Can Sports Betting be a Side Hustle?
There are many misconceptions about sports betting when it comes to making a long term profit and turning sports betting into a side hustle.
Many people incorrectly assume that making a long term profit from sports betting is impossible or that you need to be a MIT level math or physics grad to stand a chance, but this simply isn’t true.
Unlike casino games and slot machines where the probabilities of all outcomes are known and fixed. Sports Betting is different as the underlying probabilities of real world events are unknown, which open the opportunity for sportsbooks to make mistakes
By using some simple math to compare odds between sportsbooks. We can identify these mistakes in the sportsbook odds and in most cases make a profit regardless of who wins or loses.
Is Sports Betting a Good Side Hustle?
When done correctly sports betting can be a great side hustle. Some of the main benefits of learning profitable sports betting are:
- No customers to deal with
- Doesn’t require inventory or stock
- No shipping or parcels
- Work from home
- Work anytime you want
- No boss or manager
However, sports betting is not suitable for everyone. In order to be successful you have to be level headed, emotionally stable and analytical.
In order to profit from sports betting like a business you need to treat it like a business.
Getting Started with Sports Betting as a Side Hustle
If you would like to earn an extra $1000+ per month from sports betting the following methods have been proven to be profitable by thousands of sports bettors.
So much so that many sportsbooks will limit or ban accounts they suspect are using these strategies, but don’t worry all of these strategies are perfectly legal! Even if sportsbooks don’t like customers who use them.
You may be thinking that “If sportsbooks may ban me for using these strategies maybe I should use another strategy?”
However, the reality is that most sportsbooks will ban or limit your account if you’re consistently profitable. No matter how you do it. So “Make hay while the sun shines” as they say.
The Arbitrage Betting Side Hustle
In order to make money from sports betting we first need to understand how sportsbooks make a profit.
Sportsbooks make a guaranteed profit by offering a lower payout than they mathematical should.
For example, if we had a coin toss there is a 50% chance of the coin landing heads and a 50% chance of the coin landing tails.
If we flipped the coin 1000 times we would expect the coin to land heads around 500 times and tails about 500 times.
If we were going to bet heads on this coin toss the fair odds for this bet would be +100. If we bet $100 we would we $100.
Over 1000 flips betting on heads we would expect to win about $50,000 and lose about $50,000.
In reality a sports book will offer odds of -110 meaning from our $100 bet we would only win $90.91 but still stand to lose $100 if the coin lands against us..
Over the course of another 1000 coin flips we would expect to win around $45,455 but still lose around $50,000 making the sportsbook a net profit of around $4,545.
Now if the sportsbook has one customer betting $100 on heads and one customer betting $100 on tails both at -110 odds. They make a $9.09 profit no matter the outcome of the coin flip.
This is because the one customer will always lose $100 whilst they only have to pay the winning customer $90.91.
Arbitrage Betting uses the same technique but against the sportsbooks to turn gambling into a sports betting side hustle.
A coin toss has a fixed chance of the coin landing either side.
However, in the world of sports team strengths are constantly changing. For example, a key player could get injured or the weather changes from expected warm dry weather to cold wet rain.
Hundreds of factors effect the performance of a team and sportsbooks have to try and adjust their odds multiple times a days to account for new information.
Sometimes this can create a situation where the odds between two bookmakers are so far apart that the payout for betting on both teams or outcome is larger than our potential loss on either team meaning we can make a guaranteed profit.
Let say we’re looking at an NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens vs. Jacksonville Jaguars. Fanduel have Baltimore Ravens at +110 and Sporttrade have the Jacksonville Jaguars at +110 as well.
We can place a $100 bet on both teams to win the game. One $100 bet at Fanduel on the Baltimore Ravens and another $100 bet on the Jacksonville Jaguars at Sporttrade.
No matter which team wins we will win $110 from the winning team but only lose $100 from the losing team. Meaning we make a $10 profit regardless of the winner of the match. This is the basic concept of Arbitrage Betting.
The Matched Betting Side Hustle
Matched Betting is a technique that involves targeting sportsbook promotions and special offers to turn a profit.
Sportsbooks will often reward customers for placing bets vis loyalty schemes as well an sending customers special promotions.
For example, PointsBet were running a promotion where if your NHL Moneyline bet lost in overtime they would refund the bet.
We could place a bet on both side of a hockey game. One bet for a team at PointsBet and another bet on the opposing team at another sportsbook.
If the team we bet on at PointsBet lost, our bet a the other sportsbook would win and vice versa for the bet losing at the other sportsbook.
However, If our bet at PointsBet loses but the game went to over time. We would win our bet at the other sportsbook and get our bet at PointsBet refunded. Meaning we make a profit.
Check out my full video guide on matched betting below
Leave a Reply