[antithesis]

between %10-%20

[necro]

All you need is 5$ and 10 times doubling(going all in) in row at minimum +100 odds and after 10 hits in row you will have 5k

[Tomahawk]

All you need is 5$ and 10 times doubling(going all in) in row at minimum +100 odds and after 10 hits in row you will have 5k

Of course!! This is so simple. Why haven't I thought about this before?

[Tomahawk]

In early 2010 I made 12 wins in a row with +100, but you can never know when a series like this comes that's why I never go all in.

[stefan084]

like sawyer says going by quarters seems more reasonable to me

[Nimo]

I treat it as a department store business. I have 3 main departments MLB, NHL and NBA. I use these three for the multiple year round plays. I take my bankroll and divide it by 3 so that I have a set amount for each department. I don't go by percentages, I go by how many units are won or lost. I know from my own past experience that I can make a certain amount of units for each department respectively and base my unit bet size on that. For example, I know I will make 80 units profit in NHL this season. I take my NHL bankroll divide it by the 80 units I am going to win and then that is my unit size, with the goal of doubling my bankroll by the end of the season. Once the season is over, I take out my profit and start all over again next season. This is a good way to maintain a nice size bankroll, for building a bankroll, you have to have patience and very good money management skills, the money management skills are way more important than the game picking skills by a long shot. I can show you a 62% accurate handicapper with a zero bankroll and I can show you a 52% handicapper with a 6 figure bankroll, the only difference is money management skill.

Hone your money management skills, then find a system that will give you your unit profit and watch your bankroll grow. It is possible to turn $1,000 into a $1,000,000 in a 5 year time frame, just make sure you have the patience to learn proper money management skills

[Dark Horse]

We can't compare Wall Street and Sports Betting. You should have a much better yield in betting so you can't compare it with stock exchange.

%20 increase may sound amazing for a trader/broker but in sports betting, you can increase your bank %50-70 (maybe even higher) in a year if you have a good system, good money management skills and patience.

If you increase your bank by %10 every month, it makes x3.13.
But as I mentioned above, "month" is too short to make an evaluation. Try "Quarters".

And if you make %2 per month, it's not a big succes in my book. How much you bet per game, %0.01? LoL.

Wall Street investing can be much more profitable than sports betting. AAPL has gone from 80 to 300 in the last couple of years, LVS from 2 to 50, AMZN from 40 to 160, and so on.

It really is mostly about bankroll. And there is obviously a difference between building a bankroll (as priority) and living off a bankroll. How much do you need to live off each month? If you bet 1% per game with a 200K BR, you need to win 2 or 3 units per month to end up with 4K or 6K; enough for most people to live off.

Sports betting has its place, but there are easier and faster ways to build a bankroll. The steep numbers of BR growth you named (10% per month) are not realistic over the long term in sports betting. Right now, as mentioned earlier, the opportunity is in real estate. It only takes a little bit of smart investing (infinitely less than in sports betting) to have a house increase in value over a few years. In the US selling a house for 50 or 100K profit is not really a big deal. A part of that profit you can use for down payment on the next house and the rest goes to your BR.

So, if it's about lifestyle, I think it's a mistake to only rely on sports betting to build your BR. From the few that succeed in doing so, many become slaves to the process (there's a reason most of the math geniuses in here are sour and unhappy). Think about it. Sports betting is a highly specialized skill. But, I don't care who you are, everybody in the US should be able to buy and sell a few houses during their lifetime; provided they educate themselves on the process. One method is hard, the other is easy. Why take only the hard way, and fool yourself into thinking it's real easy...? (if you want it to be easy, you need the BR first).

Everybody always mentions Billy Walters as the head of the class. Do you think sports betting is his only means of income? The guy owns a golf course.

[Firefox14]

http://www.bigmoneyforum.com/

[oChRoNiCo]

I treat it as a department store business. I have 3 main departments MLB, NHL and NBA. I use these three for the multiple year round plays. I take my bankroll and divide it by 3 so that I have a set amount for each department. I don't go by percentages, I go by how many units are won or lost. I know from my own past experience that I can make a certain amount of units for each department respectively and base my unit bet size on that. For example, I know I will make 80 units profit in NHL this season. I take my NHL bankroll divide it by the 80 units I am going to win and then that is my unit size, with the goal of doubling my bankroll by the end of the season. Once the season is over, I take out my profit and start all over again next season. This is a good way to maintain a nice size bankroll, for building a bankroll, you have to have patience and very good money management skills, the money management skills are way more important than the game picking skills by a long shot. I can show you a 62% accurate handicapper with a zero bankroll and I can show you a 52% handicapper with a 6 figure bankroll, the only difference is money management skill.

