5 Sports Betting Mistakes That Keep Beginners Broke

[00:02] sports betting advice, these are the five things I'd teach myself to set myself up for future success. And I genuinely think if I did these five things from day one, I would have been a much more profitable sports better and

[00:15] saved myself from months and months of losses. Because when I first started sports betting, I thought being profitable meant watching every game, knowing every player, studying the stats, having a lock of the day, and

[00:28] simply just doing more research than anyone else. But the more I learned, the more I realized that being a profitable sports better has nothing to do with knowing ball or watching sports. It's about numbers, probability, pricing,

[00:42] discipline, and understanding how sports books actually work. So, in this video, I'm going to break down the five biggest things that actually made me a profitable sports better, and honestly, these completely changed the way that I

[00:55] look at sports betting. The first thing that made me better, tracking my bets. And honestly, when I first started betting, I didn't want to track my bets because deep down, I knew that I wasn't profitable. I wanted to tweet the

[01:09] winning slips, post the heaters, and show that five-leg same-game parlay that hit. But I wanted to disappear on the losing days. And that right there is losing a better mentality. Because if you avoid tracking your bets, you

[01:23] basically are avoiding the truth. The second I started to track every single bet, the wins, the losses, unit size, odds, ROI, everything changed. Because now I could actually see what sports was I good at, what markets was I bad at,

[01:38] whether I was beating closing line value, whether I was profitable long term, and most importantly, whether I even had an edge at all. You see, most betters think they're profitable, but very few actually are. And tracking your

[01:51] bets forces accountability. That's why one of the biggest green flags in sports betting is when somebody actually publicly tracks all of their picks Now, the second thing that helped me improve as a sports better was realizing

[02:05] that you absolutely need multiple sportsbooks. I believe this is one of the most underrated things in all of betting. Most recreational bettors use one sportsbook. That's it. Maybe it's FanDuel, maybe it's DraftKings. They use

[02:19] whatever book they feel a connection to and with that they blindly accept whatever odds that sportsbook has. But you see sportsbooks all set lines independently, which means different odds, different spreads, different

[02:32] props, different totals, and different value across the board. One sportsbook might offer the Yankees money line at minus 110, another could offer that line at minus 125, and a third sportsbook could offer Yankees money line at plus

[02:44] 100 odds. All offering the same exact bet at a very different price, and that difference can be massive long-term. Once I realized I needed to be on as many sportsbooks as possible, I finally understood that sports betting isn't

[02:58] about predicting games, it's about shopping for prices. Professional their picks, and that's such an important mindset shift as a sports better. Because even if two bettors pick the exact same side, the better

[03:12] consistently getting a better price is going to win long-term. sportsbook screen to show you how important it is to have multiple MLB strikeout markets, we can go to Chris Sale, one of the best pitchers in

[03:27] all of baseball, has his strikeout prop set at 6 and 1/2 strikeouts on some books and 7 and 1/2 strikeouts on other books. And we can take a look at the different prices that you can have by taking Chris Sale to go over or under

[03:41] his strikeout prop. We can see here the best odds available come at Bovada at minus 145, and that's coming on his 6 and 1/2 strikeout line. Now, if we look at a lot of books now, are offering this at seven and a half strike outs.

[03:55] If you only used, let's say, BetMGM, you would only have the option to take Chris Sale at seven and a half strike outs, when you could head over to FanDuel or Bovada and take six and a half strike outs. But, that's not even the biggest

[04:09] point of this. Let's say you really liked Chris Sale over six and a half FanDuel, you would have to take this at minus 162 odds, which means you need to bet $162

[04:21] just to win $100. If you line shopped and you had multiple sports books, you could head over to Bovada and take that same exact Chris Sale over six and a same exact Chris Sale over six and a half strike out prop at minus 145 odds,

[04:34] which means you need to bet $145 to win $100. Now, that's a massive difference in the odds that you simply wouldn't have known about if you didn't use multiple sports books. And if you only used FanDuel here and you hit Chris

[04:48] Sale over six and a half strike outs, you'd be winning less than you would have won if you took the same exact prop over on Bovada. And that right there is the importance of having multiple sports books. Every single bet you take, you

[05:02] want to get the best available price on the market. And if you're only using one sports book, you're leaving money on the table almost every single time you place a bet. Now, the third thing that changed everything for me as a sports better,

[05:15] understanding expected value. And honestly, this is when sports betting finally started to click for me. Most recreational bettors ask, "Who's going to win?" Sharp bettors, on the other hand, ask, "Is this line priced

[05:28] correctly?" And that right there shows you that recreational sports bettors and sharp sports bettors have a completely different mindset. A bet can lose and still be a good bet, and a bet can win and still be a bad bet. That's something

