No shortcuts. Just structured growth.
Most “get rich quick” stories are myths – success comes from steady effort, not overnight miracles.
If you typed into Google ten years ago (around 2015) the exact phrase, “how to get rich in a short time” you found around 37.5 million search results. That was 37.5 million web pages tackling the topic of finding wealth.
In comparison, the expression, “how to live a happy married life” produced only 4 million results.
Mathematically speaking this equated to just 1 in every 10 websites writing about a “happy life” whilst the other 9 were trying to show a route to riches! This is certainly an indicator of which is more important to the public!
Sadly, Google search results have changed since and Google omits these metrics these days.
And of course, the following elements can be applied to any form of betting or gambling.
Let us be blunt from the outset:
Yes, it is technically possible to get rich with football betting – in the same way it was technically possible for Zuckerberg to launch Facebook from a dorm room, or for Denise Coates to parlay a loan from her father into Bet365. The path is there. But so is Everest. If you’re looking for an escalator, this isn’t it.
Top 10 Tips on How to Get Rich with Betting
1. What is your Perception of being Rich?
What is your acceptable level of wealth before you consider yourself rich? Without knowing the answer to this question, you will be unable to set wealth targets or plan for how much money you wish to earn over the time period you have set yourself. Obviously, the answers are different for everyone but the question is relevant to us all.
Is “rich” having a Lambo? Or paying the mortgage without stress? Nail this down before placing your first bet.
2. “SMART” Targets
Success with online football betting should be planned for as thoroughly as setting-up a business. It requires a well-thought out and methodical approach. There is no get-rich-quick scheme or system and commitment to your chosen strategy must be applied long-term.
Targets have to be ‘SMART’: Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Realistic; Timed.
If your target is “win more bets”, please close this browser tab and go outside.
For example, “achieve a 15% Yield over 100 bets in the German Bundesliga by the end of the season” is SMART. It’s specific, trackable, and grounded in a timeframe – not just vague hopes of “winning more often.”
3. Identify your Target Leagues and do your Homework
At Soccerwidow, we only analyse and bet on league games with plenty of historical statistics as cup matches tend to be one-off events, are more volatile, and include too many upsets or giant-killing episodes.
Which leagues do you want to research? Do your homework; is there liquidity with the bookmakers or betting exchanges for your chosen markets to allow the size of bets you wish to make?
Hint: Betting on obscure leagues with no data isn’t “smart” – it’s more like “statistical suicide”.
4. Understand the Different types of Bets
Absolute clarity and a firm grasp of the differences between back and lay bets is needed. This is especially the case when trading or hedging for a profit with little or no intended risk of loss involved.
If you don’t know what a lay bet is, or how odds convert to implied probability, you’re not betting – you’re donating.
Here’s a Soccerwidow article with formulas that walks you through real-world alternatives – and might teach you something genuinely useful: When to Back Instead of Lay Betting: Asian Handicap; Double Chance; Dutching.
And while goal line betting might sound sophisticated, do you actually know what it means – or how it works? Start here: Understanding Goal Lines in Over/Under Betting.
5. Excel Spreadsheet Competence
A strong knowledge of Excel spreadsheets is also needed to save time calculating formulas, staking plans, net winnings, effects of betting exchange commissions (i.e. their slice of your winnings), and also to record your results for full control and continued focus on how well the ‘business’ is performing.
How do you get rich with a business? You become rich by constantly monitoring and evaluating performance, fine-tuning trading areas that require improvement, and cutting away the loss-making areas. What is going right; what is going wrong?
Without a spreadsheet or copious written records, you will have no idea and the question, “how do you get rich?” will have had no chance of a solution from the outset.
6. Enough Knowledge to Recognise a ‘Value’ Bet
Absolute knowledge of what a ‘value’ bet is and how to calculate value bets using statistics is paramount in order to add the ‘edge’ that you will need in order to compete with the bookmakers on level ground.
