For most, sports betting is more of a way of making some extra money on the side, and many people won’t pursue it for too long, especially when funds are running low. Many others, however, see the pastime as a real way of making enough money not just to live on, but to live comfortably.
These are some helpful tips and tricks for building a legitimate career out of professional sports betting, along with the necessary skills and requirements.
1. Be Okay With Losing a Stake
This is one that usually deters most bettors from betting further, and it’s one that a professional needs to learn to deal with. The nature of betting itself is that sometimes things go wrong, money is lost, and starting over may be necessary, which is seen throughout the industry, whether it’s wagering on horse racing or playing Australian online pokies.
It’s a realisation that a potential professional needs to understand when entering the business: losing money is part of the job, and learning how to recoup that money in a smart and efficient way is one of the most important aspects of sports betting, doubly so when it’s a person’s own salary on the line. The trick is to use the proper staking method that means both winning and losing money in the most efficient way possible.
2. Information is King
While we think of bookmakers as the people that handle the odds of a game or sport, in reality their business is information. They effectively buy information from bettors by offering odds, and then adjust the market depending on how valuable that information really is.
Professional bettors make money by prediction the outcome of a match based on skill, but they also need to use other information to ensure that the outcome is in their favour as much as possible. This can mean spending many hours researching a player, such as their background in the sport, their success so far, and any injuries that they sustained while play. All information is valuable, and it can all be used when putting down a stake that’s more likely to end in success.
3. Sports Trading
Traditional sports trading exchanges includes the purchase and sale of assets, putting down a value bet, making an offer or hedging a bet. Hedging a bet is basically turning a value bet into an arbitrage bet.
The distinction between arbing and hedging is that bets are not usually made simultaneously while hedging. For example, the bettor places a bet on home in an arbitration, and draws and withdraws it within a short time, e.g. 1 minute. You’d first put a price bet on e.g. the home team to win if you hedge.
Then they can turn it into a certain win or loss by placing a bet at a later point in time on both the draw + away team or an Asian handicap bet. Hedging helps lower the risk, but it also lowers the potential profit.
