Anyone who has had a casual bet on the weekend watching their favorite sports team or even tried their hand at matched betting has thought, “I could totally do this full time”. But could you actually do it and make a living from it?
It is possible to make a living off sports betting. This can be done via one of, or a combination of, matched betting, arbitrage betting, value betting, sports trading, or providing tipster services. In order to make a living from sports betting you will need discipline and to commit time and effort into honing your craft.
The amount you consider to be enough money to live off will depend on a lot of factors. For example, if you are living in a major city such as London, the cost of living is substantially higher than more rural locations. In the examples below, I will try and quantify how much money you could typically expect to make from each of the methods.
However, the figures presented below for expected earnings are meant to provide an indication of the potential for each type of betting. I have tried to align the advised bankroll with the expected earnings to provide a realistic estimate of what it would take to make a living from each method. Of course, you can get started with much less.
It is important to note though, that simply doubling your bankroll will not mean that your expected earnings will also double. Your results will vary depending on the amount of time you invest, variance and your level of skill/knowledge.
Let’s get into it.
Matched Betting
Expected Earnings: £100 to £500 per week
Advised Bankroll: £1,000 pounds
Starting with the lowest earner first, let’s talk about match betting. Match betting involves taking advantage of bookmaker promotional offers such as bonus bets, extra-place payouts and odds boosts. In general, match betting is considered an excellent starting point for anyone who is looking to start making a living from sports betting.
Match betting is considered low risk than other forms of betting such as value betting and sports trading because it often involves placing a back bet which is offset by a lay bet. This reduces the bettor’s exposure as the lay bet hedges the back bet.
Match betting is an excellent starting point because the stakes involved are generally quite small. Obviously though, with lower stakes and a lower risk profile, match betting offers lower potential returns then some of the other methods we will cover later.
Some websites will claim that match betting is a risk-free form of betting. However, this is simply untrue. All betting involves some form of risk. As a beginner, it is quite easy to put a back bet on one match and accidentally put the wrong lay bet on. This operational risk or execution risk is an inherent in almost all forms of betting.
One of the biggest limitations with match betting, in terms of potential earnings, is the availability of bonuses and promotions to take advantage of. Once you have taken advantage of the sign up offers, you are then reliant on weekly “bet-club” offers or ad hoc promotional from bookmakers.
Keeping track of promotional offers between bookmakers in the UK (over 100 at the time of writing) can be quite a logistical and administrative piece of work. That is why many matched bettors use software such as OddsMonkey. This software provides a calendar of regular weekly bonus bets and ad hoc bonuses that can be taken advantage of.
The other major limitation of matched betting is that your accounts often get restricted or gubbed. This means that your accounts will no longer be eligible for promotional offers and bonus bets. This reduces the longevity of the earning potential associated with match betting.
Some people claim to be able to keep all their accounts unrestricted for years. However, in my experience, this is simply not true. My betting accounts have survived anywhere from a few days up to about two years without being restricted from match betting.
As accounts get gubbed, a matched bettor will continue to work through all the bookmakers available to them until they have no bonuses or promotions available to them. From there, a punter can try to make a living from sports betting by progressing to arbitrage betting.
Arbitrage Betting
Expected Earnings: £500 to £1,000 per week
Advised Bankroll: £5,000
Arbitrage betting involves betting on all outcomes for a particular betting market. By betting on the outcomes with different bookmakers it is possible to generate a profit no matter the outcome of the match. Arbitrage betting opportunities arise because different bookmakers set the odds for outcomes independently of each other.
Arbitrage betting is generally done on markets where there only two outcomes. This allows for ease and speed of execution in placing the bets. Focusing on two outcome markets also makes calculating bet sizes simpler.
Much like match betting, there are risks inherent to arbitrage betting as well. The operational risk or execution risk still exists by which I mean you could place an incorrect bet thus generating a loss for yourself. But there is also one other risk that you need to be aware of when it comes to arbitrage betting. Bookmakers have the right to cancel your bets.
