Sports Betting Advisor

A few years ago one of my clients sent me an email telling me he was quitting my service and quitting betting on sports….Ok, so this happens all the time, but what made this so surprising was that we were in the middle of one of our best seasons in 12 years. Our members were up nearly 100 units and still going strong. I happened to have this guy’s phone number and my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to give him a call, something I rarely ever do.

As it turns out, he went broke. “How”? I asked him, “we are up nearly 100 units and being a $100.00 bettor you have got to be in your glory”. Well (we’ll call him Sam) Sam was on such a winning streak he decided to double and triple his plays for the upcoming week and as luck would have it, he had a losing week thus wiping out 3 weeks of profits. Having lost 1/3 of his bankroll, he decided to triple up again so he could get his money back that he lost the previous week. He also added 5 games of his own to his wagers. Sam is not a handicapper that is why he uses a professional service, yep you guessed it, we had a winning week, but he lost all 5 of his own selections. Sam was broke in just two weeks after 10 winning weeks in a row.

This story is not unusual in sports betting or any form of gambling for that matter. People have a tendency to panic when on a losing streak and get greedy when on a winning streak and thus fall prey to the “losers lament”. I have seen many instances where sport bettors have a winning percentage and yet still losing money. Vince Lombardi once said about NFL football “on any given Sunday” referring to how even the best playing the worse could end up a loser on any given Sunday.

Picking winners is obviously a must in winning at sport betting, but betting strategy and bankroll management could be even more important and have a greater impact on your bottom line profits.

The best bankroll management system I have ever seen is called the “25 / 5″. The key to any form of gambling is to “minimize losses” while “maximizing wins” and nobody, but nobody does any form of gambling without suffering occasional losses. The “25 /5″ bankroll management system has a built in automatic formula for knowing exactly how much of your bankroll you should wager on any event or on any day to minimize losses and maximize winnings, taking the guess work out of how much you should wager and thus providing the discipline of doubling or tripling your bets to “get even”.

Here is how it works….it is really quite simple….The name of the system provides the first rule.

Never wager more than 25% of your overall bankroll in any given day or any more than 5% on any individual game. So if you have a starting bankroll of say $1000.00, (this is monies set aside solely for betting, not your rent or food money) by the rule, you would never risk more than $250.00 (25% of $1000.00) on any given day of football action. So if you had 5 plays that day, you would wager $50.00 (5 divided into your $250.00) on each play. If you had say 8 plays that day, you would divide 8 into your available betting bankroll for that day of $250.00, giving you a per wager bet of $31.25 or a $30.00 (5% rule) wager if you want to round it off. Any number of plays less than 5 would fall to the 5% rule, so if you only had one play, your max wager for the day would be $50.00. If you had one play that was stronger than the others and you wanted to say put 3 times more on that play than on the others, then you would count it as actually 3 plays. For example if you had 5 plays for the day, 4 were one unit plays and 1 was a 3 unit play, you would actually figure the formula as if you were making 7 plays. Dividing 7 into your $250.00 would give you a per wager amount of $35.00. So you would make a $35.00 wager on each of your 4 one unit plays and a $105.00 wager on your 3 unit play. You would be staying within the 25% rule because your total wagers would be $245.00, thus staying under your $250.00 maximum.Following these rules will take the guesswork out of how much to wager on any given day and help you avoid the “double up” temptation.

Minimize Losses…Maximize winnings…. Each day you readjust your overall bankroll. Let’s say you won all of your games in the above example and you won $250.00. Your new “overall” bankroll would now be $1250.00 and your “available bankroll” would now be $312.50. Here is where the maximize winnings come in. While on a winning streak, your bankroll will continue to increase and thus you’re per wager amount will continue to increase. In the above example of betting 5 games, you’re per wager bet would now be $62.50 instead of the original $50.00…. Of course the same hold true if you would have lost your $250.00 or a portion of it. If you happened to have lost all 5 games, your new “overall” bankroll would now be $750.00 and your “available” betting bankroll for the next day would be $187.50, making your maximum per wager bet $37.50. As you can readily see, the system will keep you disciplined, allow you to maximize winnings and minimize your losses. Utilizing this system, you would have to lose every single wager you make, assuming you are making 5 per day, four consecutive days. I have seen bettors start this system with a $50.00 bankroll and a $5.00 bet and by the end of the season they were making $200.00 bets per game and their bankroll was in the thousands….This explanation may seem a little confusing at first, but when you put it on paper, it is very very simple to follow. If you have any questions on this system, you can email me at tony@tonydiamond.com

Despite the efforts of the US government to curtail gambling on the internet, millions of dollars are still being wagered each day on sporting events, poker and online casino’s. Estimates for the amount of money being wagered yearly on sporting events vary greatly but it is a common acceptance by all the estimators that it is in the Billions of dollars. Obviously the internet makes up a big part with its worldwide attraction and availability, but there are also the legal sports books in States like Nevada and some foreign countries that have legalized betting on sporting events. What makes it difficult to get an accurate estimate is the number of “barber shop bookies” throughout the US and around the world. The illegal bookmakers it is estimated, makes up nearly 50% of all sport betting action annually.

