can you be consistent winner with sports betting?

[coash]

i've heard people make consistent money from sports gambling...what do you all think

I been doing alright with tennis head to head matches.

[Indiana]

My good friend,

It is very hard to make good consistent $ in sports betting the way you do in poker. To do well at it, you need to narrow your focus and pick a sport or two that you know very well. For me that is boxing, for you maybe tennis. Problem with boxing is that there aren't enough matches IMO. However, most of the other sports are gonna be seasonal. I do think that there is $ to be made in sports betting, but its not nearly as lucrative as poker. For example, the guy on professionalgambler.com is called a great sports bettor by many, but I am a statistician for a living and have been tracking his free picks for over a year...Make a long story short, he is statistically no better than 50% according to the Wald test for sequential stopping @ alpha .05. How's that for a $200/mo newsletter? I will say that his downfall has been baseball and that he has done well ~58% in other sports. Oh yeah, did I say don't bet on baseball??? It's a real crapshoot. Think about this, I am up around 4K this year in sportsbetting (hardly enough to live on, even in Indiana) and I am up over 5K this WEEK just on pokerstars.com (check some of the final tables from this past week).

Thoughts?

Indiana

[tech]

It takes a lot of time, but there is good money to be made. It's more about lots of legwork to find soft lines than it is good handicapping.

[Indiana]

Tech,

You may be right, but if you're gonna do that level of homework, I think it is better served in the poker world.

Indiana

[tech]

[ QUOTE ]
You may be right, but if you're gonna do that level of homework, I think it is better served in the poker world.


[/ QUOTE ]

I do both.

[Indiana]

Wish i could have the time to do both well...Poker is my #1 priority...Sports Betting is more for fun...

Indiana

[plus_man]

What are you for the year in poker?

[ThaHero]

In the book "Gambling for a Living" Sklansky says that Poker, Blackjack, and Sports Betting are the best 3 areas for gambling long term. I suggest you read that book(or at least that chapter) to get further insight.

Sports betting is so great because you DON'T have to bet on certain games, lines, etc. You can really pick and choose your bets. Couple that with certain people being real experts in a certain sport, and there is plenty money to be made.

Of course, the more money you have, the more money you make. Take the Wright-Trinidad fight. Wright was basically 2-1. Some of us don't have much, and may bet $100. He won, and that was $200 total. Someone with a little more money bets $1000 and gets $2000 in one day.

Baseball is a crapshoot. There is more luck involved. IMO there are too many variables. Psychology plays a big role in baseball, and physical ability isn't as important. Add to that relief pitchers, weather, umpires, etc., and it's just too much goin on. I make an occassional bet on baseball, but generally stay away. My sports are Football and Boxing. I think if I was gambling for a living it wouldn't be hard to juggle studying sports and poker. Being a working man and having other things to do, I do what I can, and I try to juggle both, but know I could do better if I had the time.

Hopefully I gave someone somethin to think about. Hopefully I didn't mess this up cause I posted this while on the phone lol.

[Iceman]

[ QUOTE ]
In the book "Gambling for a Living" Sklansky says that Poker, Blackjack, and Sports Betting are the best 3 areas for gambling long term. I suggest you read that book(or at least that chapter) to get further insight.

[/ QUOTE ]

The important thing is that sports betting "scales" much better than blackjack or poker. Making $20/hour in 10-20 holdem doesn't mean that you could make $200/hour in 100-200, or even that you could play 100-200 without getting destroyed. Getting away with card counting at the green level is a lot easier than getting away with it at the black level, at least without significant camoflauge and cover. But if you are a winning sports bettor with $5 bets, you would win at the exact same rate if you bet $50 or $500 per game, or larger, as long as you don't bet so high that you move the lines.

[ QUOTE ]
Sports betting is so great because you DON'T have to bet on certain games, lines, etc. You can really pick and choose your bets. Couple that with certain people being real experts in a certain sport, and there is plenty money to be made.

[/ QUOTE ]

And the fact that the public money often comes down in the wrong places, so there's lots of money to be made by betting against it.

[ QUOTE ]
Baseball is a crapshoot. There is more luck involved. IMO there are too many variables. Psychology plays a big role in baseball, and physical ability isn't as important. Add to that relief pitchers, weather, umpires, etc., and it's just too much goin on. I make an occassional bet on baseball, but generally stay away. My sports are Football and Boxing. I think if I was gambling for a living it wouldn't be hard to juggle studying sports and poker. Being a working man and having other things to do, I do what I can, and I try to juggle both, but know I could do better if I had the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Baseball is the most difficult sport to beat, while international soccer and the NFL are the easiest to beat.

[Jinx230]

I'm just beginning to get into the world of sports betting.

My big sport is basketball - Is this a beatable game in the world of sports betting? My instincts say no, b/c of the similarities to baseball - far too many variables to control from night to night.