It is a myth that people ever become rich gambling on gut-feeling alone. The Soccerwidow course teaching you about statistics and value bets is a good starting point.
To be clear: odds of 2.50 imply a 40% chance. If your data suggests the true chance is 50%, that’s a value bet. If you’re guessing, it’s not value. It’s wishful thinking.
7. Staking Plans
These are an essential element of any successful betting strategy. Without a staking plan, your betting will be directionless, unreliable, and unrewarding. The staking plan will also help minimise losses and keep your betting bank trading for as long as possible (with a stop-loss mechanism in place), seeing out the losing streaks you will undoubtedly have to endure.
Equally important is the ratchet mechanism, to increase staking levels when you have achieved desired betting bank targets. Ratcheting stakes down again (i.e. stop-loss) is required if the bank drops back to previous target levels.
Ratcheting your stakes in this way will ensure you achieve the most reward for your money when things are going well, but retain full control when you hit troughs of losses. “How do you get rich” will be a roller-coaster ride, full of highs and lows.
8. You Need a Bankroll. Not a Bonus-Hunting Hobby
Of course, even the best staking plan is useless if there’s no real bankroll behind it – or if it’s scattered across ten promo-chasing accounts like confetti.
Let’s cut the nonsense: you won’t get rich off free bets and signup offers. You need a proper bankroll – not £50 recycled through ten different bookies. Think at least a grand. Maybe two. Enough to ride losing streaks without reaching for your credit card.
Bookies will limit you if you win too often. Exchanges won’t – but they’ll charge you for it. So spread your action, keep records, and don’t moan when the game treats you like a grown-up.
This isn’t about chasing bonuses. It’s about surviving long enough to actually matter.
9. Be Disciplined, Unemotional, and Patient
If you are gambling because you are desperate to earn money then you are doing it for the wrong reasons. You are already too emotionally attached to the task ahead.
If you enjoy the buzz and have decided to adopt a business-like approach to securing a regular income then you have a chance of succeeding.
Start by stop asking “how do you get rich?” – and instead focus on doing the boring stuff well, over and over, until it stops feeling boring and starts feeling normal, then success will invariably follow.
Keep financial records, just in case the taxman needs answers as to how you became rich! (We are being serious here!).
For an in-depth look at betting risk and volatility, see this guide from Football-Data.co.uk.
10. Never Gamble Tired or Drunk and Never Chase Losses
A fool and his money are easily parted. Casinos ply customers with free alcohol because they know it is a surefire way of unhinging your discipline and sense of reality.
“Never gamble more than you can afford to lose” is a mantra you will see repeated many times over in this blog.
Think long-term. The goal is to stay solvent – not to impress the barman at half-time.
Chasing losses isn’t a recovery strategy – it’s emotional betting disguised as logic. Each loss should be treated as a data point, not a personal insult. If your system has no plan for how to handle downturns, it’s not a system. It’s hope in a spreadsheet.
Final Note: Yes, You Can Get Rich With Football Betting
But not through fantasy or shortcuts. You get rich the same way anyone does: by grinding, learning, adjusting, and surviving when others fold.
Football betting can be a business. Just don’t mistake it for a lottery ticket.
And if you do get rich, make sure to tell your accountant – before your partner finds out.
This article was first published in November 2016.
In July 2025 we revised the structure, sharpened the tone,
and updated links and examples.
The core principles remain unchanged – only the delivery is now clearer.
About the Author
And why does one need an account with at least one of the so called betting exchanges (that are nothing different than trying to make themselves more interesting than a regular bookmaker)? I can’t understand yet why does one need to place “lay” bets on football in particular as for example you have team A vs team B. If one think that team A will not win the match, it is technically all the same if you “lay” team A, bet on X2 DC or team B to beat +0.5 AH. One should look for the highest odds rather than go and “lay” the A team with so called betting exchanges, who generally are nothing different than the regular bookmaker; just they present and advertise their products through a different (and probably intentionally more confusing) way. The only things a bettor needs to look for with bookies is the best odds and the jurisdiction of the bookie so that he can legally fight with them when they try to cheat.
