Betting as a business

[sachsich]

from trial and error, i have came upon a conclusion that if you are wanting to make money at this, you need to have some structure. some of the cappers here are more talented and might not need anything, they just pick winners. does anyone have any ideas on structuring your days. possibly to making only 1,2 or 3 picks a day. maybe taking a day off or anything like that. maybe have yourself a set of rules to follow to meet your goals. i believe i could do a lot better if i had a set of rules to limit myself. seems like i lose the most when i make a lot of bets in a single day trying to catch up. i should just take the one loss and go to tomorrow. thinking about it for a while and want to see if anyone else views this as a business. it is money after all

[xxxFTWxxx]

i have lately done better of only making plays where I at least believe I have some sort of edge.

there was a time I would bet if something was on TV or if it was something I wanted to happen.

just bet edges or dont bet

[Jimmy K]

sach, find a couple sports that you are very good at and learn everything about the teams and stats, enough so that you can find a few winners a week and crush em. don't bet just to bet, if you have a day or several days that you just don't feel you have clear cut winners, lay off.

[Romanowski]

there is no system for professional gamblers

all situational which does imply order and not chaos but not a system like we would like to think

[Chicago RED]

I do not know if I am the right person to answer this question, as far as sports betting goes the last couple of years it has been something I have done for fun. Having action on a game just made it all the more interesting for me. After going on a good run here and there I was able to see that money can be made. Now for the most part it has been trail and error, I have just started to try and learn a little more on the subjectand take it a little more serious.

I would have to say so far I am not a winning sports bettor, not yet at least. This Football season will be the first time I am taking betting serious. I have been working hard trying to do the home work that good cappers do. There is a lot to be done. I may even just stick with college ball, Just for the fact that this is a lot of work. I have no clue if what I am looking at has been right, or if I am even looking at it in the right way, but by the end of the season I should have a idea, #'s do not lie.

Now one thing I am is a decent poker player, I am sure some of the things I have learned in poker may help in sports betting to give you a little bit of a structure. So if you want to take this serious I will try and point you in the right direction.

1. You are in the right place, cappersmall is a great forum with a great bunch of people. There are some good cappers here and you really can learn a lot just by reading posts, and by posting yourself if you have a question.
(TIP: when you post in the forum try and ask a question that can be answered. Wrong would be "How can I win.?" Nobody can answer that question because they have no clue what you are doing, so a question like that becomes one that is impossible to answer. A Right question would be What are some of the things everyone looks at when they cap a game?")

2. Now that you are on the forum asking and learning, now would be a good time to get a few books and learn about the subject you want to master, in this case books on sports betting. When I started in poker I said to myself if people can play and make a living at it then why cant I. Now I have never read a book on sports betting, but this week I am going to get a couple before football starts and read them. I have no I dea if this will throw me off the path of endless work that I have been doing or not, but for sure it will give me a better Idea of what I should be doing.
(Two books I have heard were good from people here are: The Smart Money by: Michael Konik & Weighing the odds in sports betting by: King yao.) Start with those.

3. BankRoll. I feel this is the most important in all forms of betting. I do not know how many bets sports bettors have in there roll, but I think it would be safe to say start out with a 100 bet roll. The thing with all forms of beatable betting is that you have to look at this as a long term thing, having a bad day, week, or even two weeks in betting is a joke. You will go on bad runs that can last 2 months or a whole season. Proper BankRoll management is key to get through bad runs, without a proper roll you have a great chance of going bust. So with a 100 bet roll you should be ok. So for an example if you are betting $10 a game your roll should be $1,000.00
1 unit =$10 So 10 x 100= 1000 This is saying you are only betting 1 unit per game. If you are betting 5 units on your good games, and 3 units on your mid games, and 1 unit on your almost sure games but they can go the other way. You are going to need a much larger roll then a 100 bet roll.
(Tip: If you start out with a small roll, it will seem like you are doing endless work for little return. Just know if you go off the path of proper BankRoll you will have a great chance of going broke. It is much harder to get back what you have lost once it is gone.) Tip: Most people never are able to control themselves enough to have proper BankRoll Management, hence many fail.)

4. Experence: Nothing helps more then going through diffrent situations and systems you may come up with then experence. It takes years to get good at something, even longer. This is not something you will get next week, there is not anything anyone can tell you that would make you a winning capper by tomarrow, it takes time. Just keep learning more every game, every season.

I hope this helps a little, sorry it was a long read. Like I said I was not the best to answer your question. But I feel I had enough to send you on the right path. GL

[CecilBrown]

Too many specifics to list here however, "advantage" players CAN and DO make money in the long term.

[BigdaddyQH]

The best thing to do is obtain as much information as you can, and settle for something thats makes you comfortable. Many people in here can tell you different things and all could be correct. I specialized in football. It is the only sport I wagered on, unless someone told me about a hoops game that was (to use Shaq's term) "predetermined". I spent the off season learning as much about the game as I could and preparing for the regular season. But that is just me. You may want to wager all year. If you do that, the one thing that people forget about the most is burn out. Wagering for a living is like any other job, and like any other job, you can burn out.

[johnny1212]

Originally Posted by BigdaddyQH

The best thing to do is obtain as much information as you can, and settle for something thats makes you comfortable. Many people in here can tell you different things and all could be correct. I specialized in football. It is the only sport I wagered on, unless someone told me about a hoops game that was (to use Shaq's term) "predetermined". I spent the off season learning as much about the game as I could and preparing for the regular season. But that is just me. You may want to wager all year. If you do that, the one thing that people forget about the most is burn out. Wagering for a living is like any other job, and like any other job, you can burn out.

I do not usually agree with you bigdaddy but I do here

[scr0da]

With baseball, i learned from RyHenry's system that it IS the way to make money!

Instead of trying to win $100 on one game (ex: Yankees -200)

Bet to win $10 to win the yanks
If it loses, bet what you lost ($20) plus what you originally wanted to win ($10) = to win $30 on the second game...

AND SO ON

you may be risking alot as it goes on but, you will ALWAYS win that $10

[Bobtheicon]

Originally Posted by scr0da

With baseball, i learned from RyHenry's system that it IS the way to make money!

Instead of trying to win $100 on one game (ex: Yankees -200)

Bet to win $10 to win the yanks
If it loses, bet what you lost ($20) plus what you originally wanted to win ($10) = to win $30 on the second game...

AND SO ON

you may be risking alot as it goes on but, you will ALWAYS win that $10

Thank you Mr. Martingale

[Davydave]

Originally Posted by Bobtheicon

Thank you Mr. Martingale

[Goldmine]

without structure comes failure