As you get more and more into sports betting the challenge that arises is how to stay consistently profitable over the long term. If you’re a sports bettor who is serious about building a supplemental income stream, then you have to figure out strategies for growing your profits, minimizing your risk, and avoiding sportsbook limits.
In this article, we cover some ways that you as a sports bettor can make as much money as possible for as long as possible.
Where Do You Start?
Newer, risk averse sports bettors typically begin with matched betting. This method involves taking advantage of sign up offers, deposit matches, bonus bets, profit boosts, and other promotions to wager on both sides of a bet. The way it works is by placing one side of the bet using your promotion and placing the other side of the bet at a different sportsbook as a hedge bet. The key is to match the two bets in a way that guarantees you a profit, because you’re betting on both sides, but only using your actual money on one side.
If you are interested in learning more about matched betting, we suggest looking at DarkHorse Odds. They have a lot of resources for newer sports bettors and their tool is designed specifically for pre-game matched betting, offering a very large selection of sportsbooks and matched bet types.
The problem with matched betting over the long term is that it is often difficult to stay profitable. You have to rely on promotions that may not always be forthcoming, and how much you can bet is dependent on the amount of those promotions. Plus, purely matched betting can make it difficult to achieve VIP status at different sportsbooks, especially if you are just using promotions at certain books and not spending a lot of money. You would have to take matched bets for a loss, hoping that it helps maintain VIP or gets you a VIP promo, without any guarantee that it actually will.
So, the question is, what can you do when profits start to dry up?
Try Live Betting
After getting some experience with pre-game matched betting, the first step towards greater profitability is to move on to live matched betting. When converting Free Bets or Risk Free Bets, live betting is usually much more profitable than pre-game betting, if you have patience. 80%+ promotion conversion is pretty common, with opportunities for even higher, compared to 60% to 70% conversion with pre-game wagers.
Plus, live betting also helps you delay limits, which will severely affect your ability to be profitable. With live betting, you won’t beat the CLV (closing line value), so limits generally come slower than with pre-game wagers.
Probably the most important reason why live betting is conducive to greater profits, however, is that it makes it much easier to take advantage of arbitrage betting opportunities.
What Is Arbitrage Betting?
Arbitrage betting involves placing wagers on both sides of a bet, similar to matched betting. The difference is that, while matched betting relies on promotional offers, arbitrage betting takes advantage of odds discrepancies between multiple sportsbooks. You’re using your own bankroll on both sides of the bet, but you’re placing the wagers in a way that guarantees a profit, regardless of the event’s outcome.
Arbitrage betting is crucial for profitability, because, human or technical errors notwithstanding, you are going to earn a profit. But even more than that, arbitrage betting will start having a compounding effect. First off, you are putting down a lot of money at different sportsbooks and, from the point of view of the sportsbook at least, you are losing quite a bit. Just like casinos, sportsbooks love a person who spends a lot and loses often. So they’ll start to offer you more bonuses, and you’ll have a shot to achieve VIP status, which comes with even more bonuses, benefits, and opportunities.
Avoiding Limits Is Critical
A sportsbook will limit you when they feel that you are winning too much and consistently beating them. In order to mitigate their own risk and protect against further losses, they will reduce the amount that you are allowed to wager at their book and even prevent you from placing any bets at all. If you are limited in how much you can bet, then it is going to be difficult to place profitable bets at that sportsbook. You could also lose your VIP status at that book, reducing your bonuses and promotions and further eroding your profitability.
We cover how to not get limited by sportsbooks in this article, but some of the basic strategies are:
Bet on popular markets
Don’t consistently wager the maximum bet
Never place arbitrage bets at the same book
Avoid betting on obvious book errors
Round your bets
Don’t withdraw or log out too quickly after using an offer
Avoid beating the CLV
Bet on main lines
If you stay unlimited, then you’ll be able to place higher value bets, remain VIP, keep receiving VIP bonuses and benefits, and stay more profitable for longer.
You CAN Maintain Profitability with the Right Tools and Systems
Armed with a tool like DoubleDown Odds, staying profitable with sports betting is a real possibility. It tells you which wagers to place for how much, based on a profitability threshold that you can set. Plus, it provides the lowest latency odds in the industry, so you have the most up to date information for taking advantage of arbitrage betting opportunities.
By using our platform for arbitrage betting, you can graduate from matched betting, avoid and delay limits for longer, and have a shot at becoming VIP status at multiple books. That way, maintaining profits becomes much easier.
For more information on how DoubleDown Odds works, click here.