Hone your money management skills, then find a system that will give you your unit profit and watch your bankroll grow. It is possible to turn $1,000 into a $1,000,000 in a 5 year time frame, just make sure you have the patience to learn proper money management skills

Dark Horse I would love for you to make a thread and title it Turning $1,000 into $1,000,000 than you can teach us proper money management and make us all millionaires!

[Dark Horse]

Those titles are always misleading. lol I'm not sure how the housing crisis has affected the situation for first time home buyers, but if you don't have a down payment I would search online to see if there are government programs to assist first time buyers in your area. Then I would go to zillow.com and look in your area for good deals. It is mind blowing how prices have come down, and are all over the place.

[subs]

make hundreds of really really low offers to see who is desperate. they will all say no but some1 may get back to you. there you just made $1000s

i did this but my bro was an estate agent at the time.

[Sawyer]

Dark Horse is a wise man. Agreed about you can have multiple investment sources. But we're talking about average gambler here, not richie rich. So %1-2 is not a realistic number for an average gambler.

If your bank is 200k, hell yeah of course %2 per month would be a good number. But how many of us have 200k bankroll? Let's be realistic.

My bankroll is 11k so %2 is not enough for me. Once a year or twice a year, I'm having breakeven or losing months too. Paying for living expenses reduces the increase rate of your bank.

[Grind-It-Out]

I think goals are crucial for the bettors (I used to be and maybe still am one of them) that get the "what if" glimmer in their eyes. My personal belief is that there are a good amount of people that can handicap games well enough to be profitable, but most of them fail due to poor money management.

If I've got a bankroll of $5,000 today, I'm immediately thinking about how I can turn that into $20,000. If I try to accomplish that in three days there could be trouble. But if I plot out a progression over the next 6 months, I see that it's at least plausible.

On a side note, you have to consider your motive. If you're fooling around with .0001% of your life savings then it's certainly okay to be more risky than if you've got everything you own sitting in 5dimes.

[kisado]

Good info here. IMO, any return greater than a high yield savings account is both a sound investment and a realistic expectation of what you should be returning, provided that you are a decent enough sports investor. 20% return is great too, but let's face it, most people are losers not winners in this game of sports betting.

[chalimac]

Some numbers to spark this discussion:

Units per month (only sports with daily games: NBA, MLB):

1-2 Units - Not bad or Scalper

5 Units - Good handicapper

10 Units - Great handicapper

15+ Units - Elite handicapper

Far off or spot on?

EDIT: Flat-betting 1 unit ATS (thanks to bihon for pointing out the need for further provisos.

[bihon]

Some numbers to spark this discussion:

Units per month (only sports with daily games: NBA, MLB):

Sure it is ever returning question, but resurrecting a four year old thread?

Anyway, it is not about faceless units, but about a percentage of the bankroll, which could be converted to units. So units/bankroll ratio must always be known.

However the most important of all factors is the edge.
No edge = no units, no beer, no pizza , no chicks on the yacht.<-

[chalimac]

Anyway, it is not about faceless units, but about a percentage of the bankroll, which could be converted to units. So units/bankroll ratio must always be known.

Thanks for your reply bihon. I think there's some merit in using units for comparison purposes. Percentage of the bankroll/unit has more to do with individual tolerance to risk of ruin.

For the sake of the argument, let's take as an example RAS best year (most people would agree this is as elite as it gets):

2009-10 CBB +61.10 units in 4 months (15 units/month)

[bihon]

I think there's some merit in using units for comparison purposes. Percentage of the bankroll/unit has more to do with individual tolerance to risk of ruin.

No, a unit without reference to the bankroll is a senseless term.

I have a 4-unit question:
Four tipsters provided their results for the full year.

A. 1000 total bets, 550 winning bets, avg. odds 2.0, betting always one unit, ending+100 units
B. 1000 total bets, 550 winning bets, avg. odds 2.0, betting 1-5 units per game, +150 units
C. 80 total bets, 50 winning bets, avg. odds 2.0, betting always 10 units, +200 units
D. 500 bets, at one point being -2000 units, betting 50-100 units per game, managing to finish with +300 units


Which tipster is the best one?

