Has anyone here actually made money betting... | Betzonic

Question

so ive been betting nfl and cbb for like 3 years now, mostly small stuff, 25-50 a game. i track everything in a spreadsheet and im down about $1,400 total which honestly isnt terrible but its 3 years of my life lol. every time im up a few hundred i give it back within a month. i keep seeing dudes on twitter posting 60% win rates and im starting to think everyone lying. does anyone here actually have multiple years of records where theyre green?
EDIT: ok wow didnt expect this many replies. reading all of them, thanks. spreadsheet stays open

quietgrinder44 · Accepted Answer

i'm up over 4 years but it's not the fun kind of profit. like +$6,200 total on about 3800 bets, so roughly 2.8% ROI. nothing like what twitter guys claim. and honestly a big chunk of that came from line shopping not from being smart about picks. i keep accounts at like 5 books plus My Bookie and the difference between -110 and -105 on the same side compounds harder than anything else i do. also i limit my nfl to totals only because that's the one market i actually have a read on, everything else i was just donating. the boring answer is you probably don't have an edge on sides at standard juice, almost nobody does. track your CLV instead of your win rate, if you're consistently beating closing line you'll be fine eventually, if you're not then no amount of variance talk saves you.

tossedaway_71 · Answer

can confirm the line shopping thing. i was betting one book for years cause it was easy and when i finally opened 4 accounts my "win rate" didn't change at all but my p/l went from -300ish a year to basically break even. same picks. that alone was like 3 points of vig i was donating. wish someone had smacked me about this in 2019

dana_reads · Answer

wait what exactly is CLV? i see it everywhere in these threads and i've been nodding along like i know lol

quietgrinder44 · Answer

closing line value. basically you bet Chiefs -3 at -110 on tuesday, by kickoff the market moves to -3.5 -115. you got a better number than the final market price so that's positive CLV. the closing line is the sharpest number available because all the money has come in, so if you consistently beat it you're theoretically finding value before the market does. it's a way better signal than win rate over small samples because win rate is like 90% noise until you have thousands of bets. i log the closing number on every single bet, takes 10 seconds

BrianK_88 · Answer

fwiw the actual research on this is pretty grim. i remember reading a study out of australia that tracked real bettor accounts and something like 1-3% were profitable over a multi year window, and most of those were arbing or bonus hunting not picking winners. the sportsbooks also just limit you once you show any edge which is the part nobody talks about. my buddy got his max bet cut to $12 on DraftKings after a decent NBA run. so even if you're good you get a stopwatch on you

onlyplayparlays · Answer

3 years and only down 1400 is honestly better than 95% of people. the average recreational bettor is losing way more than that per year

skeptical_sal · Answer

idk man, i see the CLV stuff repeated in every one of these threads like scripture but i've never seen anyone post actual verified records. everyone "knows a guy" or is "up 3%" with no receipts. and the guys with real records seem to spend 20 hrs a week for a return that's worse than just leaving the money in an index fund. what am i missing here

quietgrinder44 · Answer

you're not really missing anything, that's a fair hit. i'm not claiming it's a good hourly rate, it isn't. it's a hobby that pays for itself instead of costing me. the reason people don't post records is partly because the books read these forums and partly because the format is easy to fake anyway so what's the point. the CLV thing isn't scripture it's just the only feedback loop that gives you signal in under a year. and yeah if you told me to choose between betting and VOO i'd say VOO, but i'm gonna watch the sunday games regardless

marcus_h_ · Answer

something people skip: taxes. in the US every winning bet is income and if you take the standard deduction you can't offset with losses. i had a year where i was up like $900 net and got a W-2G for a big parlay hit, ended up owing on gross winnings that were way higher than my actual profit. so the bar for "profitable" is higher than your spreadsheet says it is. talk to someone who knows this stuff before you scale up

twelvefootpole · Answer

same boat as top comment, up modestly over 5 yrs. only markets i've held any edge in are college totals and some weird lower division soccer stuff where the books just don't care enough to sharpen the number. NFL sides is a completely picked over market, you're basically playing against goldman sachs with a fanduel account. moment i stopped touching primetime NFL spreads my numbers got better. and yeah i've been limited at two books already, that part is real and it comes for everyone

Has anyone here actually made money betting long term or is it all cope

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