Anyone genuinely made money betting on sport

[sohohoho]

If his average winning odds are 5.06 then his losing odds are likely even higher.
Quite easy to win what he did when only hitting 24% of his bets when prices are this

 

[rumply]

I know whos losing money - ****ing Gill McLoughlin goes to Tabcorp & now we cant get bets on, for the 2nd time this week. Miniscule pools across the board today so someone will be getting their ass kicked up & down a plush carpet hallway.

 

[imtall]

I think long run it is very difficult to make money sports betting. A lot harder these days as bookies slash their odds due to increased taxes etc.

A few years back I had some mild success betting on greyhounds with pointsbet. They weren't pricing up their same race multis properly. Some dogs are great chasers, but never win...I was betting outsiders to place and did ok for a few weeks until I was banned from that specific market.

Some of the AFL odds I have seen this year have been borderline disgraceful, especially on the exotics. Players priced up as $1.50 to take 8 marks when this bet has copped 2 times out of the last 20, for example.

Anyone making money in one season is almost certainly due to luck. The edge is soon gobbled up by the bookies and their data miners.

 

[Jammer]

A slightly different angle to add to this. I did it for a couple of years more than a decade ago. If you are any good
you will be banned pretty much everywhere with the corp. bookies. Betfair for me was great but you do run
into issues with liquidity on markets you may have the edge in.
I made enough for those years which may look like a success on paper however here is the rub....

It was shocking for my relationship/family life. It takes so much time and commitment to get an edge. Most of the guys i knew who also did it were single or in pretty non committed relationships.... ( I would imagine the fellas on here who win are in a similar situation )

I moved onto learning/doing basic two lot subdivisions in real estate. Less time, risk, stress and far more lucrative when you skill up. In saying all this i still have the 'virus' the difference is i would only have about 6 bets a year now.

 

[superfraser]

A slightly different angle to add to this. I did it for a couple of years more than a decade ago. If you are any good
you will be banned pretty much everywhere with the corp. bookies. Betfair for me was great but you do run
into issues with liquidity on markets you may have the edge in.
I made enough for those years which may look like a success on paper however here is the rub....

It was shocking for my relationship/family life. It takes so much time and commitment to get an edge. Most of the guys i knew who also did it were single or in pretty non committed relationships.... ( I would imagine the fellas on here who win are in a similar situation )

I moved onto learning/doing basic two lot subdivisions in real estate. Less time, risk, stress and far more lucrative when you skill up. In saying all this i still have the 'virus' the difference is i would only have about 6 bets a year now.

That's a brilliant post and hits close to home.

Across the past 4 years I've won approximately 16x my starting stake, but I'd probably have made more money and spent less time on it if I'd taken a second job at McDonalds.

 

[juss]

A slightly different angle to add to this. I did it for a couple of years more than a decade ago. If you are any good
you will be banned pretty much everywhere with the corp. bookies. Betfair for me was great but you do run
into issues with liquidity on markets you may have the edge in.
I made enough for those years which may look like a success on paper however here is the rub....

It was shocking for my relationship/family life. It takes so much time and commitment to get an edge. Most of the guys i knew who also did it were single or in pretty non committed relationships.... ( I would imagine the fellas on here who win are in a similar situation )

I moved onto learning/doing basic two lot subdivisions in real estate. Less time, risk, stress and far more lucrative when you skill up. In saying all this i still have the 'virus' the difference is i would only have about 6 bets a year now.

Probably true, when I was betting my most, I was watching sport most of my free time, at a certain point your partner kind of wants more and you can't just be parked in front of the couch watching sport all day and night on weekends.

 

[99 Problems]

Agree with the vibe of the last few posts. It can take a pretty big mental and physical toll on you even if you’re winning. I’ve been lucky enough to make ok money for a couple of decades without ever being a pro.

Like most started out a complete mug before putting more time and effort in. When I found my first genuine edges it was a bit of a thrill and found myself putting even more time in trying to find the next ones. I’d sweat bets even though I knew on average I’d be losing more than 40% of them. The hour a day at the gym got replaced by staring at the computer. Without realising it you become a bit of a hermit and for me the more time I invested the less value I got from the time.

I still bet and enjoy testing new ideas when time allows but it fits in around the rest of my life now. I don’t sweat any bets and often won’t even watch the events I’ve bet on.

This might sound silly but if I was to start again I’d bet much more aggressively when I first started to find positive EV angles, even at the risk of losing my starting bank. Make as much from the game as you can while your lifestyle allows it.

 

[Jugada]

Yeah I would say im at the point where I would barely watch any of my sports bets and my racing bets are nearly all watched on replay. Probably better for the mental side of things anyway

 

[asanque]

Yes but extremely tough nowadays.

Bookie limits and far sharper lines with fewer markets.

Also better analytics and sources mean odds adjust very quickly.

