We now have an understanding of the types of things to bet on, where to bet on them, and how to determine how much we need to risk when betting on these things, but what can we expect to earn over time? The “brass tacks” as they say. A realistic ROI (return on investment) on props over the long term is safely in the 4-7% range, with certain sports being softer than others. Also, sports like the NBA and MLB have a lot more games meaning a higher volume than the weekly sport of NFL. For every $100 dollars you bet over time, an above-average sports bettor can grind out $4-7. The added advantage of sports betting vs. investing in long-term stocks and commodities is that your realization for each investment is much quicker, less than 24 hours for daily sports like MLB and NBA. It’s like day trading every day with an edge. Because of this, your investment is constantly being recycled and compounded every cycle, allowing your 4-7% ROI to result from your total investment over a season. Instead of trying to predict when to get on and off the same ride in the stock market, you get to bet on the full ride of each event that completes each day. Day after day after day.
It’s at this point we must talk about the dark cloud that hovers over the sports betting space, with no clearing in sight (though much optimism in the future remains). Like with most things, sports betting has a wart. In our case, it is “limits.” Limits on your account refer to the amount of money the sportsbook is willing to take on a given event. You would think that this would be universal for everyone, but unfortunately for us, sportsbooks currently have the ability to change the amount of money they are willing to take from each individual account, lowering that dollar amount for those accounts they consider sharp while accepting higher wages from accounts they believe will lose money over the long run. In short, if you make smart bets and win money, the amount the sportsbooks are willing to accept from you will go down over time. Currently, there is no way to know exactly how the sports books decide to limit accounts (though we have our suspicions), which makes it difficult to outline exactly the proper course to sail to avoid being held to a lower wager amount than you would like.
These limits vary from site to site, and from account to account, with some sites limiting to singular dollars (BetMGM), while sites like FanDuel usually allow triple-digit wagers to all but the most locked down accounts. In the current ecosystem, Caesars is the only common sports book to have limits in the four digits and beyond to sharp bettors, choosing to accept sharp action and move lines more quickly and drastically. In general, we consider Caesars to have some of the sharpest odds while accepting large action, while odds on MGM will lag behind the market’s movement but accept only small dollar value bets. This is currently the biggest speed bump to long-term profitability in the sports betting market. It is something creative sports bettors are exploring to work around constantly.
Our props package will help educate you on how to avoid being limited, but if you’re successful, at some point limits are a fact of life. So, we will also teach you how you can work around it once you do get limited on different books. Limits are a fact of life in the betting world, but there are ways to both reduce the likelihood of being limited (or delay it), as well as maneuver around limits to still get money down.
