Sports Betting Strategy – Improving Your Betting Skills

Have you ever felt like it’s impossible to make any money from betting on sports? Or that you’re ALWAYS going to end up losing, no matter what you do?

You’re not alone if you have. Profitable sports betting is difficult, and most bettors reach a point where they think it’s simply not possible. As a result, some of them give up betting completely while others decide to just bet for the fun of it.

Either approach is fine, but there’s another option too. That’s to face the challenge head-on and do whatever it takes to beat the bookmakers. With the right knowledge and plenty of commitment, it IS possible to make money from sports betting.

If you’re willing to put in the commitment, then we can give you the knowledge. We’re a team of experienced sports bettors, and we know a thing or two about how to bet effectively. Although we don’t have any perfect systems that return guaranteed profits, there’s a lot we can teach you about sports betting strategy. And that’s exactly what we do right here.

This section of our sports betting guide is packed full of information and advice that will help you become a successful sports bettor. We’ve split it all into the following six categories, each of which is explained in detail below.

You can start learning about the strategy involved in sports betting even if you’re a complete beginner. However, it pays to do some preparation and planning first. Being prepared will help you get more out of the learning process, and having a proper plan in place will make it easier to put what you learn into practice.

So, what sort of preparation should you do then? Well, the first step is to ensure that you understand all the basics of sports betting. If you don’t, even the simplest strategies won’t make much sense to you.

If your sports betting knowledge is minimal or even obsolete, then we recommend reading the article listed below. This covers the fundamental aspects of sports betting that you absolutely HAVE to know.

Here’s a list of some of the other things you should learn about too.

Feeling a little overwhelmed? Don’t worry. Although this probably seems like a lot to take in, most of it is relatively straightforward. It won’t take you that long to learn it all, especially since you don’t have to go searching around for the relevant information. Everything you need to know is in the following section of our sports betting guide.

Although the above section is aimed primarily at beginners, we recommend taking a look through it even if you’re not new to sports betting. In addition to covering all the basics, it also includes plenty of tips and advice that EVERYONE can benefit from. Getting a refresher on the basics before focusing solely on strategy is always a good idea.

After you have all the basics down, it’s time to gain some experience. This obviously doesn’t apply if you’ve been betting for a while, but it’s vital for beginners. Actually going through the process of making selections and placing wagers makes everything about sports betting a lot easier to understand. A little practice goes a long way when it comes to learning about sports betting strategy.

With some real experience behind you and a solid understanding of the basics, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a successful bettor. The next step is to plan how to get there. Again, this is something we can help with.

In the following article, we explain why having some kind of formal plan is so important. We also detail what your plan should include, and offer some advice for putting it together.

What exactly IS sports betting strategy? What’s the difference between strategy and handicapping? How does learning about strategy and handicapping improve my chances of making money?

We get asked these questions a lot. They’re the most commonly asked questions among those who are either new to sports betting or just starting to learn about the strategy involved. They’re good questions, but they’re not easy to answer. Not in just a sentence or two anyway. The only way to answer them properly is to provide a complete overview of sports handicapping and betting strategy. So that’s what we’ve done here.

Reading this article will give you a solid understanding of exactly what sports betting strategy entails, and what handicapping is. It also explains how both these things can bring you success. It’s a great place to start, as it provides a good foundation for everything else we cover in this section.

To help you build on this foundation, we’ve also compiled a selection of useful tips. These tips are all fairly basic but don’t underestimate their value. Following them will ensure you approach sports betting strategy in the right way. You’ll form good habits, and avoid making too many costly mistakes.

No two sports betting strategies are exactly the same. However, most of them follow the same basic format. They typically involve looking at specific information or data and analyzing it to draw appropriate conclusions. The end goal is usually to assign probabilities to the various possible outcomes of an event, then use those probabilities to make your selections.

If you’re going to implement sports betting strategies effectively, you need to know how to properly analyze the relevant data. You must also be able to assess probability as accurately as possible. In this part of our strategy guide, we’ve provided some articles that will help make this easier.

This part of our strategy guide explains several basic strategies for betting on sports. Most of these can be used when betting on any sport, and they’re all relatively straightforward. Some are more effective than others, but each one serves a purpose in the right situations.

The article featured below covers a selection of simple strategies that are ideal for beginners to experiment with.

