I’m younger than most of my degenerate friends. My first fantasy league was with them back in my first year of high school through one of their younger brothers that I played football with. For a couple of years, it was all good, I could hold my own in any trade talks or conversation despite the age difference. I’d see them frequently at parties hosted by the aforementioned brother’s house since they had a pool. But as they became of legal gambling age and started playing pro lines and betting on offshore sports betting sites, it was like they started speaking a completely different language to what I was used to.
I feel like we’re starting to get into that same kind of shift as we roll into the 2023 season, especially here in the Great White North, with it being impossible to watch any sporting event without being inundated with DraftKings, Caesars, FanDuel, MGM, or whatever new “Bet” name they can think of next. They are throwing commercials and promotions at us every break – looking at you Bet365, PointsBet, BetRivers, Bet99, Betano, UniBet, and Betway. It seems like every few weeks there is a new, bought, sold, or shut down sportsbook as we are undoubtedly in a formative time in the betting ecosystem.
With uncertainty and variance comes opportunities for those who work hard, consistently learn, and get creative in ways to overcome obstacles along the way. The Sports Betting industry is certainly not for everyone, with every single sports bettor having a laundry list of bad beats to their name. But, equipped with the right knowledge, and more importantly, the mindset needed to survive long term, there is certainly an argument to be made that the best sports game in town for 2023 and beyond is within the props streets of sports like NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA, NHL, and Tennis.
The best thing about sports betting? Well, besides the money? We can all win together at the same time. We don’t have to work together in Discord to brainstorm a way for just a single one of us to get to the top of the leaderboard, but instead, we work together to find information, news, and mistakes among the sportsbooks for us all to prosper at the same time. We all love the feeling when one of our fam is in a position to sweat the final few minutes in the fourth quarter from atop of the leaderboard, but the thrill of 300+, the whole family, sweating the final foul shots or fourth down to claim victory is a next level thrill and environment that you must witness for yourself.
But, how do you do that when you don’t know what a parlay is? Why do some numbers have a minus before them? Does a walk count as a total base? In this Sports Betting beginner course, I’ll run through some of the talking points that I get asked when people find out I bet sports for profit as my main source of income. I will also discuss how I manage my bankroll to safely do so.
The first question I get when someone finds out I bet on sports? Who is going to win the championship? Every single time. That’s not what we do here at OWS, and that’s not what our betting product is meant for. At least not the meat and potatoes. The overwhelming majority of the OWS Props package is, well, props. A prop is a singular event within the game itself, a micro-level event that we believe we understand the frequency or likelihood better than the book we are attacking.
Below is an example of a bet you can expect in some of the major sports.
NFL: Patrick Mahomes OVER 291.5 Passing Yards.
NBA: Jason Tatum OVER 9.5 Rebounds
MLB: Max Scherzer UNDER 7.5 Strike Outs
NHL: Connor McDavid UNDER 4.5 Shots on Goal
You’ll notice in the above example that we’re looking at an individual player and individual stat, and simply deciding if we think the player is more likely to go over or under the number listed. In the Patrick Mahomes example, we are betting that he will throw OVER (or more) than the listed 291.5 yards, which would be accomplished if Mahomes ended the game with 292 yards or more. If Mahomes finished the game with 291 yards or less, we would lose the bet. In the Max Scherzer example, where we bet UNDER (or less than) 7.5 strikeouts, we would win the bet if Scherzer ended the game with 7 strikeouts or less. If Mad Max strikes out 8 or more players in the game, a “unit” is lost.
