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How to Generate $100,000 a Year Betting on Sports

Generating $100,000 a year betting on sports sounds like a great goal for any aspiring sports bettor. Anyone who wants to be a professional sports bettor should set a goal at least this high.

How realistic is winning $100,000 a year betting on sports?

It's not for the faint of heart or anyone with a small bankroll.

But with the proper mindset, bankroll, and work, it can be done.

Set Your Goal

Your first step is to break that goal into smaller goals:

$100,000 a year in winnings means you have to average:

• $8333 per month
• $1924 per week
• $274 per day

By breaking down exactly what you need to do to reach your goal you can see how easy (or hard) it looks.

$274 a day might seem easy. But that's $274 EVERY day of the year, 7 days a week, 52 weeks per year.

Win $1,000 on Sunday and you can cover what you need for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday. But you need to maintain a pace that keeps you close to your daily (or weekly or monthly) goal. If you start falling behind, it's easy to give up.

You must know exactly how much you need. You must track your progress frequently. The more often you track your progress, the better aware you'll be of exactly where you stand toward reaching your goal.

Break the Goal into Steps

Once you know exactly how much you need to win every day, week, or month you can break your goal into steps.

Every sport has a season. Decide if you'll be betting year round or just on particular sports. Most sports bettors focus on NFL and NCAA football seasons. If those are the only two seasons you bet, you need to make much more per week or month. Those seasons don't last all year.

Are you willing to bet on football, baseball, and basketball?

If so, you'll have games to bet on all year.

Concentrate on sports where you can bet with a true edge. Don't expand your handicapping if you can't do it while maintaining a winning edge.

If you can bet on football and baseball you can place bets most of the year. After the Super Bowl (in February) and before the beginning of baseball season starts (in late March or early April) will be your only down time.

Here's how to break a $100,000 a year goal down into steps.

You plan to bet on all three sports mentioned above. But you want to focus mostly on football and baseball. You're better at those games.

The math works like this:

• You pick basketball games at a 53% winning rate.
• You pick baseball games at 53.5%.
• You pick football at 54%.
• You place all your bets at a 10% vig (110 to win 100).

Your goal is $10,000 profit a month. (If you fall a little short, you'll still hit your annual goal of $100,000).

February and March are the only months you plan to wager on basketball because the only other action you can lay are a few football games.

To make $10,000 a month betting basketball with a 53% winning percentage you have to wager about $8,000 per game on 100 games to bet.

It's $10,400 for the month.

You do better in football season. What do you need to do per month at 54%?

Can you find 100 games to place bets on during a month of football?

If so, you only need to place 100 bets of $3,000 each to make your $10,000 goal.

You make $162,000 on the 54 wins and lose $151,800 on the 46 losses.

Notice the huge difference a single percent makes?

This one point is worth millions of dollars.

Focus on improving your winning percentage. A single point can be worth millions in the long run.

But here's the problem with football:

Even though you include college and pro games, you'll still have a hard time finding 100 games in a month where you can get an edge.

What if you can only find 50 games every month?

You need to bet $6,000 per game on 50 games to reach the same results.

That's $12,000 per game if you're only betting on 25 games.

Those aren't the only factors to consider, though. If you get a chance to place bets with a reduced vig, you can increase your wins or reduce the bets you need to reach your goals.

You have to win on a consistent basis, of course. But you also have to do one of the following:

• Bet on a lot of games
• Place large wagers
• Both

What It Takes to Beat the Sports Book

This is all based on your ability to beat the sports book consistently in the long run. If you can't win at least 53% of the time, you can't generate $100,000 a year betting on sports. (Unless you can place reduced vig wagers—in that case, you only need to be able to win 52% of your wagers.)

Depending on your bankroll, you might be able to profit that much some years. In others you will lose money.

The only way to beat the sports books in the long run is to work harder than they do. You must collect and analyze more statistics than they do. You must develop personal systems that help you find profitable betting opportunities.

You have to be willing to keep working until you find an edge no matter what. You can never stop looking for better systems.

• Can you make up your mind?
• Are you willing to commit to doing whatever it takes?

If not, you can't even hope to generate a living betting on sports.

Start With a Large Bankroll – Bankroll Management

You have to place a lot of big bets in order to win $100,000 a year betting on sports.

Professional sports betting works like investing. In the long run, pro sports bettors can determine how much they stand to win based on their winning percentage and the size of their wagers.

"Return on investment" and "annual percentage rate" are two investing terms that important in sports betting, too.

How much would you need to invest in order to make $100,000 a year at 10% simple interest?

If you answered $1 million, pat yourself on the back. $1 million times 10% is $100,000.

Is a 10% return on investment is reasonable?

In most financial markets, 10% is a strong return.

$50,000 or even a $100,000 isn't enough.

If you can double your bankroll in a year, you can become insanely rich fast. I can't claim that no one doubles their bankroll in a year betting on sports, but I'm not comfortable taking the risk. You shouldn';t be either.

Determining the proper bankroll size depends on the following:

• How consistent are you at picking winners?
• How many games do you bet on?
• How much do you bet on each game?

Entire books cover the size of investments / wagers in comparison to the size of your bankroll. I can't cover everything you need to know here, but I can get you started.

Consider this:

A sports bettor who's picking winners at a 60% rate can easily lose 10 games in a row.

Lose the first 10 games of a 100 game series, and you only need to win 60 out of the remaining 90.

If you only win at 54% (only the top sports bettors do much better), you can lose the first 10 and only need to win 54 out of the next 90.

Suppose you have a $100,000 bankroll. You're betting $8,000 a game.

You could get down to $20,000 and still be on course to win in the long run.

A Different Approach

This all involves placing bets on a large number of games. This is the safest way to generate consistent money betting on sports. By spreading your risk over many games, you diversify your bankroll and investments. Your positive expectation can take over in the long run. Short term fluctuations won't make much difference. Your risk of ruin (chances of going broke) are minimal.

But you could only bet on the games that offer the best edges. You'd have to bet more on each game. The most extreme example of this would be only placing a bet on one game a year for $100,000. If you win, you've generated $100,000 profit for the year.

Here's the problem:

That's way beyond the scope of this post. Even if this method works for a few years, you will eventually lose a $110,000 wager. Suppose you not only have great patience, but you can pick winners at 60% by only betting on certain games with the best edge. Over the course of the year you find 100 games you could bet on.

You need to bet $6,000 on each of the 100 games to win $96,000 for the year.

You make $360,000 on the 60 games you win.

You lose $264,000 on the 40 you lose.

Can you only find 50 games?

Now you need to bet $12,000 on each.

25 games?

You need to wager $24,000 per game.