While we always want to be paying attention to how the public looks at bets, we also want to constantly be on top of the oddsmakers and how they’re scoring a game before it starts.

Injuries, rotation changes, weather and an assortment of factors can contribute to sportsbooks adding or shedding points to various matchups.

That will give you fewer outs, but it also limits the potential impact of not seeing value increase or decrease on the fly.

In this case, we’re assuming you’re very clued into the way Vegas acts, and that’s to adjust lines in their favor when anything big happens.

Just like how the top sports betting sites will lock a wager until an injury or suspension gets cleared up, they will also adjust it the second they have a good feel for how major news will impact how the public bets.

Reacting to line movement is obviously something we need to do constantly. But that’s just a reaction and not really a strategy.

The strategy is predicting or gauging this movement before it even happens and placing your bets accordingly.

A great example is with NBA betting, the lines are released early in the day and once injury news floats out later, the lines can be altered.

If you have a pretty good feeling Stephen Curry won’t be playing due to a sprained ankle he suffered the night before, you can assume the lines will tighten if/when he’s inevitably ruled out for the next game.

If you’re sold on Curry being sidelined, that hurts the Golden State Warriors. If you were previously on the Warriors as a safe grind-it-our bet, you’re probably going to sour on them a bit (although now you might get them at a more palatable price), while the absence of Curry undoubtedly makes their opponent (say, the Nuggets) a much more enticing underdog pick.

The point here is before Curry is ruled out, the Warriors are still going to be huge favorites (something like -300) and when it’s made known he won’t be playing, the line will undoubtedly tighten. The idea is to pounce on the Nuggets before that line moves so you can maximize your betting value.

If you were always planning on betting on the Warriors and still like that wager even with Curry on the bench, you would then wait for the line to move and then bet on the Warriors, as planned.

One way or another, you want to pay attention to which lines could move, how and why. Once you can answer that and start to predict it, you can take hold of your own perceived value and increase your profit based on line movement before it even takes place.

Value hunting is incredibly key in sports betting. As we’ve discussed, lines will move, and we always want to be on the prowl for this movement and how it can positively impact us.

We also just want to find the best lines from the start, as well as the best sports betting sites that are going to offer us the most bang for our buck. On top of that, wherever we put our money, we want that site to be a reputable, safe and rewarding spot.

The real angle here, of course, is getting as much value as we can, based on site competition.

No matter what sport or bet you’re looking for, you’re going to find a long list of betting sites that showcase the same bet and usually at a similar price.

The key is locating that preferred bet where you’re getting either the most safety you can find, or the most upside. A great example is if you want to take the Pelicans to cover in a game against the Hawks and you’re seeing this spread across a collection of sites:

Which site is the site for your bet? Considering every site is probably paying out the same -110 line, the obvious call is BetUS in this specific spot. You already love the Pelicans at -7, but why eat an additional 0.5 in spread for them to cover if you can get that same bet at a cheaper price?

If the Pelicans win by seven points, every other site is providing a push. In this example, you’re getting a win at -6.5, while anyone placing this same bet in favor of the Pelicans to win at other sites may get a push.

This can change depending on what type of bet you’re seeking, but the idea of “shopping” is clear. You’re shopping across a wide range of betting sites and you want the price (spread, money line, total, etc.) that is most advantageous to your betting perspective.

By not restricting yourself to just one betting site, you can hunt for value high and low and secure bets that may not be ideal in some spots, but are absolutely worth targeting in others.

To get started, we have to decide what event we’re going to bet on. This should obviously be something that we know a little about. The more we know, the more accurate we’re likely to be when it comes to assessing probabilities.

For the sake of this example, we’ll be betting on an NFL game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Giants. We know these two teams well, and we figure that Oakland has a good chance of winning. After taking a few factors into account, we decide they have a 60% chance of getting the victory.

The next step is to look at the odds. This is what our preferred bookmaker is offering for this game.

Oakland Raiders vs New York Giants

We take the 1.75 odds for Oakland winning and put them into our odds converter tool. This tells us that these odds have an implied probability of 57%. We think that the actual probability of Oakland winning is 60%, so we’ve found positive value. We go ahead and place our wager on Oakland to win.

