It's Not Easy To Win Money Betting On Sports

It's not easy to win money betting on sports. If it were, everybody would be doing it and the books would close up shop. But that doesn't mean that you can not make a profit when you bet. You never hear anybody say that 100% of all sports bettors lose money betting. The most commonly used number is 98% are losers.

Let's be generous and say that only 95% lose money. That means that 5% of those placing bets do win money. Most people would take that 95% and use it as an excuse for their own losing. The winners take that 5% and say "Hey, if they can do it, so can I".

Where do you fit into that? Are you in the 95%, or the five? Do you think you are stuck there just because so many others are? Have those odds convinced you to accept losing?

I say again it is not easy to win money betting on sports. But it can be done. There are no other games a casino can offer that actually allows you to gain a legitimate advantage on every bet, but sports betting certainly does.

The key to winning is to gain the advantage the game allows for you. The problem is that most people have no idea how to go about doing that. They play the wrong games, with bad lines, and leave themselves no chance of winning. The 95% may as well be playing the slots, while the 5% is making all the money.

How can you gain the advantage over the books?

The first thing you do is make sure you get paid more for a win than you lose for loss on every bet you place. Most people play point spreads, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Why would you risk a hundred dollars to win 91, on a bet designed to be a 50-50 proposition? It amounts to paying the book to take your money in a coin flip game. You put yourself at a monetary disadvantage right from the beginning. And you pay the book for helping you do it to yourself.

The next thing is to quit worrying about your winning percentage and pay attention to the money. Would you rather break even winning 55% of your bets or sport an ROI of 15% winning 40% of the time? The 95% choose the first option, the five percent take the second. The bottom line is that it is not about how many games you win, it's how much money you make.

Sports betting allows you to make your own rules. You only have to take the bets you want to take. To profit, you only have to win more bets than the break even point on the lines you play. You don't have to win more bets than you lose to profit. You have to win more money than you lose.

Once you understand those fine points, and apply them to your own betting strategy, it is far easier to profit from sports betting. The books give money away every day. With the right knowledge you can set rules for yourself that will draw some of that money your way.