Demystifying Betting Myths
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Sports Betting for a Living? Is Earning Money from Gambling possible?


Whether it is possible to earn money from gambling and make a living from betting are questions which seem to bother many punters.
To give the short answer…

Yes, it is absolutely possible to make money with sports betting.

:mrgreen:

Man jumps from word Impossible to PossibleImage: Gualtiero Boffi (Shutterstock)

Bookmakers make money; sports analysts make a living from gambling by compiling odds for bookies; some of my own income derives from sports bettors using this website. Programmers earn a living from gambling by developing various betting applications. Manufacturers of gaming machines make money from people’s gambling habits.

I could certainly continue this list as the betting business is a big industry providing many, many people with jobs.

But this is probably not a satisfactory response for sports fans who bet themselves and pursue the dream of supplementing their income, or becoming rich from gambling one day.

However, for these hopeful punters, the answer is also clearly positive…

  • Yes: it is possible to develop long-term profitable betting strategies.
  • Yes: it is possible to find betting odds which hold value and provide a mathematical edge.


Nothing is Impossible!

The big question is whether you will manage to join the minority, the tiny crowd of betting enthusiasts who finally become successful.

Another question is whether you have the patience (and time) for acquiring the necessary knowledge to win more than you lose, because only knowledge is power; without knowledge there is no chance.

Reliance on luck is not a foundation for lasting success. With luck alone nobody can build a house – only a handful of lottery millionaires can claim the opposite.

Successful Sports Bettors – Examples

In September 2005, in “Expert Betting Advice” forum, a young woman named Maria Santonix started publishing horse racing lay bets. I followed her thread at the time, and I must say that it came across as very authentic. She published daily picks (except Saturdays) and in only 303 days, her initial bank of £3,000 increased to £100,603.78.

The thread has since been taken offline by the operators of the forum, but if you google “Maria Laying System” you will find a plethora of articles referring to her experiment. Naturally, doubt breeds skepticism and most of the responses are quite critical.

It is difficult to find really credible information about betting success on the Internet. In the majority of threads you will read statements such as “I know someone who knows someone who makes his living from betting”.

The only website I am currently aware of which has published quarterly betting results for several years is Alan Seymour’s Sports Arbitrage Review. Alan writes about his experiences as a professional arbitrage trader and has been arbing since 2002.

Famous Last Words

If you have anything substantial to contribute to this topic please leave your comment below. It will warm our hearts and be absolutely great!

As I continue to develop betting courses and tutorials, I would be very keen to learn which specific content you are interested in most.

I thank you in advance for you valuable contribution! Every thought helps to develop this website into a sparkling source of knowledge in the often far too confusing worldwide web. 😛


Last Update: 18 February 2016

Categories:Betting Advice Betting Guidance Most Popular Responsible Gambling



137 Responses to “Sports Betting for a Living? Is Earning Money from Gambling possible?”

  1. 29 February 2020 at 9:33 am #

    What signature do you mean?

    If you mean cookies then here you can change your cookie settings at any time: Cookie Declaration

  2. 6 October 2019 at 3:29 pm #

    I just wanted to give an update.
    I am now £2,450,000 up from betting multiples on outright markets.
    I’m banned or restricted by aloft every well known and trusted bookie and by the end of this season I hope to be £2,800,000 up and banned or restricted by every well known trusted bookie .
    Quite clearly my method is almost certainly the easiest way to beat the bookies.
    Or I’m lying .
    But I’m going to be showing my bets in many locations in the near future .

  3. 28 September 2019 at 10:54 am #

    Это хороший сайт

  4. 3 January 2019 at 10:10 pm #

    Hey. I sent a screenshot. Did you get it?

    • 4 January 2019 at 1:23 pm #

      No, we didn’t get anything.

      • 5 January 2019 at 2:17 am #

        Hi. Is it actually possible to show a screenshot ?
        I can’t see any way to do it on here yet I can elsewhere .
        Thanks

        • 5 January 2019 at 7:57 am #

          Pasting screenshots in posts is a manual thing.

          You need to write up your comment exactly as you like it to have and then email it to us (including the screenshot). We’ll then upload the image and post the comment on your behalf.

          Please only do that if it is something very important to share with other readers as each additional job adds to our workload.

          Have a happy new year!
          Soccerwidow

  5. 14 October 2018 at 9:38 pm #

    It’s going to be finish of mine day, however before finish I am reading this impressive article to improve my experience.