[chalimac]

Which tipster is the best one?

Well, I should have said that my table was a very rough estimation of what could be considered top performance in 1 month in a sport with plenty of matches. I know other measures such as ROI and Z-Score are more indicative of future performance and consistency. Among your tipsters that flat-bet (A and C), C is better with a ROI of 25% and 62.5% wins. Of course, to compare flat-bettors you have to normalise their units. So I would say that A won 100 units in 1000 bets and C won 20 units in 80 bets.

[bihon]

Right, but the unit/bankroll was not determined and the real performance is almost impossible to determine.

In the example above the tipster D was obviously betting recklessly and often progressively trying to cover the losses. He managed to accumulute the most units due to unlimited amount of units at his disposal. If his initial bankroll was 1000 units he would have gone easily busted.

Tipster C had the best yield, however the amount of his bets is not statistically significant to make the final conclusion.

This left us with B and A. They had identical yield and enough bets for calculations, but tipster B accumulated more units.
His betting technique and results can be due to two factors: 1. Money management, and/or 2. Confidence level.

1. If it was confidence level, assuming his average level was 2.5, tipster A would provide much better results with the same wager.

2. If it was solely money management, we still don't know the initial bankroll for a good estimate.
2a. If it was 1000 units, I would agree he was doing well, but would still prefer tipster A and do the mm on my own.
2b. If it was 100 units, noting his edge I would conclude that he was probably utilizing Kelly or similar technique, which, in my eyes is too agressive and not acceptable for serious trading/betting.

Anyway, the point remains that without knowing at least the (initial) bankroll, all that Units story becomes senseless.

[chalimac]

Right, but the unit/bankroll was not determined and the real performance is almost impossible to determine.

Your post is solid and insightful, I agree 100% . In a perhaps futile attempt to save my table I have added this condition: Flat-betting 1 unit ATS.

[chipper]

Very informative thread, thanks.

[Playon]

And after all it's all up to the rollover speed of your bankroll. You need to place bets like hell if going to do betting as your job. Guys who bet only their best picks and only their own picks, they cant ever achieve such a rollover that could possible produce enough money for living in long term. You're in deep shit if you have slow rollover and then begins that losing period of lets say 1000 bets. That happens so easy and it happens to everyone. You have very poor 300 bets period, avarage 300 bets period and then finally wining 300bets period. And so you have losing period of 1000 bets even if you are basically winning bettor. If you have fast rollover, you will face that losing period more likely cause you dont bet only with best picks, but you also make your way through it faster. If your rollover means you have 1000 bets in a year, well...

[Bigbill365]

In my opinion you should shoot for $200 a week thats about a minimum wage job so if you can do that your defintly have something worth while.so to make $200 relistically you need to be betting around $50-$100 a game.I say stay away from betting a certain % of your bankroll because your limiting yourself when you find a line that has moved the way you wanted.

[leetreaper]

In my opinion you should shoot for $200 a week thats about a minimum wage job so if you can do that your defintly have something worth while.so to make $200 relistically you need to be betting around $50-$100 a game.I say stay away from betting a certain % of your bankroll because your limiting yourself when you find a line that has moved the way you wanted.

200$ a week is a minimum wage? Where do you live, in Pakistan?

[Bigbill365]

200$ a week is a minimum wage? Where do you live, in Pakistan?

yeah most minimum wage jobs will work you around 30 hours maybe 35 and after taxes your looking at around $245 a week.

[leetreaper]

yeah most minimum wage jobs will work you around 30 hours maybe 35 and after taxes your looking at around $245 a week.

my bad, in Canada it's 11$, didn't know in US it's only 7$

[M2gster]

my bad, in Canada it's 11$

[solring]

D. 500 bets, at one point being -2000 units, betting 50-100 units per game, managing to finish with +300 units

How did you get a copy of my 2014 betting log?

[T4TRUTH]

get off the whole statistics of wager amounts. Find the statistic that say your play is a statistical winner. Find the right price and turn a profit. set your margin of profit. when you hit the profit for the day/week/month/ do not play again.
so daily goal, weekly goal, monthly goal, yearly goal.
If in the states the yearly goal is important for taxes.
do not play again if you hit the goal consider it like your boss saying take the rest of the week off with full pay already.