[05:41] that most people will never understand. Expected value is basically asking, "Am I getting a better price than the true probability of this outcome? If sports books misprice probability, that's value for you as a better. And if you

[05:54] consistently bet positive EV opportunities, the math works in your favor long-term. And that doesn't mean that every single bet is going to win. But long-term positive EV better win because they're consistently beating the

[06:07] market. Now, here we are in the Odds Jam positive EV tool to show you why getting positive expected value is so important as a sports better. Let's take a look at a couple of examples here. We can look at Duncan Robinson to go under 11 and

[06:20] 1/2 points is offered at minus 118 odds over on BetMGM. If we look at this prop and compare it to the rest of the market, we can see here that DraftKings offers this prop at minus 166 odds, Pinnacle minus 135, and even ParlayPlay

[06:36] Pinnacle minus 135, and even ParlayPlay at minus 192 odds. Now, that shows us how good of a price BetMGM is offering us at minus 118. Because when you ask yourself, would you rather take a play at minus 118 odds or at minus 166 odds,

[06:52] every single time your answer is going to be minus 118. And that play right there would give us a positive EV percentage of 8.15%, which means that we're getting 8.15% of expected value by simply taking this

[07:05] prop on BetMGM instead of another sports book. And as you can see, there are have mispriced lines. Odds Jam is highlighting all of these plays that would give us expected value by taking them on certain sports books. Now, if

[07:19] I'm showing you in this video, you can get on Odds Jam today with a free week trial by using promo code TAKES when you another example. We can see here that Naz Reid on BetMGM is offered at minus

[07:33] 115 odds, 4.55% worth of expected value on this prop on BetMGM. And when we look at the rest of the market, you're going to once again see that MGM clearly has the best price on this line. We can see here DraftKings

[07:47] minus 138, NoVig and Profit X both in the minus 140s, and then FanDuel at minus 146, and we can even see that OddsJam is going to tell us the average odds of this prop, which are minus 146 across all sportsbooks offering this

[08:02] prop. Meanwhile, MGM sitting at minus 115 clearly giving us the best value on the board. Positive EV betting is one of the most important strategies to use to become a profitable sports better. If you can consistently get a better price

[08:17] than what the market values a play at, you can make money long term. And positive EV betting also shows why it is so important for you to be on every earlier, all sportsbooks set their lines independently, which creates a ton of

[08:30] capitalize on. Now, the fourth factor that made me a better sports better was understanding volume. When I first started betting, I thought the goal was to find your one to five favorite plays

[08:42] of the day and go in big on them. But there's a reason that I thought that way. It's because I didn't have a true edge in the market. I was making my picks based off of gut feeling, researching stats, and watching games.

[08:54] And once I started to understand expected value, I realized that profitable betting is a volume game. Because if you truly have an edge against the sportsbooks, you want to capitalize on that edge as many times as

[09:07] possible. Think about casinos. A casino doesn't care if you win one hand of blackjack. They care about running thousands and thousands of hands because they know in the end, over the long run, they're going to end up positive. That's

[09:20] exactly how profitable bettors think as well. If I have a proven edge, why would I only want to take two bets a day? Long-term probability comes from repeatedly placing mathematically profitable bets over a large sample

[09:33] size, not from trying going one miracle parlay. And that now brings us to the fifth thing I wish I knew when I started sports betting. And this might honestly be the most important lesson of all. And that's understanding that ball knowledge

[09:48] and watching sports has almost nothing to do with being a profitable sports better. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not a bad thing to have sports knowledge and watch sports. But sportsbooks already know all the obvious

[10:01] information. They have models, traders, algorithms, injury analysis, market data, and millions of dollars of sharp action setting the lines. You watching SportsCenter or studying the stats does not give you a mathematical edge over

[10:15] the sportsbooks. And honestly, some of the sharpest, most profitable sports bettors in the world don't even care to watch sports. Because profitable betting studying the stats. It's about probability, pricing, market

[10:28] inefficiencies, expected value, and discipline. And once I realized that, my changed. Because once I stopped trying to be the smartest sports fan, I finally

[10:40] learned how sports books actually work. And ironically, that's when I became a way better better. So, if I had to summarize the five things that made me a better sports better, I'd go with one, tracking my bets. Two, using multiple

[10:53] sports books. Three, understanding expected value. Four, playing the volume game. And five, realizing that profitability has nothing to do with knowing ball. These are the things that completely changed the way I approach

[11:07] people will never make these mindset shifts. They stay stuck chasing locks, betting emotionally, and treating betting like guessing. But the second you start treating sports betting like a numbers game instead of an entertainment

[11:21] enjoyed this video, make sure you subscribe to the channel. And if you strategies and how sharp bettors actually think, check out the rest of actually think, check out the rest of our page.