  6. 26 May 2018 at 8:08 am #

    Hi again .
    In the end I didn’t win as much as I’d hoped this season mainly due to Lutons collapse. However I did mske another decent profit .
    I said I might show a bet or two before but I’m not very sure faitvwith anything like that and I can’t see an easy way of doing thst on this forum .
    However I am intending on showing my bets on a lot of websites over the next 4 years.
    So I think thst anyone who keeps an eye out will eventually come across one of my bets .
    However if you do ,best in mind thst winn9ng bets aren’t proof . I might just be very lucky .
    I gave reason to believe I’m not but it’s pissible .
    In the meantime I clearly need to learn some computer skills.

  7. 26 May 2018 at 7:47 am #

    Hello again,I belive thst the last time I posted I said I may show a bet of mine on here later in the season.
    Well actually I’m not very sure how I can do it on this forum as I’m not very knowledgeable but until I work it out let me say a few things;
    First of all it’s very good of Soccerwidow to allow me to use their execellent site to as it were promote a form of betting that goes against their whole ethos and more.
    I suspect that it’s partly becsuse they don’t exoect my bets to come to anything but still.
    The second thing I want to say is thst I could easily have lost this season. I was tryin g to win a very large amount and I do tend to sail close to the wind (is that the right ex0ression ?).
    At the very real risk of sounding arrogant -I’m really really not -the really frustrating thing gir me is thst I know I can make £50,000 a year from betting accumulators on outright markets do so easily yet I feel the need to attempt to win a million in a year becsuse I keep reading thst whst I do is impossible other than by chance .

    Thirdly ,if I manage to show this bet I would ask -and I know s9ccerwidow will agree -that no one think thst the bet proves anything .
    Winning bets make whst I do look very easy as the selections are nearly always quite obvious .
    I had a great many losing bets and most of those losing bets never came close to winning .
    However I am now £1 million up on betting on football .
    And I really font think I’ve enjoyed more than my fair share of luck . However the fact is I might just be a survivor and you really must all keep that in mind .
    There may have been 50,000 people who attempted to make money by betting accumulators during the season on outright msrkets and I’m the last one left who hasn’t lost their money and it’s all gone to my head and I wrongly think this method works when it’s all down to pure chance.
    Anyway I will post the bet later if I can but I can tell you that unless Salah scores st least 5 goals today I dhoukd win £217,000 from a £30 bet .
    But there’s quite a bit more to the bet than that…..

  8. 25 October 2017 at 11:11 pm #

    how do i bet, i’m a novice to sports betting, and i dont watch football at all.
    do i have chance

    • 31 October 2017 at 2:16 pm #

      Hello Prince,

      Firstly, you don’t need to know anything about football to become a successful punter – your success will be governed by your ability to understand numbers, how the market operates, how to identify the advantage of ‘value’ with every game you analyse, an understanding of bank roll management, and a good level of maths and Excel skills.

      Don’t commit any money until you have a thorough understanding of what it takes to embark on a betting campaign. And don’t begin gambling until you have paper tested a system and become familiar enough with it to have full control over betting decisions, staking, and financial targets.

      In short, it is entirely possible to make a living with betting but like any discipline, the preparation and training is key.

      Take your time, don’t rush into anything and when you are eventually ready to bet, don’t spend more than you can afford to lose.

      Good luck!

    • 31 October 2017 at 4:01 pm #

      I guess this is a reply to Right Winger too.
      I mostly agree that you font need to know about football to make money betting on it however the fact is that you can make money from 90 minute markets by knowing that there are certain circumstances that occur year in year out that only people who know football know about.
      Although it amuses me that most soccer fans clearly don’t know about these circumstances or else the value would disappear.
      The problem is that these situations don’t occur often enough to make a lot of money without controlling risk and that’s where numbers come into betting. The point about the numbers is that they give you a small edge in a lot more games.
      However my main point is that I disagree totally thst you should not bet until you really know what you are doing.
      As I keep saying ,the easiest (and most entertaining ) way to make a profit from betting is to bet multiples on outright markets .*
      But you really need to jump in and place small -that’s very important,small-bets on in multiples on outright markets from about mid `December . Most of your selections will be quite obvious.
      I really don’t think you can learn to do what I do by paper trading. You just learn much more much faster when dome thing is at stake.
      You need to make mistakes.

      * `I have said previously that I may show a couple of my bets. I’m still intending to but I am seriously considering plastering my bets all over the internet some time in the near future.
      I mean on 100s of non gambling forums based all over the world. Together with an explanation of why this us the easiest way to profit from betting and shy it’s the most satisfying way.
      I have tried using gambling forums to get my message across and yet they persist in telling young people to bet on 90 minute markets when it should be obvious thst it is getting harder and harder to profit from such markets as competition increases.
      I may also just send all my winning bets to the national press. But I’m not after publicity so that’s a last resort.