Game,
We agree regarding the lay betting comments you have made: Check out this article with the full range of back bet alternatives to lay betting.
Thanks for your comment.
Onur,
Yes, that is exactly what I mean! 🙂
Hi Right winger, many thanks for your quick answer. So what I understand from your comment is that it is possible to get even bigger yield than 70% in the long run, but 70 or 100 games are not enough to be sure about long term chances. I will also have to find out other strategies in order to increase the number of matches per year.
Best regards!
Hello Onur,
Most of our summer league experiments are now over and, for example, our League of Ireland Premier away wins system brought a yield of 57.27% with only six wins from 26 selections throughout the season.
In order to play with this level of confidence we back-tested the previous five seasons’ data (935 games) and found the sweet-spot using our HDAFU tables. In comparison with our results this season, average yield per season in our paper test was 89.39%.
Some of our systems lost money but when combined together they provided a strong foundation. Losing systems were supported by winning ones and an overall profit was achieved.
When the Brazilian Serie A ends in early December, I estimate that our total number of bets will have been around 1,150. The law of large numbers is very important and I am sure you will see some moderation in your results if you extrapolate your 70% yield from 72 matches into a much longer term study.
I would suggest that any portfolio with just 350 matches per season runs the risk of being a little fragile and more prone to fluctuations/deviations in the results. 1,000 games is a good solid portfolio.
Hope this helps!
Hi, I have been testing my strategies since almost 3 months. I have a yield of around 50% with level staking in 108 matches, which makes me wonder if this is sustainable in the long run. After backtesting my results, I found out that with some litte amendments I could even have had the yield of 70% in 72 matches.
I have also used p-level test from another website and it also came out pretty good. I know that the strategy I use had been successful in the last 5 years each year, but I cannot be sure about the yield because I make slight changes to the original strategy, which had brought around %15-20 yield in some thousand matches over the last 5 years.
I have also mostly better odds than pinnacle’s closing odds, which is another good sign I guess.
So my question is: What percentage of yield is realistical? Is 70% yield even possible at all in the long run? Am I close to making good money? I cannot test it for 1000 games before I increase my stakes, because I expect around 350 games per year. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
*Yield here means: Profit/Stake
Hi Bob,
Leave alone virtual games – they run on totally random algorithms and success in them relies solely on luck. You can find no statistics for these ‘games’ in order to plan strategies, etc.
Sports betting relies on statistics. It is easier to predict future outcomes if you know what has happened in the past.
Hope this helps.
Agreed with your above statements but i wanna know the better option to earn money in less time. Should bet on virtual games or sports betting?
I recommend the book “Trading in the Zone
“. If you compare the way how you do with how you have to think in sportsbetting, you will be rich!!!
All of these things mentioned in the article are true but everyone who is familiar with sports betting know them. What we dont know is a strategy that is effective and can make your profit persistent. If you have a strategy that works I am ready to pay for it! 🙂
Hello Soccerwidow,
I follow for a while your blog and it has been very helpful. Your articles make me salivate for more. Could you indicate me some books or resources about math applied to sports betting?
Thanks in advance… Best regards
Hi Nani,
Many thanks for your comment, and it’s great to hear that you like Soccerwidow.
Unfortunately, there are no good English books or resources about maths and statistics applied to betting in layman’s language and easy to understand. At least, not of which I’m aware of. The only book which comes close enough to my mathematical in-depth articles is a book published in German: Der perfekte Tipp: Statistik des Fußballspiels
It has been written by a German professor, and I’m in contact with him – we are discussing possibilities of setting up project groups for research and publishing literature books on betting. However, things are still in development and take a lot of time.
I can recommend the above book for reading, but of course, you will be only to work through it if your grasp of German is good enough. It’s pretty mathematical and weighty.