Could You Be A Professional Sports Bettor Articles | Gambling

By: Richard Bleuze

Could You Be A Professional Sports Bettor

Professional sports bettors are not what most people believe them to be.  For one thing, professional sports bettors are not those screaming fellows on cable television wanting to sell you picks.  Professional sports bettors do not expect 70% winners.  Most sports touts make their living by selling their worthless picks to gullible people expecting instant riches.  You need to do your own handicapping.   Most sports touts do not actually bet for a living; they make their living by peddling their picks.

Most successful professional sports bettors appear to be pretty much like anyone else. You will find that many professional sports bettors are married, have children, a mortgage, a car loan, and all the other items that most "normal" people.  The difference is, that professional sports bettors absolutely love what they do for a living. Although, most professional sports bettors generally put in a lot of hours, they are their own boss.  Professional sports bettors can pick their own hours and their own work environment.  Many professional sports bettors do not consider themselves gamblers at all; most would say they are better described as "investors".  Sports betting, after all, can be likened in many ways to investing in the stock market. 

Many professional sports bettors, in fact, choose to live away from the glamour of Las Vegas.   One of the best things about my being a professional sports bettor is that you do not need to live in or around Las Vegas.  Especially, with online gambling sites.  As a successful professional sports bettor you do not have the hassles of most everyone else you know.  In fact, you can work from home and "home" can be anywhere you choose.

If you are a professional sports bettor, then sports betting is treated as a business as if sports betting was investing in commodities or stocks, without a general feeling of not being in control of your own destiny.  In the stock market you are often pitting your expertise against world-class experts and corporate insiders who get most news a long time before you do.  Sports betting, on the other hand, is you pitting your expertise against the average sports bettor.  It is self-evident who is easier to outthink, the full-time stock market player or the average sports bettor.

The average sports bettor you will find is amazingly uninformed.  The average sports bettor generally bets from intuition and emotion.  He does very little actual research.  When you consider you figure to win 50% of your plays simply flipping a coin, can it really be all that tough to win more than 53 percent?

Yes, it is.  Do not be fooled into thinking that being a professional sports bettor is not tough.  I am afraid it is a lot tougher than it looks.  Especially, when one considers other factors such as the hazards of faulty money management.  In sports betting unlike commodities or stocks you do not need to wait weeks to make up your loses, if you are going to do that with success!  Sports betting, on the other hand, you do not wait for weeks or months to know if your investment was successful.  As a rule, you get an answer within hours of placing your bet.  Thus, you can turn over your total bankroll much more quickly, and your investment remains much more liquid.  Typically, a full-time professional sports bettor can have up to 2,000 bets per year and an expectation of winning between 54% and 58% of those bets.

At 53% winners over 2,000 plays a sports bettor would have 1060 winners and 940 losers.  Using those figures, the professional sports bettor would have a gross profit of  120 betting units.  If his bet size is 1 percent of his beginning bankroll, and even if he does not increase the size of his bets as his bankroll increases, he makes 100 percent profit on his original investment every year.  Can you say that about the commoditiy or stock market?   If the professional sports bettor changing his bet size when his bankroll increases (or decreases) by 50%, he can make much more.

And all it takes is to call at least 53% winners against pointspreads and totals, - and, of course, to properly manage your bankroll.  In many cases, professional sports bettors make 55% or better on their bets.

I do not mean to make sports betting sound like an easy way to get rich.  In fact, the vast majority of people reading this sentence should NOT consider professional sports betting, or serious gambling in any fashion, as a serious vocation.  It is hard work.  You must study the teams and sports.  You must be able to handicap your own winners.  You must use a system.  Weather you buy a winning system or make your own!  When thinking about being a professional sports bettor, be as objective as possible and consider your own psychological qualifications.  Sports betting should be addressed as a business.  Be sure to read the articles on this website concerning money management.   A successful professional sports bettor is not easy.  Nevertheless, if you have what it takes, it is the best profession in the world.

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