When you sign up for a bookmaker you agree to the terms of service which includes a clause allowing them to terminate your bet for a myriad of reasons. One of those reasons is if the bookmaker has made an error in pricing. If you find an arbitrage opportunity that seems too good to be true, that is probably because it is.
When a bookmaker cancels your bet, your initial stake is returned. However, because you are arbitrage betting, you have a second bet on the market which is now naked or unhedged. If a bookmaker cancels your bet, your best course of action is to make sure you cover your exposed position with another bet.
This will likely result in a loss for you. However, your loss will be significantly reduced compared to what could eventuate if you leave your bet exposed and it loses.
The fundamental elements of arbitrage betting require you to be able to identify opportunities, calculate steak sizing and place the bets in a timely manner. Doing this without the assistance of software is virtually impossible. Markets move so quickly that it is not even worth trying to do this without software.
The best arbitrage betting software scans over 100 bookmaker websites for odds across various events and markets and matches them together for you. The leading software providers are RebelBetting, BetBurger and BetOnValue.
The arbitrage betting software will help you identify arbitrage bets, but you are still required to manually place both sides of your bets. It is possible to write your own software that could then also automatically place the bets for you. The desktop software by RebelBetting is a good middle ground as the software will load the bet into your bet slip for you.
Making a living of arbitrage betting requires a significant time investment because the profit margins are so slim. Profit margins between 1% and 5% are quite common. The larger bankroll you start with and the more bookmakers you can spread that money around with, the more likely you are to be able to place higher profit margin bets.
In order to make a living from arbitrage sports betting you will need to place a high volume of bets. For example, if you can place bets with a 5% profit margin you would make £50 profit for every £1000 staked.
This does not explicitly mean that you need £1000 in your bankroll to make £50 pounds. This is where the concept of turnover or bankroll churn comes into play. If you start with a bankroll of £500, you will need to turn it over twice to complete £1000 worth of bets.
This could involve placing ten sets of £50 bets on a Saturday and then again on a Sunday. If you can place those bets every single day of the week, you can then start to scale your arbitrage betting. Additionally, this is more effective as you start to increase your bet sizes.
It is very realistic to make what would be considered a living in any location from arbitrage betting. It is important to know though, this does not come without some serious time investment. In order to place the volume of bets you would need to generate what could be considered a living, you would need to be betting close to 40 hours a week or a full-time job.
That is right folks, if you want to make a living from sports betting, you have to work the hours like it is a real job.
Bookmakers closely monitor accounts which they suspect of arbitrage betting. This is because bookmakers know that arbitrage bettors are taking advantage of their pricing inefficiencies. Risk management departments of bookmakers oversee this account monitoring.
Bookmakers will reduce the likelihood that they will take a loss on your account by restricting your stake sizes once your account has been identified or flagged as arbitraging. Having the staking sizes on your betting accounts restricted greatly impacts your ability to make a living from arbitrage sports betting.
Not being able to place large bets and a lot of them will crush your earning capacity. For this reason, some people avoid arbitrage betting altogether and just progress from matched betting into value betting. However, while matched betting and arbitrage betting have similar risk profiles, with arbitrage betting just having more scalability, value betting has a vastly different risk profile.
Value betting is not for the risk averse.
Value Betting – Beating The Closing Line
Expected Earnings: -£2,000 to £2,000 per week
Advised Bankroll: £10,000
Value betting with the aim of beating the closing line involves placing pre-match bets to beat the closing line at the start of the match. Intrinsically this betting method assumes that the closing line odds are an accurate representation of the true probability of that match outcome.
What this means in practice is that if a team starts a match with odds of 2.0 the natural expected probability of winning is then 50%. If you can place a bet at 2.02 then you were getting value for placing that bet. The value is the difference between the price at which you place your back bet (2.02) and the closing line (2.00), which in this case is 0.02.
To make this method work you need to be able to produce your own estimate for what the true closing line is or use a bookmaker as a proxy. There are hundreds of bookmakers around the world though, so which bookmaker has the correct closing line price?
Many value betting software providers use the closing lines provided by sharp bookmakers. One sharp bookmaker is preferred above all others, Pinnacle.