That’s all there is to basic value betting! The key to success here obviously lies in being able to accurately assess probabilities. Although this isn’t easy, it can definitely be done. You just need to keep practicing, and think carefully about all the relevant factors that can affect the outcome of events.

This strategy is a perfect example of how sports betting doesn’t need to be complicated. It doesn’t require any complex calculations or any in-depth analysis of statistics and other data. Although it’s very simple, it CAN be effective. It has two other distinct advantages as well.

First, it works well in conjunction with lots of other strategies. You’ll find that out as you read through the rest of this page. Second, it’s a strategy that you can easily develop over time. You can build your own models for assessing probability, for example, or take a wider range of factors into account. The fundamental way you use this strategy won’t change, but you can make it far more effective with just some minor adjustments.

In the context of betting, the term steam is used to describe significant movements in the betting markets that happen in a short space of time. There’s a theory that such moves are generally caused by professional bettors and betting syndicates putting their money down. Because they typically wager for very high stakes, the weight of their money alone can cause odds and lines to move dramatically.

Chasing steam involves watching for these big movements, and then betting on whatever the money appears to be going on. The goal is to “copy” what the smart bettors are doing, since they are the ones making the most money. In theory, this makes a lot of sense.

There was a time when this strategy was very effective. The betting markets are more efficient than they used to be though, and there’s a lot more money at stake. This means that big moves in the odds are far less common. It’s also difficult to interpret what causes them when they do happen.

Even if you can identify steam moves, the collective market itself moves much more quickly now. If the odds at one bookmaker or betting site change dramatically, all the bookmakers and sites make similar changes almost instantly. This makes it hard to get any money down at the same prices as the smart bettors. You have to be able to spot opportunities as soon as they happen and react immediately. This is simply not practical for most bettors.

With all that being said, this IS a strategy to consider. Especially if you bet regularly, and are often paying attention to the odds and lines. It’s quite possible that you’ll spot steam moves on occasion, and be able to take full advantage of them. This won’t happen on a daily basis, but you’ll still make some extra profits every now and then.

Fading the public is almost the exact opposite of chasing steam. Instead of trying to bet on the same things as the smart bettors, this strategy involves betting AGAINST what the majority of the public is betting on. So the idea is to look for market movements that are caused by the weight of public money, and then bet on the other side. As the majority of sports bettors lose, taking the opposing position should theoretically be profitable.

While this strategy appears to make sense, it’s fundamentally flawed. As with chasing steam, it worked well in the past when the betting markets were not so efficient. These days, however, bookmakers take virtually every relevant factor into account when setting their odds and lines. This includes public opinion, so it’s hard to tell which way the public is betting these days. We rarely see big movements that are caused by the weight of public money.

Why have we mentioned this strategy then?

Because it can be adapted for “modern use.”

Fading the public might not work in the same way it used to, but the underlying theory is still sound. The majority of the betting public does lose money, so it really does makes sense to bet against them in some situations. Although looking for market movements that are directly caused by public money isn’t especially effective, we CAN still make accurate assessments about which way the public is betting.

This strategy works best for major sports. They typically attract a LOT of betting interest, much of which is from recreational bettors. Collectively, recreational bettors are extremely predictable. They tend to favor betting on the most popular teams and players, so we usually have a good idea of where their money is going.

We also know that the bookmakers will account for this. They often adjust these odds and lines to make it less appealing to back the popular teams and players, as this is unlikely to prevent the recreational bettors from putting their money down. These adjustments can then create value in going AGAINST the popular teams.

Finding this value is basically the modern form of fading the public. Instead of looking for market movements caused by public money, we can try to judge how public opinion is likely to affect the odds and lines in the first place. Then we can use the basic value betting strategy to find good spots to get our money down.

If you are interested in learning more about how to use public opinion to improve your betting, then please consider reading the article listed below. It’s in our NFL betting strategy section, but the basic principles we discuss apply to any of the major sports.

We’ve also provided details on a strategy that’s become very popular in recent years. It requires no sports knowledge at all and can be very profitable if implemented correctly. In simple terms, it involves finding discrepancies in the odds offered by different bookmakers. In certain circumstances, these discrepancies can allow you to cover all possible outcomes of an event and still make a profit.

Sound too good to be true? It isn’t. This strategy really works. In fact, we know a few people who make very good money from it. It’s known as arbitrage betting, and you can find out all about it in the following article.

