doesn't apply if you genuinely have the edge - if you believe the price offered is better than the true chances of winning. But for most mugs that won't be the case, especially on many legs. Remember, the bookies' profit doesn't come so much from collecting our losing bets, but shafting us when we win. :-(


A good comparison is Quaddies. The payout for a quaddie is just about always bigger than parlaying four winners into each other. Quaddie vig is about 25%, parlaying four lots of about 17% on win pools comes out to about 50%! (There are a LOT more variables at play here though I admit)

 

[maskmcgee]

I put 50$ into Sportsbet and $50 into 365 at the start of last season, haven't made any more deposits into them, and have over $1000 in each account now.

 

[MrsBlueSky]

I put 50$ into Sportsbet and $50 into 365 at the start of last season, haven't made any more deposits into them, and have over $1000 in each account now.

And you're not forgetting this is the genuinely made money sport betting thread

 

[maskmcgee]

And you're not forgetting this is the genuinely made money sport betting thread

It is genunie

 

[Purple7x08_24]

You can make money betting on sports but you need to have an extremely well-defined strategy, not be a degenerate gambler and some sort of edge or specialisation that sets you apart from the bookies.

Probably similar to poker where I'm guessing the top 5% are winners.

It's unlikely you or anyone would have a unique strategy so if you have one, chances are a significant number of others also have the same. There is no way the bookmakers will not have it covered.

Betting on lines is terrible because it's calculated from stat driven data.

As I showed from last year you would have to double down AND pick all the right games for H2H.

I think long term you're destined to lose. Only way I can see winning big is to outlay big and infrequently OR;

Carefully pick and double down between $1.5 and $2 and have a pull out target.

If my math is right $1000*1.5^5 is 7.5k out.
Get 5 legs right it's a solid pay day. However as I said I think it's unlikely to continually hit.

 

[taurus]

The founder of MONA is a professional gambler with conscience. So definitely can make money.

Controversial opinion - I think Sports betting is way better option than horse racing. There was a study in UK showed that only 2% of horse punters made consistent returns. You are better off working in the industry.

Personally, betting larger stakes and infrequently is the way to go. I'm trying to develop niche in picking underdogs or above $2 bets. Multis are fun distractions.