I don't post much here anymore but it's always fun looking back at the past:

Rate your punting year

Now, I know that the year is not yet over and a lot of you are still betting on the the NFL, NBA, Soccer and racing. However, my punting year ended after the Australian Masters (go Tiger!). I thought it might be a good chance to assess how your year has gone and what improvements you...

www.bigfooty.com

Betting for a wage

My only defence for him would be it depends on his unit size? I mean if $1000 is nothing for him and thats his unit size, then yeah sure he may have not paid attention to the game or followed it. How many times have you placed a bet of one unit and not followed the game, whether you have been...

www.bigfooty.com

Sidenote: I am down on general AFL betting this year

 

[X_box_X]

There's some good posts here that resonate with me.

As others have identified, making money by trading can consume you.

I've spoken to many others along my journey and they all have similar stories to tell. Most of them who are good enough to make consistent money all seem to have found an end point. I don't know if this is a coincidence, but a lot of (semi) professional punters seem to last ten years. One person I spoke to recently told me he gave up the game six years ago after making consistently good money for ten years but it reached a point where he chose to give up for a variety of reasons.

In terms of lifestyle and finding a balance, it can definitely take a toll on you. The beauty about technology is you can bet while being out with your family. That wasn't possible 20 years ago so those who have entered this game over the past 12-15 years would have different experiences to those who could only make money sitting in front of a computer and being isolated from their family.

I commenced my journey in April 2012. Prior to then, I was a mug and I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how much I'd lost. It would definitely be over $10k and like most mugs I experienced the highs and lows, but there were a lot more lows. I lucked out on Grand Final Day 2009 when I won over $10k by taking a plethora of 1st Goal Scorers and Last Goal Scorers. I spent over $500 taking players individually and combining them in a multi. My winning best that resulted in wins were Max Rooke 1st Goal, Max Rooke Final goal and a cheeky $5 multi on Rooke 1st and Last Goal. The thrill of that win was exhilarating. It would be another 2.5 years before I came across an arbitrage opportunity and the rest is history.

Since learning the art of arbitrage betting, middling, +EV betting and trading, I’ve turned a side-hustle into a productive and enjoyable semi profession that would allow for a comfortable lifestyle without having to rely on a fulltime tax paying job.

Over the years I've been able to develop my skills and acquire additional resources to reach greater heights. As any person in this industry knows, your accounts quickly get limited as soon as you begin a pattern of taking +EV odds. To keep your head above water, you need to identify other avenues to maintain an edge and this is something I've always been good at.

Many of the skills and edges I have are secrets I don't wish to share because doing so would be detrimental.

I have a supportive wife and we share two amazing kids. I make sure I always have time for them. My wife is happy working only part time and she knows she can only do that because of the money I make.

I'm fortunate that I have a fulltime job where there can often be plenty of downtime. I am also fortunate enough that I get a lot more annual leave than most fulltime workers. It works for me and I wouldn't change a thing.

Everyone is different in terms of their approach, but I like to go hard for 48 weeks and spend the remaining four weeks having a break. My breaks can occur at any time but I won't log into a single account while I'm in refresh mode. This is great for the mental side of things.

 

[burge13]

I hate the term '+EV betting' as every idiot/mug thinks their bet has 'value' otherwise they wouldn't put it on. But +EV is such a vague term that many people use to appear smart IMO. It's like people claiming a stock is being 'manipulated' because it went down. It's just a term people heard, thought it was clever so they started using it and it's morphed into its own near meme

The amount of times I've heard mates say 'xyz paid shit so had to add 3 other legs to get someone value'. I've given up explaining things

Echo the thoughts of recent posts, I made 5-10k a year on MMA for ages, but the juice just isn't worth the squeeze at some point. Earning more at work meaning the wins are less impactful, limits/bans, etc. Barely even bet the last 4-6 months

 

[5 Bucks]

What kind of punter would choose their wife/family/mental health over punting?! Weak. A true degen knows these things are secondary and should be let go if they're standing in your way of losing money gambling.

 

[burge13]

What kind of punter would choose their wife/family/mental health over punting?! Weak. A true degen knows these things are secondary and should be let go if they're standing in your way of losing money gambling.

Sell the family car to give you a bigger bankroll

 

[Makeshift Park]

Anyone successfully integrated weather impact into their models?

I’m not a professional gambler and I didn’t do tertiary maths but for some intellectual fun I thought I’d try to develop some predictive match result and player props models based on python scripts, r and csvs.

So I’m trying to integrate a rainfall impact into the weighting. When I run the model across historical data (pulled from BOM and AFL results), the main effects seem to be on key forwards stats, and marks across all positions. Which superficially makes sense, I think.

But I think I’ve got a gremlin or six in the system, because when I turn the weather component on in my model, the log loss scores go in the wrong direction. Also worryingly, it has very little effect on predictive clearances and goalscoring rates, even when rainfall is very high.

 

[ash_1050]

Also worryingly, it has very little effect on predictive clearances and goalscoring rates, even when rainfall is very high.

Dumb question but you looking at results from Marvel Stadium by chance?

 

[Makeshift Park]

Dumb question but you looking at results from Marvel Stadium by chance?