What draws the public to the “windows” to place wagers on sporting events….? Of course many are drawn by the thrill of having “something riding” on a game and almost always can watch the outcome on a TV broadcast. Why do the Vegas Sports Books put a TV next to a game on their board? Because they know that more action will come in on a game that is being televised than ones that are not. This alone may answer the question of how many sport bettors actually end the season or the year with a profit? Playing games just because they are on TV is certainly not going to put a sport bettor into profit.

General opinion by bookmakers estimate that less than 10% of all consistent sport bettors will end up with a profit at the end of the year. Most sport bettors do not have the expertise, the resources and the time to intelligently analyze a sporting event that will give them the edge against the bookmaker. Professional handicappers will spend many many hours each day analyzing statistics, reading press releases, studying injury reports, watching weather forecasts, tracking line movements, analyzing trends and comparing team and player matchups.

Besides just the thrill having something riding on a sporting event, is the lure of those preying on the greedy. Many sport services (touts) advertise winning percentages that are nothing more than marketing ploys to reel in the sport bettor in search of making that “big hit”. The reality is that anyone able to consistently predict the outcome of a game (against the spread) more than 60% of the time is in the top 10 to 15 percent of all handicappers. We are not referring to the hobbyist handicapper here, the one who places a wager once in awhile on they’re Alma mater or a once a year wager on the Super Bowl. We are talking about those that place 200 or 300 wagers per year. The serious sport bettor who is out to make a living or at least a decent profit off his efforts will wager on at least 5 to 10 games each week and higher when football season overlaps the basketball season. So, how much can a serious sport make betting sports throughout the year? Answer: how big is your available bankroll to get started?

The expectation of the novice or unsuspecting sport bettor is invariably far above the realm of reality. This is in part, as mentioned above, is caused by the outlandish advertising claims of some sport betting advisors and services. Claims of winning 70% or 80% of all their games, or that you can make 100 times your starting bankroll in one season….etc. Our example of a really good handicapper being able to win 60% of his wagers is very accurate, you can trust me on that one….To prove this point, why is it that the biggest football handicapping contest in the world (The Super Contest), which is at the Las Vegas Hilton, and draws some of the best handicappers from throughout the world, offers a $10,000.00 bonus to anyone who correctly picks 63% or 66% (forgive me but the exact number escapes me at the moment) during the contest. The contest requires each entry to pick 5 NFL games per week for 17 weeks. That’s a total of 85 games, which means if someone could correctly pick 56 winners of those 85 games, they would collect the 10K bonus. So you can see that the average Joe hitting 60% is quite an extraordinary feat.

Now here is the reality of making money by betting sports….Let’s assume you have a starting bankroll of say $1000.00 and you are going to wager on average 5 games per week. If you placed a $100.00 wager on each of your 5 games and you made a total of say 200 wagers over the year, you would have a total outlay of $22,000.00. This is including the 10% commission the books add to the wager. So if you make a $100.00 wager, you must put up $110.00 to win $100.00. This is sometimes called the “juice” or the “vig”. This is how the bookmakers stay in business. They make 10% off the bet off all the losers, which is one reason it is difficult to beat the books. They adjust betting lines so they can keep the action on a game as close to 50-50 as possible….They keep the $10.00 of the losing bets while the winner gets his initial $110.00 wager plus the $100.00 win. So if a book had say 100 wagers at 100 each which would be 10,000 wagered on one game and 50 of the bettors had side A and the other side B, this is the perfect scenario for the book, because they profit no matter who wins the game.

Let’s use our example of your $100.00 wager on 200 games over the course of a season, and let’s say you are a good handicapper and are able win 60% of those games….I must point out here, that you need to win at least 53% of those games to break even, just because of the Vig as mentioned above. Ok, so you wagered a total of $22,000.00 over the season, at 60% you won 120 of those 200 games. You will get back $210.00 for each of the games you won (the $110.00 you put up plus the $100.00 you won) which gives you a total return of $25,200.00 return, or a $3,200.00 profit for the year….That is the reality. Consider someone who is wagering only $10.00 or $20.00 per game and expects to make a big profit and you see that the reality is that you need a big starting bankroll to make a living at betting sports. Even at the $3,200.00 profit, you certainly cannot consider that as making a living….And again we are assuming you are a “good” handicapper picking winners at 60%.