In addition to all the strategies covered above, there are also a couple of (fairly) basic techniques you should learn about. Hedging and dutching can be used for betting on most sports, and they’re “compatible” with most strategies. They can be very effective if used in the appropriate way and at the appropriate time.

Hedging is essentially a technique for managing risk. It can be used to prevent or reduce losses from existing wagers, and in some circumstances, it can even be used to guarantee profits.

Dutching is a useful technique when you want to back up multiple outcomes for the same event. The idea is to spread your stake across several different selections to increase your overall chances of winning. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basic concept.

Favorites win more often than not. That’s obvious. Heavy favorites win even more frequently, and that’s essentially what this strategy is based on. The idea is to back selections at very low odds, for the simple reason that they’re very likely to win.

It’s possible to use this strategy with absolutely no sports knowledge at all. All you’d have to do is look for events where there’s an overwhelming favorite, and get your money down. You’d probably win a high percentage of your wagers this way, and may even make an overall profit.

Backing heavy favorites is a viable strategy. Let’s make that very clear. Backing EVERY low odds selection you find is the wrong way to use it though. This is very unlikely to work in the long run. Although you will get lots of payouts, the returns will be very small relative to your stakes. That’s the nature of betting at low odds, and it means that one or two unexpected losses can wipe all the profits from dozens of winning wagers.

So what’s the RIGHT way to use this strategy then? Well, we like to combine it with basic value betting. We’re always on the lookout for heavy favorites that are likely to win, but we don’t just back them automatically. Instead, we first check to see if it offers any value. If it doesn’t, then we don’t bother putting any money down.

Using this strategy effectively is basically all about being selective. If you only bet when you’ve found value, then backing heavy favorites can definitely return long term profits.

This is perhaps the most straightforward strategy on the page. It’s so simple that it can be implemented without ANY sports knowledge at all, and without doing any kind of research or analysis.

The idea here is to look for odds or lines that are noticeably better than the rest of the collective market. These are known as off market prices, and they can represent excellent betting opportunities. You won’t find them too often unfortunately, but be on the lookout because they do come up occasionally. There are several reasons why a bookmaker or betting site might price up a selection very differently than everyone else.

In its most basic form, this strategy involves simply finding off market prices and then betting at the higher odds. For example, let’s say we found the following odds available for an upcoming tennis match.

Minnesota Vikings vs Tennessee Titans

The first two betting sites are offering identical odds on both players. Betting Site C has Monfils at slightly lower odds, and Chung at slightly higher odds. Small differences like this are common, and they don’t represent off-market prices.

Betting Site D, however, is offering odds that are drastically different than what the other sites are offering. The odds on Chung winning are significantly lower, and the odds on Monfils are significantly higher. A $100 wager on Monfils here would return $181. The best return we’d get elsewhere is $157. That’s an extra $24 in potential profit.

If we were using the basic form of this strategy, we’d go right ahead and back Monfils here. As we mentioned earlier, we wouldn’t need to do any research and analysis. We’d just be working on the theory that the odds of 1.81 MUST represent good value when everyone else is offering between 1.55 and 1.57,

To some extent, the logic behind this theory is sound. When a bookmaker or betting site is so far away from the rest of the market, it’s reasonable to assume that the better odds automatically represent good value.

There’s always a chance that an assumption will be wrong. Even in situations like this, when the assumption is based on solid reasoning and likely to be correct. Betting based on false assumptions can prove to be very costly, so it’s not worth taking the risk in our opinion.

Please note that this doesn’t mean betting off-market prices is a bad strategy. We wouldn’t even be discussing it if it was. It’s just that we don’t like using it in its most basic format. Looking for off market prices is definitely worth doing, as it’s a great way to identify spots where there MIGHT be value. Before we place our wagers, though, we want to be POSITIVE it offers good value.

This is a great little strategy that we’ve had plenty of success with over the years. While we use a pretty advanced version of it, a simpler form of it can also be effective. What makes this strategy different than other strategies is that it’s based entirely on form and momentum. These are two important betting factors that can be very useful indicators of future performances.

At a basic level, this strategy involves looking for teams and players that are on lengthy winning streaks. If a team or player is on a lengthy winning streak, then we back them to win their next game. The theory is that they’ll probably win due to being in good form and having momentum.

