Should You Bet on Multiple Sports or Specialize?
Some sports bettors specialize on one sport while others place wagers on many different types of sporting events.
If you hope to be a winning sports bettor should you specialize or bet on multiple sports?
Specialized Sports Betting
Specializing in a single sport as a sports bettor lets you focus all of your time and energy on consistently winning. The problem with most sports is they aren't played year round. What do you do in the off season?
You can back test new systems and conduct off season research, but there is only so much of this you can do. Don't start looking at other sports just because you're bored.
I always caution up and coming sports bettors to become a consistent winner in one sport before trying to beat a second one. If you can't consistently beat a single sport why would you think you could beat multiple ones?
I'd even go so far as to suggest picking either the NFL or the NCAA football season to concentrate on. Learn to be the best you can by focusing on one sport at either the pro or college level.
Betting on Multiple Sports
The bottom line for any profitable sports bettor is finding games where they can get an edge. All of the reasons listed in the section above are valid, but if you see a profitable situation you have to take advantage of it.
Avoiding the trap of thinking you see value where none exists is the real danger to betting on multiple sports.
Many successful sports bettors do bet on multiple sports, but some only concentrate on one. If you want to try betting on multiple sports here are a few tips to help.
The major sports start at different times of the year but their seasons also overlap. Football season starts during the end of baseball season and basketball season starts during football season and runs into the early baseball season.
Most sports bettors in the United States get their start betting on either NFL or NCAA football. A good sport to add to your betting activities if you bet on football is baseball. Soon after the Super Bowl is completed major league baseball teams start reporting to spring training.
There are thousands of games played every spring, summer, and fall so there are plenty of opportunities to find value picks.
You also can watch the first week or two of the football season without feeling like you have to place bets because you're still betting on baseball. The early football season, especially the NCAA, can be quite unpredictable.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that any sport requires less research, dedication, and work than another. If you have a successful record of profit while betting on football realize that the same amount of effort will be required to turn consistent profits betting basketball or baseball. Plus you can't start putting less effort into your football work.
Can You Do It All Yourself?
You can be a profitable sports bettor in multiple industries by yourself, but it helps if you can do a few things to make things easier.
Use the technology available to help reduce your workload. Winning sports bettors develop, test, and use systems. They're always trying to find a better or new system to add to their old systems that are still working.
The problem with systems is they require research and data. This ends up taking up a great deal of time. But this is the heart of why some people are winning sports bettors and others lose.
Find statistical services online that can cut your research work load and computerize your work if you haven't already done so. Learn to use a spreadsheet program.
You can also consider hiring someone to complete the research you require. If you aren't profitable enough, or to the point where you're placing wagers large enough to justify the expense of an employee work toward reaching the point where you can.
If you're spending 30 hours a week compiling research and are able to hire someone to work just 15 hours a week you have increased your research work by 50%.
Another thing you can do is consider taking on an apprentice in your sports betting business. If you are truly profitable you shouldn't have any trouble finding someone willing to trade research work for being taught your systems and thought process.
If you do find an apprentice make sure to set it up just like any other business relationship. I'd even suggest drawing up a contract that clearly spells out what is expected from both parties, how long the agreement is good for and how each party can exit the agreement early.
There's no reason an apprentice relationship can't be beneficial to everyone involved, but if both parties aren't 100% clear up front about the expectations things may turn out poorly.
On the other hand, a good relationship with an apprentice could eventually turn into a partnership. If you can develop an apprentice to be able to pick games and turn a consistent profit like you do you may be able to make more money together than apart.
If nothing else a partnership can bet on more contests with lower risk because of the larger bankroll in addition to doubling the productivity of the research work.
Conclusion
Concentrating all of your effort into becoming the best sports bettor possible in one sport is the best way to find out if you can really beat the sports books. Once you learn how to turn a consistent profit you might consider adding additional sports to bet on.
As long as you're willing to do the same amount of work on the second sport while maintaining the edge on your first sport there's no reason you can't be a winner in multiple contests.
