How to Turn Your Sports Betting Hobby into a Business

Most sports bettors gamble as a hobby. Even the ones that win more than they lose rarely take the next step and turn their sports betting into a business.

Stop Screwing Around

The reason most sports betting hobbyists never take the step to making it a business is because it’s hard to run a business. You have to track things and pay attention to what you’re doing. Instead of it being fun to pick a few games every week it’s suddenly work that requires effort and a dedication to making money on a consistent basis.

In other words, if you want to turn your sports betting hobby into a business you have to stop screwing around.

There’s nothing wrong with staying at the hobby level, but don’t fool yourself into thinking it can be more unless you’re willing to do the work and make consistent winning an important enough goal in your life to make it happen.

It sounds like a great way to make a living when you start thinking about betting sports professionally. You get to watch sports all the time and research stats and sports news. You start thinking that you practically do this now. Why not make some extra money off your efforts?

The reality of the situation is that when you start betting on sports full time it quickly becomes a job. It can take the fun out of watching games because instead of enjoying the game you are constantly looking for an edge.

If you’ve ever heard sports beat writers that cover the same team for years say they aren’t fans, it’s along the same lines. It’s almost a conscious choice you have to make. Are you going to be a fan or are you going to be a professional sports bettor?

What You Need

The most important thing you need is to go from hobby to business in the proper mindset. I realize I touched on this in the first section, but it’s so important that you may need to hear it again.

If you combine the proper mindset with the right amount of determination and work you will become a winning sports bettor.

It’s up to you to decide if you’re willing to do what it takes to succeed.

Next you need to develop systems to find profitable betting situations on a consistent basis. To do this you need to always be evaluating statistical models and testing new systems.

Not only do you need to collect as many stats as possible, you also need to be able to figure out how to use them to get an edge.

Developing systems can follow a fairly straight forward plan or they can come from out of the blue. Either way they require the same testing and evaluation.

The easiest way for most people to develop systems is by studying statistics and data.

As you study statistics you start seeing things that look like trends. Once you see a possible trend you start looking for more data to either prove the trend is real or prove that it’s false.

Back Testing

Once you find a trend that looks real you test it over the past several seasons to see how it would have worked in real game situations. (This is called back testing.)

If the back testing looks promising you then start tracking it in live games. Most sports bettors will start betting systems that pass the back testing stage but you need to track them carefully. Just because a back test works it doesn’t guarantee it will work moving forward.

Once a system is found that works you will always be looking for ways to improve it. You’ll also always be looking for new systems. The more profitable systems you have the better your chances for long term success.

Tools

I use a spreadsheet program to help test systems and save data. If you don’t currently use a spreadsheet package you should consider adding one to your tools. Anything you can do to lessen the burden and help you make faster decisions is something you need to consider.

You can find statistics and other information easier today than in any time in our history. The Internet is filled with web sites that have all kinds of news and stats for current and past seasons. You can also visit the local library to find reference material and stats from past seasons.

Many professional sports bettors use part time freelancers to help gather data and statistics. You can do the same. If you make sure you clearly spell out exactly what you want just about anyone can do Internet research for you.

As a business owner you need to concentrate on the areas where you are most profitable. In a sports betting business your most profitable time should be finding, developing, and improving your systems. Find a way to concentrate on this area and use something or someone else to do everything else.

Of course when you start you may not be able to outsource anything, but keep it in your mind so you can work toward getting some help as soon as you start making enough to afford it.

Conclusion

Just about anyone can become a winning sports bettor. If you’re willing to do the work you can quickly learn to beat the sports books. It all starts with the proper mindset and dedication.

Do you have what it takes?