We can use this strategy in reverse too, and look for teams and players that are on lengthy losing steaks. We then back their OPPONENTS to win in the next game, with the expectation that the losing streak will continue.

In our experience, this strategy is effective even at a very basic level. Obviously, there are times when a streak comes to an end unexpectedly, so it doesn’t work ALL the time. Overall, though, betting on streaks to continue can definitely be profitable.

It can be even more profitable when combined with the basic value betting strategy we discussed earlier. This means not automatically betting on a streak to continue, but assessing each situation independently. You only bet after you’ve identified value.

To do this effectively, it helps if you know how to properly analyze the impact of form and momentum in sports. This is something we discuss in the following article.

Everything we’ve covered so far is reasonably easy to understand. None of the things you NEED to know are especially complicated, and the basic strategies and techniques we’ve explained are not too difficult to use. This part of our strategy guide, however, is far from straightforward.

Now, let’s be clear. It’s perfectly possible to make money from sports betting without learning anything further. Even the simplest of strategies can be profitable if used correctly, so it’s not like you HAVE to move on to the more advanced stuff to be successful.

With that being said, the simple strategies and techniques are a little limited. They can be profitable, yes, but only to a certain extent. If your goal is to make SIGNIFICANT profits or maybe even start betting full-time, you should try to take things to the next level. We can help you do that.

One of the best ways to improve your betting is to do more in-depth research and analysis. Looking at the same information as everyone else will only take you so far. Instead, you need to look past the obvious information and focus your attention on the finer details that the average person probably overlooked. Learning more about the diverse ways sports data and statistics can be interpreted will also be useful. Lucky for you, this is something we cover in the article listed below.

Just doing better research and analysis will inevitably lead to better results. You’ll still be limited by the strategies and techniques you use though. That’s why your ultimate goal should be to develop your own strategies and techniques.

This is NOT easy to do, but it’s how the most successful bettors typically make their money. They find unique ways to identify value in the betting markets and make constant adjustments to maximize their returns.

Developing your own strategies is not a five-minute job of course. You can’t expect to just sit down and come up with something right away. It’s a lengthy process and involves a lot of hard work. It can take weeks, or maybe even months, to create a working model. And there’ll still be plenty of fine-tuning to do after that.

Please don’t be discouraged though. Putting the time and effort into this can deliver genuinely amazing results. It’s undoubtedly the right approach to take if you’re serious about your long-term betting success. Reading the following article will help you get started.

There’s one other thing you need to understand if you’re going to be a truly successful sports bettor. Yourself. Or, more accurately, your mind. The ability to think objectively is arguably the most critical requirement when betting on sports, and objective thinking is usually more challenging than you realize. The human brain doesn’t always behave in the way we expect it to.

Although we’re not exactly experts in psychology, we’ve done a lot of research into the subject from the perspective of betting on sports. We also have our own experience to call on, so we think we’re qualified to write about the role of psychology in sports betting. That’s exactly what we’ve done in the following article. We strongly recommend reading it, as we’re sure it has a lot to offer.

In order to become a successful sports bettor, you must do your own statistical analysis. The goal is to identify variables that have a strong influence on the outcome of a contest or event and calculate your individual probabilities for each possible result. The last step is to compare your percentages of likelihood against the implied expectations set by the bookmaker.

Winning sports gamblers only make a wager when a bet has positive value. A gamble is said to have value when the implied probability based on the odds is a lower percentage than the likelihood you calculated from your own analysis.

That’s the whole name of the game; if your math says that Team A will win this contest 45% of the time, but the odds mean Team A would only need to win 20% of the time to break even, that bet has value.

But how do we accurately determine the probability so that we have a number to compare against the odds? We have to create betting systems based on statistical analysis and probability distributions.

When we talk about statistical analysis as it relates to sports betting, we are usually talking about regression analysis. Regression analysis is a set of processes used to determine the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables.

For the purposes of sports betting, the dependent variable is winning, while the independent variables can be any statistic recorded for the competition – for example, “passing completion percentage” or “rushing yards per game.”

So the way to use statistical analysis to our benefit when betting on sports is to identify factors that have a strong correlation to winning that aren’t immediately apparent to the betting public. It may take some time and lots of playing around with large sets of data, but the reward will be worth it.