Pinnacle is a bookmaker that is renowned for its tight betting lines and high betting limits. What this means in practice is that Pinnacle makes its money from being right. They take a small margin from each bet and accept large volumes of bets at the prices they offer.
An army of data analysts, data scientists and statisticians are employed by Pinnacle to model sports and set odds. A common argument in support of Pinnacle being the best bookmaker to use as a baseline for closing odds is as follows: if their odds were not accurate with their low margin/high volume business model, they would already be bankrupt by now.
Identifying value bets can be done in two ways. The first is to build your own predictive model (see the next section for more details) which you could then benchmark against the closing odds of Pinnacle. This obviously requires extensive mathematical knowledge or an expertise in the sport and market you plan on betting on.
The second option is to use software which scans all the bookmaker’s websites and compares those odds back against the Pinnacle odds. The software then alerts you whenever a bookmaker’s odds are above Pinnacles Odds, meaning that a value bet exists. This software does not aim to predict outcomes, it merely identifies odds which are higher than those quoted by Pinnacle. It is a purely statistical approach.
Value betting is inherently high risk as betting on value outcomes does not guarantee any sort of result. You can place 10 or 20 or 30 bets with value but all those bets can potentially lose. This variance associated with value betting is exactly why it is not suited to somebody with a low risk tolerance.
The fundamental premise of value betting is that over a large enough sample size of bets, you should statistically come out ahead if you are consistently placing bets at higher odds than the true probability of the outcome. Value betting is not for the fainthearted though, as you can go through extended periods of losses. It requires mental fortitude to trust in your understanding of statistics to persevere through the variance.
Just like with matched betting and arbitrage betting, bookmakers are on the lookout for value bettors. If you are consistently placing bets with the bookmaker that are classified as +EV or positive expected value, then your account will likely be flagged, and your staking sizes eventually restricted. Even if your account is currently losing money, your account will be flagged.
This is because statistically, over time, you will eventually come out ahead. Bettors that consistently place value bets are knows as sharps and their bets are known as sharp money. Most bookmakers identify sharps to maintain their profitability and limit the damage sharps can do to their bottom line.
Although traditional (soft) bookmakers may limit your account, this does not mean that value betting ends for you. Betting exchanges, Asian bookmakers and betting brokers provide you with the opportunity to continue value betting even after your soft bookmaker accounts have been restricted.
That all being said, there is also a strong argument against the use of Pinnacle closing odds for the purposes of value betting. In smaller illiquid markets, the Pinnacle closing line may not be a good representation of the true probability of an outcome. Therefore, building your own predictive model can be a better alternative too using value betting software.
Value Betting – Predicting Winners
Expected Barnings: -£2,000 to £2,000 per week
Advised Bankroll: £10,000
Making a living from value betting can be done in a simplistic way, an overly complex way involving advanced statistics and modeling, or any variation in between. A simplistic approach could simply involve a gut feeling by analyzing historical performances, injuries, home field advantage and some basic statistics. The more advanced method will require large datasets and advanced computer skills to build models.
Predicting winners is the most difficult method of making a living from value betting. The method not only relies heavily on being able to consistently pick the winners of matches or events but also the ability to place bets on those outcomes at the right price, in essence, getting value.
All forms of predicting winners will require the use of data and statistics to some degree. The level of sophistication that your approach takes will determine the type of data you need as well as the programming or modelling skills required to interpret that data.
In its simplest form, historical data can be found online for free. However, more detailed historical datasets will often come at a premium price. Data is big business these days, and the cost of access to advance datasets and metrics may stop you in your tracks before you even start building a predictive model.
Building a predictive model involves taking a data set and performing some transformations on it. This could be multivariate analysis or data science techniques such as neural networking. At a minimum you will want to be using a spreadsheet program such as Excel but most likely something more advanced such as the statistical software, R.
Once you set up the model, back tested it for success, it is then time to start placing bets. Much like the other betting methods described above, soft bookmakers will likely restrict your accounts before too long. However, if your predictive model is good enough, there will be plenty of value betting opportunities on betting exchanges as well as sharp bookmakers.
