I have always leaned more towards discussing the how's and why's with my betting as opposed to the what's. You can learn a lot more that way and I find it to be much more interesting. However, I was thinking that it might be interesting to go over exactly what I was betting on at various stages of my betting journey. I suspect others probably followed somewhat of a similar path, for a while at least, but I also think that every single sharp bettors history is unique and it could be interesting to read. It isn't something that I can recall ever reading from other sharp bettors, either. One thing I absolutely love about advantage gambling is that there is an almost infinite amount of ways to go about it. The end result, hopefully, is you winning money from a sports book or casino. But the ways to get there are seemingly endless.
On the low end of the totem pole, you have your bonus hustlers. This is probably the bottom of the barrel as far as advantage gambling goes, but of course the money all spends the same in the end. Bonus chasing (or whoring) was a lot more popular in the old Wild West days when moving money around online was a lot easier. The general idea, pretty obviously, is to open as many accounts at as many different sports books as humanly possible and claim all the available bonuses without losing any money betting (or not losing more than you'll make with bonuses). This is something you should be doing anyways, just kind of in the background with everything else. But for a while you could make a living just grinding break even plays and getting all the bonuses. Nothing sexy about this at all but if it works it works. Personally, this is something I was always terrible at. I've actually probably claimed less than a grand lifetime in bonuses. Playing in PPH land, my version of bonuses, you could say, was getting a percentage off on weekly losses which I did manage to do a couple times. I told that story on here before but I got a guy to give me 20 or 25% (I forget exactly) off of my weekly losses at a super soft, big PPH book which ended up being one my best accounts ever.
Above bonus whoring you've got your runners. These are guys whose only job is to place bets that they're told to place. Again, not very sexy but this involves way more than it seems and is probably a lot harder than it looks. I've never been an official runner but the arraignment I have with different people could loosely be translated into them being runners for me and vice versa.
One step above that you have your steam chasers/board cleaners/arbers. These are guys who don't know or care anything about the teams they're betting on, just focusing on the market and trying to bet numbers right before they move. What they're actually doing is indirectly following syndicates action. If a big bet from a respected guy comes in on Team A at -3 and the whole market moves to -4, they try to get -3 at a slow moving book. Some guys will then bet the other side and lock in some small free money (arbing) or a profitable middle. This is something everyone at this level or below should absolutely be doing, again sort of in the background of whatever else you're doing. This is also a lot harder than you'd think and books hate steam chasers so expect to get the boot if you do this successfully.
One step above that, in my opinion, would be handicapping small market stuff like props and exotics. Now we're starting to get into what most people would consider 'real sports betting.' This is compiling data, making models, staying up to date on injuries and rule changes, etc. This is where we start to separate the men from the boys a little bit. I think if you have a working, profitable up to date model in excel or whatever else people are using these days, then you can be on your way to doing this for a living. The other lower things, steam chasing, bonus hunting, betting off market numbers, those are all fine but it'll be hard to make an actual living. It's certainly possible and there are some legit guys out there doing it, but I think it would be pretty tough to make more than something like 50k a year doing it. Once you start modeling though your earn potential goes way up.
Now at the final step, the boss level, we have guys who handicap major markets. This is exactly what it sounds like. These guys are looking to get something like 2% return on their money and get in tons of volume. Here we have the syndicates; big actual businesses with dozens (or more) employees and split up duties. These are the guys who move the market around. Your Billy Walters, Harabaloloblbol Voulgarious (I refuse to look up his name since he's such a baby online) and others. I don't really have much to add on this since this is one level above as far as I ever got. If you really can beat major markets, congrats. You made it to the top!
Another angle is future betting. I've heard of guys who specialize in future betting and attack it almost like the stock market. It makes sense since books don't give much thought to futures since people rarely bet them. You're tying up money/credit for a long time, usually, and the chance you get stiffed goes way up, especially for PPH bettors. I almost always regretted any big futures I put in and haven't put in a futures bet in years.