  9. 4 December 2016 at 10:55 pm #

    Take a look at mattsmosaic on twitter he wins 4 to 5 hundred a month not a massive amount I know but it’s regular and he has stated he might go full time ,hope this helps

  10. 2 December 2016 at 7:31 am #

    @Right Winger

    “If someone has a successful system do you think they would share it on a widespread scale? ” you ask in a recent post above.

    May I point out that that’s EXACTLY what I’ve been trying to do for years!!!!!!!!

    I dont know if my earlier posts are still there and dont want to see either way (I’m funny that way)

    Almost everything I read about soccer betting on the internet is wrong or

    The best way to make money from betting on sports is to place a whole series of multiples bets on long term markets throughout the season in such a way that most of them are hedges on each other and employing very good money management.

    There. I’ve just given away my system. But you will say I haven’t given away how to do it.

    But I shouldn’t need to. Long term markets are truly truly truly not hard to beat.

    They really aren’t. And that’s all the information you need.

    That and one other thing. The only way to learn how to do this is to try it.

    But of course you won’t.

    • 2 December 2016 at 10:14 am #

      Tony I know for a fact you’re right because I’ve seen the press coverage about your winnings. I promise I’m going to try this but it’s hard with so little detail.

      • 22 June 2017 at 7:13 pm #

        Hi, I’m sorry I only just saw this comment. You saw press coverage of my winnings?

        Well if that was relating to several years ago I should in all honestly let you know that I did not make £1 million in 4 years! That was a mistake by the reporter.

        However last season I just missed out on a record amount.

        Had Doncaster Rovers won just one of their last 4 games I would have won £1,500,000!

        And I’m probably going to show those bets on here.

        However in the meantime I really need to emphasise that last season was very very unusual. And anyone wanting to try to make a profit from betting multiples on long term markets should take the following advice;

        Please please please only bet small stakes in relation to your bank.
        Do not place any bets until mid December at the earliest
        Do not put more than 6 selections in any bet.
        Try to concentrate on markets where there is an odds on favourite at about 4-6/ 1-2 and there is a clear second favourite while the next in the betting is at least 5 -1.
        Try to understand that you are in effect trading these markets.

        • 22 June 2017 at 8:51 pm #

          Yes I did.

          Well even if the amounts weren’t quite right it is still very impressive.

          Thank you for the advice, I’m going to try implement it this season.

    • 29 January 2018 at 8:40 pm #

      Hi Tony,

      Can you give us an idea of what you’re u did back in 2016 to almost win £1.5 million. Cheers

      • 31 January 2018 at 11:21 am #

        Hi,
        I expect to go close again this year and I dont want to say anything much right now.
        The next five weeks will go a very long way to deciding whether I succeed or not.
        I would expect my bets to make the national press (not because of me though) should I succeed so you can keep an eye out . In fact one of my bets was reported in two national papers and my local paper at the end of last season even though I didn’t do anything to encourage it.

        All I can say right now is what I think I’ve said before . I bet accumulators on long term markets and the reason it’s possible to overcome the overrounds is because long term sports markets really aren’t very hard to trade .
        One thing you will definitely need to do whether you see my bets or not is study the long term sports markets and observe how the prices change after a set of games .

        I may show one or two of my losing bets from last season at the end of March if I’m still on course this season.

  11. 30 November 2016 at 11:16 pm #

    The guys are right, tipsters run on affiliate commission so their tips are pre-determined by the bookmaker making them win every time.

    Free bet bonus bagging has been the only way to really bash the bookies. I’ve been using Profit Accumulator for nearly over 2 weeks and have made £790 profit, not bad only being able to commit much time with my full time job. I learned by this full tutorial: No Risk Matched Betting -Profit Accumulator

    Wish all the fellow matched bettors luck!!

