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Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Is this the new hack of smart gambling?
De Graaf
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Tue Sep 06, 2016 5:55 pm

Been doing straight value betting since October last year, as a side thing, manual, flat stakes, tuning the bank at least once a week.
I am above 10% average and have no concrete idea why. Would not do it for a living. 
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Tue Sep 06, 2016 9:41 pm

punting20 wrote: I know a few pro punters, it's not an easy game, most of them have an edge of some description.  One person that springs to mind is a professional in running horse player on Betfair.  He's getting crucified by their Premium Charge but still makes a decent living.
If you mean Dave he bets only only the place market. Otherwise he's trading, entirely different beast than betting
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Tue Jan 10, 2017 1:28 am

Yngwie/Sawyer wrote: I believe the number of smart minority who are making money by sports betting over long haul is "definetely" less then %1.

I used to be a Professional Handicapper too. I remember the day, I had quit my day job and started to work Full Time Professional Handicapper. I had my own service, had many clients from different parts of the world. It's a tough job. Bad swings, unfortunate losing streaks are unavoidable.

After I started arbing, I lost my motivation to handicap games and terminated my handicapper service. Time to time, I take some bets too but not often. When you full focused on arbing, you lose your motivation for handicapping.

However, I don't think we should not be betting. Value betting/Dropping Odds (or another profitable angle/system) can be a "good addition" to your arsenal. Just be careful with stakes!

My advice to people who want to make a living by betting on sports. Bankroll is important. Your bankroll is your inventory, it's your lifeblood. When you run out of blood, you're out of game. You must have a large bankroll and the Three Steels. Nerves of steel, Heart of steel and BALLS of steel :D

You should not get upset after a bad losing run. You must have nerves of steel.
You should always bet with your head, never with your heart.
And finally, you should always be ready to take the risk!

Money management is very important. I suggest to bet %1 or %2 each bet. Think it like a snowball. As your bankroll increases, your profits will increase too. When your bankroll is 50k, you're betting 1000€ each game. When your bankroll increased to 60k, you will be betting 1200€ every game. If you can increse your bankroll by %10 ever month, your 100,000€ will turn into 314,000€  after 12 months. Bet limits shouldn't be so much problem as long as you have access to Betfair, Pinnacle and Asians. Good luck!
Couldn't of said it better myself...

The question posed by OP has many variables...

line shopping
soft books & high limit shops
different sports / markets
bankroll size / management 
dicipline.....

It's definitely possible but the bookmakers operate due to those who lose longterm. If one employs good money management whilst using a decent sized bankroll as they shop around for the best price and find an EDGE on a sport/market the can profit for sure... Biggest thing is dicipline... I find myself struggling with this on a daily basis... you can win 5 straight bets but what good does that do to your bankroll if you bet x5 as much on your 6th bet and lose? It's all about dicipline as it ties into each one of the points I listed above..

Shopping for the best price, betting into soft/or high limit shops, finding an edge within a particular sport/market, using your bankroll wisely all take dicipline... if it was easy everyone would be Billy Walters... the older I grow the more I learn and it's a pleasure of mine realizing that the game we play is tilted in the bookmakers favor... I do this cause I enjoy it... every dog/mut has his day.
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Sat May 20, 2017 10:20 am

It is my firm belief that value betting is now on top of all smart gambling action. Pregame or inplay it now produces more, easier and faster profits compared to arbitrage.
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Sat May 20, 2017 10:43 am

blackjack wrote: It is my firm belief that value betting is now on top of all smart gambling action. Pregame or inplay it now produces more, easier and faster profits compared to arbitrage.
What do you mean in faster profits? Value betting means you will have lot of ups and downs, variance plays an important factor. It is easily possible that you make huge loss for a couple of weeks or months and profits comes only later. With arbitrage you produce profits every day.
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Sat May 20, 2017 1:02 pm

I think Term "valuebetting" are thought value inside not hitting best line.

For example pinnacle is 1.9 and soft is 1.8. You hitting 1.8 soft and find value
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Sat May 20, 2017 1:46 pm

maletaja wrote: I think Term "valuebetting" are thought value inside not hitting best line.

For example pinnacle is 1.9 and soft is 1.8. You hitting 1.8 soft and find value
You are wrong.

Valuebetting is a bet that contains value. For example betting on a coin hitting heads at 2.1. There is a 50% chance of it hitting heads:

50*2.1 = 105.

This means you will make 5% in the long run on that bet, which makes it a valueable bet.