Fortunately, most sport bettors are recreational or hobbyist players and not out to make a living. Just seeing even a small profit at the end of the year can be very gratifying for them and fulfills their desire to add to the excitement of the game. Over the past 16 years of providing sport betting advice to my clients, it is gratifying to me when even a small player is making even a small profit off my service…I have never failed to make a profit for my clients in the 16 years I have been in business….However, the reality is: you may not get rich.

Sport Betting Can Be Very Profitable

Despite the efforts of the Federal Government to curtail or eliminate sports betting and gambling on the Internet, Billions of dollars are being wagered each year through the internet as well as legal land based casino’s, sport books and the illegal sport betting bookies throughout the world. Sports betting is estimated to make up to nearly 20% of all gambling dollars spent. Unfortunately most of that money will go in the pockets of the bookmakers. Winning at the business of betting sports is more of a skill than a game of luck such as spinning the wheel on roulette table or pulling the handle on a slot machine. Sport betting is an art and science and many sport enthusiasts who take their sport betting seriously are making huge profits while sitting back on the couch on Sunday afternoon enjoying their favorite pastime. Handicapping a full schedule of weekend football games can take the serious handicapper upwards of 50 hours of research each week. Statistical number crunching, studying game situations, injury’s, weather conditions, watching line movements and gathering information from newspapers from around the country. Of course then you must have the knowledge of how to use the information once they have it assembled.

We’re not referring here to the hobbyist player or recreational player who might lay down 5 or 10 dollars on their alma mater or hometown team on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon just to have an added excitement to watching the game. They are not making sport betting a business, but then you do have the amateur bettor who takes his sport betting serious but not in the same category as the professional. This is the group that gets into the most trouble. This is the group that in most cases have a degree of addictiveness in sport betting. These are the ones who will find any reason they can muster up to place a wager, especially if it’s a TV game. Why do you think the sport books in the Las Vegas Casino’s put a big “TV” next to the lines on the board? Because they know they will get more action on those games and they also know the money isn’t always coming from the pro who may have an inside track on the game. Without having the knowledge, doing the research and spending the time on handicapping, the hobbyist sport bettor has very little chance over the long run of making profit betting sports.Even taking the 50/50 way out and flipping a coin won’t get you profit. The bookmakers have a built in commission, also known as the “Vig” (vigorish) or the “Juice”.

This is how the books can stay in business. Depending on the type of wager the book will take 10% of the wager on losing bets. So if you want to win $100.00 on a game, you have to lay, or give the book $110.00. If you win, no problem. You get your $110.00 back plus the $100.00 you won. However, the losers will lose their $110.00, which means they now have to win their next two bets to make a profit. The actual figure for making a profit over the commission is approximately 53% or you must win 53 of every 100 bets you place. Not as easy as it may sound. The professional sport bettor is usually very satisfied with a 60% win record at the end of the season, that’s only 7 points over the break even, but will show a substantial profit. More and more people today are starting to make sporting betting their home business. With the assistance of a sport-betting advisor they are able to enjoy consistent profits from their sport betting. Sport betting advisor’s, also known as “sport services”, are professional sport handicappers that do all the research and analysis and provide the client with a recommended play or plays from the current day’s sports schedules. It is the responsibility of the client however to place their own wagers, as it is illegal for the sport service to place the wager for them.

Sport betting advisors are in essence filling the same type of capacity as a stock consultant or broker. Many people, who are into playing the stock market, find themselves in the same situation as the sport bettor. Not having the time or the knowledge to do the necessary work to make an intelligent decision. Just like the stock consultant, the sport betting advisor charges a weekly, monthly or annual fee for their professional experience. Those interested in getting the edge in the upcoming weekend games, can join in the on-line version of the “Las Vegas Sports Handicappers Workshop”. Live participation in the conference chat room as well attendee particiapation by telephone is available. To listen or join in, go to my website for registration details Choosing a reputable sport betting advisor is the key to making profit from betting sports, the same process should be used as if you were putting your yourself in the hands of a professional stock broker…A reputable sport betting advisor can give you the luxury of enjoying your favorite sporting event while making money doing it….For more sport betting articles

Tony Diamond’s service is not intended to encourage gambling or participation in activities that violate state or federal laws. This service and article is directed to those in States or country’s where such acitivities are within the legal limits of the regulations pertaining to this activity.