Unlucky? How to get better at EV betting

1/2

Been EV betting for 4 days now and I can’t seem to profit. Im searching for great odds, If there isn’t a big discrepancy/a lot of EV between the sharp Sportsbook I won’t bet it. My bankroll is $1000 and my Kelly is 0.3, I made around $90 in arbitrage betting so in reality I’m well down $150+ in just 4 days. I try to stick to 3% - 8% EV with my min odds at -220 and max odds at +180. What am I doing wrong should I stick to $5-$10 bets? Not too worried about the losses since I will cash out some sign up bonuses, but I want to be better at EV betting.

Second picture has an example of some of the bets I placed today.

in algobettingby Vreoz

62%

12d

afterbirth_slime

12d

lol… 4 days? A few things:

1) how many bets have you made? Your sample size is probably not great at this point. There will be swings EV betting as well, just have to ride the wave.

2) this is arguably the worst time of year to bet. Very little in the way of major market sports. The Euro and Copa are hard because you are betting on games where variance is large due to a relatively small sample of games for each team. Baseball is a bitch at the best of times. EV betting thrives on days when there are tons of major market games (NFL, NHL, NBA, etc) offering a large attack surface that the books can’t keep up with.

3) how are you finding your +EV bets? Are you 100% certain they are +EV?

It’s probably a combination of these 3 factors, but if you keep Kelly staking and are truly betting +EV plays, you can ride this out and will likely be more prosperous in the fall when the major market sports fire back up.

AntonGw1p

12d

Unless you placed like 2000 bets in 4 days I wouldn’t even think about it.

masterOfdisaster4789

12d

Just cause it looks spicy, doesn’t mean it’s spicy

Disastrous-Radish660

12d

Just negative variance. Sharpen up your betting criteria if you want to avoid the negative variancr as often but in the long run you will profit. It’s just the law of large numbers and as of right now you only have a sample size of 4 days worth of bets which is not a lot. Trust the math it will come around eventually

DueNecessary2507

12d

Likely just variance. The enemy of variance is volume. It sucks when you’re cold but just keep banging out bets, I try for 50+ a day at a minimum.

This is assuming you have correctly identified fair values & are truly finding an edge, though. I haven’t used odds jam but I know of a lot who do and do great. I don’t know if OJ automatically gives you a sharp for every market. Guessing it’s comparing these b365 lines to pinnacle? More niche markets like soccer player props might be less confident lines on sharp books so it might be worth upping the minimum EV threshold. I usually do 5% or more on any player prop in general.

Also, how much is Oddsjam? I just assumed it was expensive as hell but you’re spending for it on a $1k bankroll (I’ve been too cheap to do it and my BR is around $40k now). It might be better to look into discords as a cheaper alternative until you build up your bankroll.

Vreoz

11d

Thank you!

Currently I’m using the free trial for OddsJam but yes it’s very expensive. I tried a trial for a discord that is focused toward EV betting and its a lot cheaper and basically gives out the same calls with its bot

afterbirth_slime

11d

Also, make sure you are using Kelly staking to help maximize profit and minimize losses through the downswings

Gold-Order-4267

11d

Take a day or two to watch all the tutorials and read the educational info on oddsjams site. I have been personally using them for a few years on and off. I will tell you, the one thing i found out is if you want to make money youre going to have to put some money up.

And they even tell you that in the tutorials that the recommended bankroll size is 3k. I was trying to do it with a few hundred and couldnt make any progress. So i said fuck it and tossed a couple grand more into for my bankroll in October 2023. At that point i was down 6k for the year. Profited 14k in November and finished the year off up $16k

Edit to add: I probably should mention that by doing this i fucked myself and got limited at a few of my more profitable books so dont over do it. And then obviously ive had a handful of months in the red in 2024 , due to the variance others have mentioned. +EV betting you are going to have alot of ups and downs. The whole strategy is long term. You have to get out of the habit of judging your success based on individual bets or one day worth of bets or even weeks/months

canyonero7

11d

Avoiding getting limited is tough. I ran into the same issues & sought some advice that I'll share here.

Don't repeatedly pound the same stuff at the same book. I got limited for betting exclusively two particular baseball stat props at one book & if was the only thing I bet on there. Now I mix in a few parlays & some straight bets on other sports so the baseball plays draw less attention.

50+ prop bets/day at a single book is going to get some attention unless your bets are quite small (say <$10 each). Especially in thin markets.

Maintaining accounts/avoiding bans is the most important thing in the world to pro bettors. They're willing to leak significant EV to avoid getting banned because if you can't keep any accounts open, you can't make any money. Also learn who will take a bet. I never worry about Caesars/MGM/BetOnline banning me. I put significant effort into avoiding bans from DK, ESPNBet, etc. Of the legal apps outside of Caesars/MGM, FanDuel seems to be the one that gives the longest leash for whatever that's worth to you.

Gold-Order-4267

10d

I also started incorporating similar strategies, and something i found by trial and error after being limited significantly at hardrock. Even though they limited my single player prop wagers, i could still bet +EV bets as round robins (3x2’s) and get a lot closer to my usual wager sizes that way. I was really successful doing this at B365 also. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and i wish i knew these things prior to losing a handful of my most valuable books. Also very interesting that you say you are able to have more freedom at mgm…they have me severely limited and i might even be a little in the red overall with them?? And I’m in the green with DK and they’ve never limited me at all (🤞🏻). And i agree with your FD assessment , they have limited a couple of individual wagers but minuscule and insignificant in relation to the amount of money/bets I’ve placed over the years

canyonero7

Betting R/Rs or any other parlay will make most books loosen your limits because they're the most profitable category for the books.

DK has nerfed most of my promos down to $5 (I compare what I get offered with a friend who is a very square bettor) but they still take $$$. But I no longer get odds boosts that are usable on straight bets. I guess that's what happens when you max bet underdog ML every time (to arb at another book) 🤣

Side note - I'm dying to talk to someone who works in risk mgmt at DK or FD just to better understand how they think about it but haven't been able to find anyone yet.

Gold-Order-4267

Same on the promos for me. Hardrock actually sent me an email telling me i was banned from promos and i had not even used one promo from them EVER. Also have wanted to talk to some employees. I know they are lurking around reddit on these subs. Still baffled at mgm tgat im limited there even though im in the red overall. So i asked them and they tried to tell me they didnt see any limits placed on my account. Yea right smh

canyonero7

They may just have very low limits across the board for certain bets. What kind of bet & how low was it? Might based on the total handle of the bet & how one-sided their action is vs something specific to you.

That's why I'd like to talk to the risk people. There's no visibility into what happens and why.

Vreoz

11d

Thank you very much, I think volume was my issue along with some bad luck!!! I got home today and made a ton of volume bets and I’m up almost $100 on the day

HPM2009

11d

Damn man how the hell you get a 40k bankroll. I just started betting 4 months ago and I can’t even get to 1000 lol

DueNecessary2507

10d

Hello! This took a little under a year of +EV betting with maybe $5k-$7k ish starting bankroll. Lots of lessons along the way. I honestly never even made that much until 2 months ago at about $25k bankroll I switched to $100 units. Still at $100 units but upping that next month

Keep going, keep learning and adjusting, and scale accordingly.

EDIT: to answer the question a little more literally, biggest winnings have come from playing boosts smartly and learning to live bet baseball

Lord-Gufano

11d

What app is this?

Vreoz

11d

Oddsjam