Anyway, that's a very brief overview of the general kinds of ways to beat sports. It isn't complete by any means and within each group, there are hundreds of different 'sub-genres' I would say. For instance, steam chasers might find a slow moving brick and mortar book in Las Vegas and actually just physically sit there all day waiting to bet on something moving. Others want to cover the entire market online. With capping, you have some guys that super specialize in one thing and just hammer that forever. Maybe a guy who kills baseball and takes the entire winter off. Or on the other end of the spectrum, you have guys that specialize in not specializing in anything and can do a little bit of everything 24/7, 365 days a year.
When I first started, the first thing I did was pick up all the low hanging fruit around me. And there was a lot. I had guys who took action over the phone and the trick there was to get them to send you their lines as early as possible. I'd have guys send me NFL lines at the beginning of the week and not change them! I had a guy dealing NHL totals at -110 a side when they should be -220 or worse. Guys would put the Patriots line at like a full two points worse than market. That kind of stuff got me going but as you would expect, dried up quick.
That was when I entered PPH land. I would get all these different accounts from local bookies and that was the start of me sort of developing my own 'style'. My style, I would say, was that I was definitely more of the jack of all trades, master of none kind. Instead of knowing what I wanted to bet on and finding accounts that match that, which would be totally fine by the way, I would try to get as many accounts as possible and see what they have to offer. Let the market come to me, so to speak.
Once I learned about market theory and how important beating the closing line is, I was mostly on the lookout for slow moving books or books where the bookie would manually adjust his lines. So I would be mostly just betting off-market straight bets. Then I started learning about props and added that to my arsenal. A big step forward came in my career when I learned about correlated parlays (CP's). Early on I got a couple different skins that had virtually no parlay restrictions, so I was hammering away at them. So so far we've got steam chasing/betting off market straights, doing 'off-market props' and then capping my own props, and now CP's. Oh and off market team totals, too.
Every year it seemed like I would stumble into something new. I eventually learned about Wong Teasers and added those to my arsenal. One year, I remember getting a book that had shockingly off-market second half NBA spreads. I think they were actually trying to do it themselves. They would literally be like 7 points off market. I had a big roll then and it was a huge account that I was max betting and crushing. I probably ran a little good, too. That was honestly like hitting the lottery for a while. Political betting was always in the background but I kicked that into high gear around 2016 and even moreso in 2020 when I started this bad boy.
I've also been working with one guy in particular pretty much from the start. And he has access to a group of books that for whatever reason, let you buy through the NFL 7 for only 10 cents. So anytime a game is lined at -6 to -8, I usually can buy through the 7 profitably. You combine that with Wong Teasers, and you have a deadly combination. (Or so you'd think, right? I can play Wongs at -110 which I know isnt great but it's still profitable. And I can even hedge with +EV plays. Yet I'm barely up with this combo over a solid couple of years. It's confusing).
At my zenith when I was really crushing and doing this full time, I did all of the above in some capacity. I was always looking for off market straights/steam chasing and arbs. Sometimes I would arb out completely, sometimes I'd go for a clean middle and sometimes I'd leave it naked. I was always looking for off market team totals which PPH's love offering for some reason (honestly, who else besides sharps is max betting team totals? Kind of surprising they even offer them sometimes). Then once I had my prop models that was another step up and a whole different challenge. You have to stay plugged in all the time to handicap successfully. This is, again, where I think you start getting into full time, career money stuff. And I'm always, always on the lookout for CP's. When I get a new accounts it's the first thing I check for.
So that's a pretty good rundown of the stuff I actually bet on. Just a quick little post, something I was thinking about the other day. Check back soon, I have a lot of crypto stuff and some book reviews. I've been reading some really good gambling books lately. I have an idea for a 'definitive list of gambling books' post that I think will be good.
Bye for now!
Poogs where you at, I miss you
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