With regards to statistics, you must understand that “significance” does not mean “important” or “vital.” Instead, a result is said to have statistical significance when it is unlikely to have occurred if there was no relationship between the two variables.

So, let’s say that our hypothesis is that “completion percentage” plays an influential role in whether an NFL team wins or loses. First, we’d want to find a dataset with a large quantity of historical NFL data.

Then we’d see how often the team with the higher completion percentage also won the game. Depending on that answer, we’d have a percentage of statistical significance.

You can do this for lots of factors to get an idea of which variables impact winning and losing, and to what degree. The more statistically significant a variable is, the more likely you can trust it to correlate to winning.

Because there are always numerous variables at play at once, all of which impact the outcome of a game or contest to some degree, multiple regression analysis is the system most commonly used for sports betting.

Rather than just pick a single statistic, this system considers numerous regressions to predict a future outcome based on past data.

Here’s an example.

The handicapper analyzes these regressions and extrapolates a predicted outcome. Based on the data, New Orleans is expected to have worse defense on the road, while the Rockets excel at home. Despite the Pelicans winning the most recent contest between the two teams, the data seems to suggest the Rockets will be taking the upcoming game in Houston.

The key to reliable regression analysis is having extensive historical data sets to manipulate. You want as many statistics available as possible, both for the teams and individual players. From there, you can begin narrowing your focus to specific factors that strongly correlate to precise outcomes.

Logistic regression is a method for analyzing data in which the outcome is determined by one or more independent variables. It solves problems such as “How does the probability of winning change for every additional three-pointer made above the average?”

Another example would be “Do three-point percentages, the total number of assists, and average margin of victory have an influence on the probability of winning?”

This form of analysis can be used to obtain an odds ratio despite having more than one explanatory variable. The calculated result is the impact the combination of variables has on the desired outcome, represented in an odds ratio.

Any time you are working with statistical analysis, you must remember that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Just because two variables are correlated, that doesn’t mean that one variable caused the other.

Regression analysis can be used to find variables that correlate, like home field advantage and winning, but it cannot prove that winning is caused by playing at home.

Probability distributions are methods of providing the likelihood of the occurrence of different possible outcomes. Rather than just solving for the most probable outcome, they provide the likelihood of each possible result. Graphical models may then be used to represent the range of probabilities.

Bayesian networks are a type of graphical model that can be used to make predictive distributions. The networks are broken up into levels consisting of variables that may impact the outcome of a match.

For example, if we are trying to base our prediction on team strength, level one would be comprised of values for historical inconsistency, team performance, and average goals per game.

For level two, we would consider those previous factors, but also look at the injuries for each team. Then we forecast the two teams again based on this additional filter. Last, we look at things like how recently the teams have played and if they’re fatigued or motivated.

These additional variables are added to the other levels to comprise level three. We then make a final forecast.

Poisson distribution is a predictive method typically used in soccer or hockey betting, or for NFL prop bets based on things like sacks. Basically, anything in sports where stats are counted in increments of one and scoring is relatively rare.

It works by converting mean averages into a range of probabilities and can be used to predict, like the most likely score of a soccer match.

For example, let’s say Jadeveon Clowney is averaging 1.4 sacks a game. A prop bet being offered sets the over/under on total sacks for his upcoming contest at 1.5. You want to bet the over, which means you’ll need at least two sacks. You can use a Poisson calculator like this one to determine the probability.

The Poisson Probability values for this example are as follows.

So, as you can see, using Poisson Distribution can be enormously helpful when predicting outcomes for certain types of bets. Compare the probability of the events with the implied probability based on the odds, and you’ll know which side to pick on totals bets and specific props.

The binomial distribution is the probability of success and failure outcomes in an experiment that’s then repeated multiple times. The first variable is the number of times an analysis is performed and is represented by “n.” The second variable is the probability of a specific result and is represented by “p.”

These distribution methods can be utilized to predict your possible win and loss record in your future wagers. Let’s say, based on your betting system’s 60% winning percentage, you want to know your most likely record over the next 21 bets.

60% of 21 is 12.6, so our record should be 13-8. Using the binomial distribution calculator, we learn that even though 13-8 is the most likely record, it will actually only occur 17.4% of the time.

