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How to make money on online sport betting sites

Seems like a perfect way to earn money online, doesn't it? Watch football, tennis or basketball, predict the most likely outcome, put your money where you mouth is...and win. Let's see if we can find a way to bet on sports profitably.

Obviously, betting companies are not charities and need to ensure they're gonna make money, at least in the long-term.
So, just like in a casino, the odds are stacked against you. Mind you, this doesn't have to be a large advantage. 100,000 bets at 10 USD each will give you a turnover of 1,000,000 USD. A 1% advantage means 10,000 USD in profit..not bad, right?

What are the real odds? Let's have a look at few sample bets you can make at betfair.com.

Aston Villa v Swansea
Win: 1.9,
Draw: 3.5,
Lose: 5.1.

For a start, imagine you want to cover all possible outcomes for each of those matches, betting 10 USD on every possibility.

Each match costs you 30 USD and assuming every possible outcome is just as likely,
the estimated return for Aston Villa v Swansea is (1.9*10 + 3.5*10 + 5.1*10)/3 = 35 USD. That's statistically 5 USD of "free money" for you.

Too good to be true? Of course. Let's look at each possible outcome:

Win: 1.9*10 = 19 USD (11 USD loss)
Draw: 3.5*10 = 35 USD ( 5 USD loss)
Lose: 5.1* 10 = 51 USD ( 21 USD win)

Thing is, Aston Villa is much stronger team and their advantage is reflected in those odds. For the bets above, you'd lose 11 USD when they win, which is bad, as it's the most likely outcome.
Now, let's adjust our bets by adding another 12 USD for Aston Villa. Your total cost it 42 USD now and the winnings for possible outcomes are:

Win: 1.9*22 = 41.8 (0.2 USD loss)
Draw: 3.5*10 = 35 USD ( 7 USD loss)
Lose: 5.1* 10 = 51 USD ( 9 USD win)

Still bad, since our return is just as random as when betting on only one result. Let's say we have 1000 USD per event and we're gonna try to cover our outcomes so that Win and Draw will result in at least break even:

Win: 1.9*527 = 1001.3 USD (1.3 USD win)
Draw: 3.5*286 = 1001 USD ( 1 USD win)
Lose: 5.1*187 = 953.7 USD ( 46.3 USD loss)

In case we lose, it's gonna be only 4.63% of our total bet amount. Not bad, especially considering that's the least likely possibility. Assuming implied probabilities given to us by odds, our expected return would be (1.3/1.9)+(1/3.5)-(46.3/5.1) = 0.68 + 0.29 - 9.08 = - 8.11. 8 USD estimated loss on 1000 USD bet, that's about 0.8% house advantage.

The question is, what can you do to turn it into your profit?

There are few main options:

1. Use the sign-up promos.

Most betting sites(same applies to poker and casinos) will give you a sign-up bonus as a thank you gift, when you make your first deposit. This goes without saying, when you create a new account with any of those sites, make sure you benefit from any promos that are available. Most companies will put measures in place to minimize their losses on those promotions(like minimum turnover requirement before withdrawal can be made), but if you're smart, these bonuses can add to your advantage.

2. Arbitrage between multiple betting sites.

Aside from getting multiple sign-up bonuses, having multiple betting accounts(on different sites), has another benefit. When different sites judge the same events in a different way, their odds will be different. Let's say another betting site, totesport offers the same match, Aston Villa v Swansea, with odds as below:

Win: 1.7,
Draw: 3.4,
Lose: 5.4.

What's the play here? Obviously, you'd bet win and draw on betfair.com, while placing the 'lose' bet on the latter site. With the same amount you'll get 5.4*187 = 1009.8 USD. This means that no matter what happens, you'll be in profit!

3. Knowledge

Another obvious point, but often the hardest one.  You can profit by simply knowing a given sport, team or event. If you're passionate about basketball, focus on it. Try to get to know few teams inside out, each player and a unique situation before each match. This will give you an additional edge, which directly translates into profits. Remember, employees of betting sites have slightly different goals when setting their odds. First of all, they need to cover a much wider range of events and simply can't focus on single events as much as you can. Secondly, their goal is to ensure medium to long term profitability and that's often dependent on the number of bets they receive on each outcome. As you probably know, common opinion represents the average and you want to be better than that.

 

To summarize, you'd ideally want to leverage all the three methods above when earning money from sport betting. Gain some knowledge and interest in any sport covered by your betting site(s), use smart money management system and don't bet when the odds are stacked too much against you. Be smart and control yourself and I'm sure you'll close the year in green.

 

Where to bet on sports?

betfair.com - this one is my favorite. They offer a 20 GBP free bet and up to 1000 GBP of cash back. Try them!

BET & WIN like a PRO with Accuscore - save 25% use code: MLB25CJ

totesport - They offer 60 GBP in free bets. Would be a shame not to use it!