Predicting your own winners from a model to make a living off sports betting is inherently a high-risk form of betting. Not only do you have to build the initial model, back test it, and execute the bets, but you also need to manage the predictive model. You need to continuously update the model to ensure it has latest data as well as run tests to ensure that it is still operating correctly.
Overtime a model may drift from its initial design. Let’s assume you have built a model to predict a particular season of football, say the 2020 season in the English Premier League. How does your model handle a player transfer or injury? Does your model need to be updated every time one of these events occurs?
The answers to these questions will determine how robust your model is and how often you need to update the model. If you fail to update your model and allow it to drift from its original design, it is highly likely you will start betting on unprofitable outcomes. Monitoring and quantifying this model drift is the most challenging component to predictive modelling.
Just like value betting against the closing line, variance can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. Long losing runs can be the death of even the best predictive model. Therefore, proper bankroll management is fundamental to being successful with your own predictive model.
Sports Trading
Expected Earnings: -£2,000 to £2,000 per week
Advised Bankroll: £10,000
Sports trading works much like trading foreign exchange or buying stocks as a day trader. It involves getting into a betting market and getting out before the conclusion of a match. This is where it differs from the methods above. You are not reliant on the result of the match.
All professional sports traders use software to assist them in their trading.
At its most basic level, this software makes the market more visually presentable to enable easy trading. There are several common approaches to trading:
- Scalping – trading the volatility of the market, taking small gains as prices fluctuate
- Steamers – placing a back bet and then laying off the position once it has moved significantly lower
- Drifters – placing a lay bet and then backing the position once it has moved significantly higher
At its most sophisticated level, trading software also offers the capability to execute automated trading solutions. The trading software itself does not have proven strategies ready for execution. Is simply an automated software solution which can be configured to execute your own strategies. Sports traders can configure a strategy for selected events and let the software or bot handle the execution.
Now, anything involving automation carries significant risk with it. The last thing you want is your bot running haywire and burning through your bankroll on bets that it should not be placing. But even if the automated software works perfectly, there is always a strong chance that your strategy will not hold up over time.
Sports trading requires a lot of hard work and dedication to learn the craft. Many of the other methods just rely on software to spot opportunities and it is then on you to execute them. Sports trading requires a much deeper understanding of how markets function to be profitable.
The main advantage of sports trading is that it is all exchange based and therefore highly scalable. Betting exchanges involve two people betting against each other while the exchange itself makes money from taking a small margin from winning bets. The exchange is agnostic of the result and therefore will not be banning you for winning too much or placing to many +EV bets.
Setting Realistic Expectations
If you are serious about trying to make a living from sports betting important that you set realistic expectations for your learning and bankroll progression. You should treat sports betting like a full-time job and apply the same level of professionalism in your approach.
Sports betting generally occurs at unsocial times, this could mean that you are at home working towards your goals on a Saturday instead of hanging out with friends.
Making of living from sports betting is not a get rich quick scheme. Some of the methods described above have steep learning curves and require advanced technical skills. However, I am not trying to dissuade you, merely to set your expectations.
If you approach sports betting with a mind open to the challenges, risks, and opportunities, you will be in excellent position to make it work for you.
Tips for Being Successful
- Be patient – it takes time to learn the methods described above as well as to build your bankroll.
- Keep your emotions in check – This follows on nicely from being patient. If you try to rush things, get too excited after a win, or too angry at a loss or mistake, you will be prone to errors.
- Bankroll management – make sure you separate your sports betting bankroll from the rest of your personal finances. This will ensure you are betting within your limits, as well as tracking your profits and losses accurately when they occur.
- Treat it like a job – when you sit down to do some matched betting on a Saturday, make sure you do so at a desk, in a distraction free environment. Make sure that you are focused on what you are doing, and it will reduce the likelihood that you make mistakes.
- Set goals – it is important to know what you are trying to achieve before starting your sports betting journey. Setting goals will help you keep focused during challenging times.