The likelihood of winning twelve games or less is 47.6%. However, the possibility of winning 13 or more games is 52.3%. These distribution methods can be an immense help with bankroll management.

When you go through stretches of time when you’re winning at a higher or lower rate, you can calculate the various possible outcomes and see that rather than betting more or less money, you’re best to stick to a staking plan and wait for the math to regress to the mean.

Here are five examples of sports bettors who have won big.

How many times have you had a strong intuition or gut feeling about what would happen next in a game, but ignored it, only to kick yourself later when your intuition turned out to be right?

Whether or not you consider yourself to be a particularly superstitious person, this next story is definitely freaky.

Adrian Hayward, a soccer fan and sports bettor, decided to follow through on his intuition when he had a literal dream that Liverpool superstar Xabi Alonso scored a goal from his own half.

Hayward walked into a Paddy Power betting shop and placed a £200 bet that sometime during the course of the season, his dream would become reality. Paddy Power gave him 125-1 odds, and probably laughed at him on the way out the door.

They weren’t laughing for long, though, as Hayward’s dream came true in an FA Cup match against Luton Town. As Luton put everything on the line to desperately try to score an equalizer, Alonso noticed their keeper out of the net and scored a blinder from his own half.

Now it was Hayward’s turn to laugh as he banked £25,000 for having the courage to believe in his dream and back it.

While this is a highly unusual and unlikely scenario, sports bettors the world over will probably recognize that undeniable feeling of just knowing. Perhaps it’s a good idea to back it, after all.

In a brief interview with the BBC Mr. Hayward said

He claims to have watched the match in person and screamed “Shoot!” at the television before the epic goal was scored.

So, was it something mysterious which told Mr. Hayward what would happen, premonition style? Not exactly.

Nothing mysterious there, then, just good old-fashioned intuition based on experience!

In any sort of money-making venture, whether it be business or sports betting, it’s often said that getting in early is the key. This next story is certainly an example of that.

In 2003, Nick Newlife witnessed Roger Federer win his first Wimbledon title and decided that he had witnessed an incredible talent. He believed in Federer enough to bet £1520 on the rising talent winning 6 further Wimbledon titles and was given odds of 66-1 on it.

If you’re a tennis fan, you probably already know that the bet paid off, and that Federer is one of the most incredible tennis players to ever live. However, this story has a bittersweet ending.

Newlife sadly died before he got to see his punt pay off to the tune of £101,840.

While that may be the sort of event that would fit nicely into the Alanis Morissette song “Ironic,” the story ultimately has a happier ending in which Newlife left the winning bet slip to the anti-poverty charity Oxfam.

Sometimes it really does pay to be bold, and perhaps fortune really does favor the brave. Either way, Nick Newlife must have been a decent bloke as well as a brave one!

Sadly, since Mr. Newlife died before his bet came good, nobody ever got to interview him and ask him exactly what it was that prompted him to make such a bet. Since he was also a bachelor, there are no close family members to give us a clue, either.

This one will have to remain a mystery.

When you reach the age of 60 and haven’t particularly had any major luck in life, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s probably never going to happen.

Fred Craggs, however, was not one for giving up. He decided to place a £0.50 wager on an 8-horse accumulator to celebrate his 60th birthday.

Admitting that he picked his horses because he liked their names, rather than trying to take credit for being able to sift through historical data and pick winners, Mr. Craggs probably thought it was just another bet he would likely lose. The odds were 2,000,000-1, after all.

Nothing could have been further from the truth. In an astonishing stroke of luck, all 8 horses won their races and Mr. Craggs took home a tidy £1,000,000 from his £0.50 stake.

What a way to officially enter your golden years, eh?! Mr. Craggs, however, remained stoic about the win. He told The Mirror in a brief interview,

He even complained that he could have won £1,4000,000, except that bookie William Hill capped his win at £1,000,000, stating that “a million isn’t what it used to be.”

Come on Mr. Craggs, cheer up, count what you’ve got, and enjoy it!

There are very few people in the world who possess enough knowledge on a given sport or subject to be called an “oracle,” but Mick Gibbs, a roofer from England, might be one of them.

Now, a lot of people may say that a lucky bet is simply lucky, but when someone gets multiple football accumulator bets right over the years, earning a fortune in the process, you have to begin to wonder if something else is going on.