Nah I exclude marvel from weather weighting.

 

[sohohoho]

do team stats make sense vs the different amounts of rainfall?

how are you classifying player positions also.

 

[Makeshift Park]

do team stats make sense vs the different amounts of rainfall?

how are you classifying player positions also.

I don't worry about the impact of rain on team w/l margins because the number of matches each club has played with serious rain in the last several years (ie more than 10mm on the gameday at the nearest BOM observation station to the ground) has been too low to extrapolate meaningful team-based conclusions.

But if you compile all of them together, I think you can probably draw meaningful conclusions about players based on role.

For context: I make less than a dozen bets a week, and they're small (at this stage of development, its more a rewarding intellectual exercise than a form of income), so what I do is:

• use a python script to bring in the available odds for Kelly criterion assessment,
• apply different weighted models (five-game form x recent career x contextual factors) based on whether they're key def/gen def/inside mid/outside mid/ruck/gen fwd/key fwd, and
• then before I place a bet, I manually check how much variation there is in the heatmaps of their last 6 games to see how much variance there has been in their recent role. (If I was doing it professionally, I'd find a way to incorporate their heatmaps automatically.)

The model definitely could do with some more calibration, but I'm winning more than I'm losing, so its enough to make me want to keep tinkering.

 

[St Steady]

I don't worry about the impact of rain on team w/l margins because the number of matches each club has played with serious rain in the last several years (ie more than 10mm on the gameday at the nearest BOM observation station to the ground) has been too low to extrapolate meaningful team-based conclusions.

But if you compile all of them together, I think you can probably draw meaningful conclusions about players based on role.

For context: I make less than a dozen bets a week, and they're small (at this stage of development, its more a rewarding intellectual exercise than a form of income), so what I do is:

• use a python script to bring in the available odds for Kelly criterion assessment,
• apply different weighted models (five-game form x recent career x contextual factors) based on whether they're key def/gen def/inside mid/outside mid/ruck/gen fwd/key fwd, and
• then before I place a bet, I manually check how much variation there is in the heatmaps of their last 6 games to see how much variance there has been in their recent role. (If I was doing it professionally, I'd find a way to incorporate their heatmaps automatically.)

The model definitely could do with some more calibration, but I'm winning more than I'm losing, so its enough to make me want to keep tinkering.

if you interested in modeling afl , check out squiggle.com.au

bunch of math geeks that spend the seasons comparing models etc and have a comp on their results/predictive stuff

cross-reference them on X and reach out to a few of them, they very open about helping , discussing some of the stuff they play around with in their models

ive spoken to quite a few of them on modeling other stuff and find them very engaging

 

[EVan9]

Can people here saying they make money show their total profit loss. I get that you could put in 20k. Walk put with 15k and go on a holiday.

I would like to know actual profit

It’s currently 1am and I’m in bed and too lazy to get my burner phones where I make a vast majority but I can show you these two statements from my personal accounts. Will attach some bowlers I’ve recently taken over, first 2 lasted 2 weeks then banned, just started using 3rd now.
I’m completely banned from most bookies but can still use SB and 365 although 365 is heavily heavily limited (although high volume) and my SB had ok limits until the last 6 weeks or so. Also note - the 365 and SB are honesty poorer ROI then my average, my big stakes and main money is put through burners.
I mainly just bet afl and aflw and have an edge year after year. Almost all my action is through burner accounts and weird operations. You can 100% make money if you put the effort in. Studying trends, DVP and team changes (role changes, predicting role changes etc) studying vfl form, bashing unders when predicting tags are some of the ways I go about making money. I get it wrong every day and lose all the time. I just win more than I lose. I focus mainly on singles. I do heaps of multis, generally low stakes and I’m fully aware they are terrible EV. But they are fun. I really enjoy doing multis where I predict the story line and the legs are often correlated. Okay X player is gonna get a tag so I’ll back X unders and the taggers unders cause his focus will now be man, not ball. Okay X player will have a smaller piece of the disposal pie, now Y player is going to benefit. These new SB markets can help if played right. Now Y player we can back his disposals AND clearances. You need access to lots of accounts. It’s that simple. I am no big fish by any means but I am a decently enough sized fish to have contacts where I can almost always get a bet down.
It takes time. It takes effort. But I promise you, you can definitely make money afl sports betting.

 

[Aristotle Pickett the3rd]

Anyone not betting on an exchange market eg betfair is miles behind and will not win unless they have inside information.

 

[EVan9]

Anyone not betting on an exchange market eg betfair is miles behind and will not win unless they have inside information.

Incorrect. I do it every month, every season. I don’t have much action on exchanges.

 

[Aristotle Pickett the3rd]

Incorrect. I do it every month, every season. I don’t have much action on exchanges.

Why would you not take the usually better odds on the exchange?

 

[EVan9]

Why would you not take the usually better odds on the exchange?

Exchanges don’t have many markets compared to books

 

[based]

they also aren't "usually better" outside of racing