Betting on 1.8 on soft when you can get 1.9 on Pinnacle is stupid, nothing else :)
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Sat May 20, 2017 3:05 pm

thorocska wrote:
blackjack wrote: It is my firm belief that value betting is now on top of all smart gambling action. Pregame or inplay it now produces more, easier and faster profits compared to arbitrage.
What do you mean in faster profits? Value betting means you will have lot of ups and downs, variance plays an important factor. It is easily possible that you make huge loss for a couple of weeks or months and profits comes only later. With arbitrage you produce profits every day.
I will not get into details as I m making my bread from this. I m sure that many bookmakers are dealing with value betting in a wrong way. What if a bookmaker constantly offers odds 1.90 after a certain event when betfair crowds are offering 1.75. We all know that betfair represents reality. This is a clear value and a clear mistake from the bookmaker's software. There is no need to cover that event in any exchange and take a 2-5% burden in my back. in the long run this will be capitalised in an even better ration than a fixed coin flip. This is just an example there are many examples like this.
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Tue May 23, 2017 2:10 pm

blackjack wrote: There is no need to cover that event in any exchange and take a 2-5% burden in my back.
People that understand this wise statement are those who focus on value betting instead of arbing. On the other hand, there is a big number of players who used Pinnacle as their main covering bookmaker and fail to understand the 2-5% burden.
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Tue May 23, 2017 3:48 pm

Arbusers wrote:
blackjack wrote: There is no need to cover that event in any exchange and take a 2-5% burden in my back.
People that understand this wise statement are those who focus on value betting instead of arbing. On the other hand, there is a big number of players who used Pinnacle as their main covering bookmaker and fail to understand the 2-5% burden.
I disagree. Arbing lets you place a larger percentage of your bankroll. I'd rather have a 2% arb for 15% of my bankroll, than a 6% expected valuebet for 3% of my bankroll.

If your bankroll is limitless - yes go ahead. No point covering on Pinnacle. But with valuebetting you have to use some kind of conservative bankroll management.

Another thing here to remember is you won't have problems with different rules on books, voided bets etc by valuebetting.

There are pros and cons for both. You have to find the solution that suits your needs, behaviour etc. best. 
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Tue May 23, 2017 8:13 pm

NedlogViiibes wrote: Another thing here to remember is you won't have problems with different rules on books, voided bets etc by valuebetting.
I agree with most of what you said, but not with the part on voided bets. True, if a value bet is voided pre-match, then no problem, the bet just "never was" and there is no opposing bet left uncovered, but if the voiding comes after the result is known or if you bet in-play, then it's just as much of a problem as in the case of arbing. A voided winning value bet is lost profit, it's not a "never was" bet. It can take away a large part of your edge if voids are regular. Of course, voided winning and voided losing bets should even out in the long run IF we assume that books void equally, which is probably not the case.

Also, are there people here who bet several hundred USD/EUR/GBP as a straight-up value bet? Not being intrusive or anything, but... Even if you have a 50k bankroll and money management suggests placing 1-2% of your roll on a single bet, that would be 500 per game, which sounds like a lot to me. I couldn't sleep at night if I did it, even with a 50k roll behind me. Whenever I read posts where people mentioned actual amounts, those were 50 or 100 USD/EUR/GBP at most, not 500...
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Tue May 23, 2017 9:05 pm

Then we are talking about books and their credibility. We could go on all day about that :) You could say voied bets when arbing would even out in the long run as well - it's just a lot more stressfull. And you won't be forced to take a loss pregame to cover a bet. So yea - I think it is an advantage with voided bets with valuebetting.

As for your second part. For some people 500 usd will give you sleepless nights. For others 5k. Others 50k. That's the beauty of proper bankroll management. You basically only bet the amounts you are comfortable with as you bet a percentage of your roll.
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Mon Jun 05, 2017 3:26 pm

Hey all.  Just curious but how many people you think are doing this right now?  Thus betting straight up and not arbing.  Also what percentage of ppl who do this would you say are arbers vs straight up bettors?
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Wed Aug 23, 2017 3:53 pm

I've made a living straight betting for the past 5 years, although I only did it part-time and did other things. If you know your edge, you can use the Kelly criterion to work out what percentage of your bankroll to stake, and using this you can find out what your bankroll needs to be and how many bets you need to place. It is pretty hard, so I don't know why so many people try - just get a nice middle-class job.
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Re: Does anyone bet sports for a living here (Not Arbing)?

Wed Aug 23, 2017 4:23 pm

Its quite hard. Usually when u find value-small leagues. And if u win by betting small leagues(is it arb or not) you get limited anyway

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