  12. 16 May 2016 at 2:49 pm #

    Running a single sports tipster is dangerous! If they have a bad month, then so do you. However, if you research tipsters that have good long term profits and use more of them, your balance and income will grow considerably. If one in three of your services have a bad month, you should make money. The earning potential is much higher with tipsters and takes a lot less time than matched betting. Matched betting can also cause credit-rating problems as each bookie will do a credit and ID check on you which will come up on your report. Some of them will then automatically redo your check. There is a free guide to using tipsters at: Racinghints.com

  13. 10 December 2015 at 11:35 pm #

    if that easy everyone be doing it …so it ain’t easy and I have tried. You need to know a lot, am no football fan but with many people with football knowledge, do they win bets? Not often, if they did, bookies wouldn’t be around. Also looking at the maths, the odds don’t favor the gambler at all. Why do you think favorites have bad odds, it is because they can win, which bookies need to put their odds like that, everyone probably knows that. So you lose more than you win….not easy not easy at all……………

  14. 7 December 2015 at 1:30 pm #

    Dear Craig,

    Phew!

    That’s a lot to take in.

    Firstly, our view on Tipster services is that they are unnecessary and in most cases, with moderate Excel skills and access to historical statistics, you can usually do the job better yourself.

    I mean, would you trust any service where you have no access to their method of bet selection?

    Most Tipsters rely on affiliate income if they are promoting a bookmaker. They don’t care if you win or lose. In fact, they would rather you lose so that they get paid their percentage of the bookmaker’s earnings. Your perception of getting paid ‘when the bookmaker gets beat’ is entirely the wrong way ’round.

    You also have no idea if there is any ‘value’ present in the bets that are being recommended for you. In effect, you are putting ‘blind faith’ in someone else’s suggestions.

    At such short odds of 1/3, you must understand that statistically speaking, the bet has an implied chance of winning of 75%. Therefore every bet at this price must also have an implied chance of losing of 25%. One in four bets on average will lose.

    So, to answer your question, ‘is this a viable system’, I cannot say either way as you have not provided enough information for me to judge it objectively.

    I will say that such a service should be avoided at all costs though. If someone has a successful system, do you think they would share it on a widespread scale? These things operate like a fruit machine – paying out just enough to keep you playing.

    Soccerwidow does not offer any system for sale. We only offer products to help you build your own. My advice is to read all you can on this site under the ‘Football and Gambling‘ section, and then to educate yourself further by looking at other gambling advice sites.

    Paper test any theory you may find until it works in practice. Never gamble money on anything you have not seen working at first hand. Trust only your own calculations.

    Oh, and avoid accumulators!!!

    Follow this advice, work hard, and maybe you will make money. If it were that easy, there wouldn’t be bookmakers – the punters would have closed them all down.

    Craig, I hope this helps and thanks for taking the time and trouble with your missive.

  15. 7 December 2015 at 5:11 am #

    Hi soccerwidow,

    Scanned through this thread and am new to the site, what has brought me is an interest to start making a decent amount of money on the side as I know its possible through sports betting.

    Now I have had a few accas up and won a bit but mainly lost and wasted money on rather stupid bets, overall though I am a complete rookie. I came across free football tipster on facebook who does betting challanges, he starting usually from £20 to £1K, £10K, £50K etc. his system is that he puts a the ‘safest’ bet of the day on at odds around 1/3, usually Asian handicaps, or alternative goal lines, he also does some inplay bets on over a certain amount of goals or teams to score before a certain time.

    Now I believe this is an okay system to use could be better. The tipster though continues to put on the full stake on every bet the orignal 20 + winnings in order to get to his challenge target after 10-30 bets. I have followed him for a around a week and he hasn’t got past bet 6 yet and usually doesn’t make over £100, maybe a con ? He has mentioned on his page that he has just won two 10k challanges, I think this is also due to the tipster rushing the challanges, originally saying one ‘safe’ bet a day but in reality putting 1 pre bet a day with maybe another 2 inplay bets on the same day. What the tipster also doesn’t tell his followers is that he gets money promoting bet356 and commision for bets put on (I believe) through an autoload slip and pays a percentage for every time the bookmaker gets beat ( again so I believe).

    My question to you is that is this a viable system, do you think this is a good system to use and how would you yourself change it any way ? Not putting full stake + winnings on ?

    I believe this system could work and is a rough copy if you will of what I am thinking of doing, I want to calculate my true odds for matches and take my time building my war chest as you said, before trying different techniques like Tony’s multiples, (which I still don’t all understand its all still a bit confusing). I also like your advice on signing up to different bookmakers to get and utilise their free bets offers and I will start my venture through these. Any other tips for a novice as myself moving forward using this kind of system ? Or do you think it is bound to lose over the long run ?

    I do think I could hit big money and would not be scared putting large bets with money that has been won and not out my own pocket, but a great quote that caught my eye is this my ‘ignorance’ getting the better of me by thinking I know how the bookmaker system works ?

    Thanks, Craig.

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