Gibbs first won £157,000 from a £2.50 bet in 1999, when he correctly predicted the outcome of 9 different games all across Europe.

That may be written off as a fluke, but Gibbs wasn’t done yet. A little while later, in 2001, he correctly predicted the results of 15 games, culminating in the Champions League final match in which Bayern Munich beat Valencia in a nail-biting penalty shootout.

Gibbs received a payout of £500,000 from that £0.30 accumulator bet and happily survived the penalty shootout without having a nervous breakdown, which says a lot about him.

Gibbs proves that either sports betting is at least partially skill-based, or that some people are a heck of a lot luckier than the rest of us.

If you’re still willing to believe Gibbs was simply extremely fortunate, the next sports betting success story may change your mind.

Nobody has ever heard from Gibbs since, so it’s impossible to say exactly how he managed to win such large bets twice.

Every subculture has its heroes to look up to, and in the world of sports betting, Billy Walters is king.

Proving once and for all that successful sports betting involves skill and isn’t the result of blind chance, Walters walked away from professional poker and made millions as a full-time sports bettor.

When asked about how he made millions betting on sports, Walters claimed that analyzing the data and using business style risk-reward models was the key.

In other words, he treated sports betting as a professional business endeavor, rather than a casual hobby.

Walters has made many legendary bets, but his most infamous punt was a $3,500,000 bet on the New Orleans Saints to beat the Indianapolis Colts at the Super Bowl in 2010.

The exact amount he won has never been fully revealed, but it’s publicly known that the Saints were the underdogs by quite a long way, and speculation puts the likely figure in the tens of millions.

Walters has become somewhat of a controversial figure in his later years, but nobody disputes his status as the greatest sports bettor of all time. He proves beyond a doubt that there’s a lot more than luck involved in making money by sports betting.

Walters avoids publicity and is an intensely private person, but he did one interview with 60 Minutes. He told them

That’s a remarkable feat, to say the least! You can watch a part of that 60 Minutes interview below. Unfortunately, we were unable to find the full interview on YouTube.

There’s something mysterious about the elusive Billy Walters, so we did a little digging to develop a better picture of the man behind the legend.

Walters was born in rural Kentucky and raised by his grandmother. She didn’t seem to keep too much of an eye on him because he started hustling in pool halls by the time he was 13. By the time he was 15, he was winning $4,000 a time.

Eventually, he moved to Vegas after being convicted of operating as an illegal bookmaker in Kentucky.

When in Vegas, he formed a sports syndicate called the Computer Corp. which based its bets on massive volumes of data stored on computers. It was so successful that Walters was indicted 4 times over the years on charges ranging from money laundering to illegal betting.

None of it stuck, though, and Walters went on to make tens of millions, building a fearsome reputation with bookmakers across the world.

After his hugely successful sports betting career, Walters started trading stocks and was eventually sentenced to 5 years in prison for insider trading in a scheme in which he allegedly made $43,000,000 in insider trades. He was 71 years old at the beginning of his sentence in October 2017.

Walters maintains that sports betting is more legitimate than stock trading.

What Walters will do when he gets out of prison (if he lives to see it) nobody knows. It’s a pretty safe bet that he’ll continue to gamble, though!

The information and advice we’ve provided so far are related to sports betting in general. You’re going to find it useful no matter what you bet on, as it can be applied to pretty much any sport. And it’s more than enough to help you become a VERY competent bettor.

There are also a lot of strategies that apply directly to specific sports, and learning it all can give you an even better chance of success. With this in mind, we’ve compiled comprehensive strategy guides for each of the most popular sports. The information and advice in these guides is tailored specifically for the relevant sport, which allows us to provide even more specific details.

In our football strategy guide, for example, there are over 40 pages. These pages cover topics such as betting on NFL season win totals, dealing with big spreads in college football, and using alternative betting lines. It’s these kinds of precise topics that make our strategy guides so valuable.

Not all our strategy guides have quite as many pages as our football one, but they’re all very comprehensive. Want to become a genuine expert when it comes to betting on a specific sport? Then these strategy guides are just what you’re looking for!

Don’t see your favorite sport? Don’t worry about it! We’re not finished yet! There are guides for each of the following sports too. There isn’t as much strategy involved for these, so they are single pages rather than complete sections. Each page goes into a lot of detail though and covers everything you need to know.