If you’ve heard hardy bettors talking about their betting model, you may be feeling a bit left out in the cold, or envious of their superior knowledge and strategy. Indeed if you’re a serious and regular sports betting enthusiast, it’s well worth developing your own, so you have a reliable, homegrown method.
But first you must ask yourself a couple of important questions: why are you doing it and what are you doing it for? This is the first step in working out how to build a sports betting model that works for you.
Focus In
You can’t be a master of everything straightaway, so pick a sport and a league, championship, cup or whatever it is you’re focussing on and the wager in question.
This may be as simple as who wins, or it could go into the nitty-gritty of details like the player to score the most goals. It has to be something that’s not yet in progress, in order to give you the best possible opportunities to examine the facts, before coming up with your results.
You might be tempted to go for an obscure betting market, but this can be a false economy. While the returns may seem good, the amount of time you devote to the model, versus the opportunities to collect relevant data and then actually use the model to wager, will be much more limited. Plus events may be less frequent, meaning the data you use to form your assumptions will not be as recent.
So keep it mainstream and invest time into something that’ll provide ample bets in the longer run. Once you’ve established your market, it’s time to start compiling some data ready for analysis.
Compile a Sports Betting Spreadsheet
To predict what will happen in the future, it figures that you need to look at what has happened in the past, as well as what’s happening now. So this is the time to become a whizz – or at least proficient – in Excel, or Google Sheets. It’s not too arduous, just a case of logging everything relevant to your chosen “problem” (the problem = the question the selected wager creates, such as who will win, or who will score the most goals).
Never delete or throw anything away. Even if parts of the data you’ve collected seem useless or time specific, keep it for reference. Everything can be relevant in the right set of circumstances and checking back is really important, even if (and in some cases especially if) something goes wrong in your mode or the predictions are all off. Stats aren’t the most exciting thing, but the more you create and the more numbers you crunch, the better you’ll get at getting it right.
Now it’s time for some maths – and the real reason it was so important to stick at the subject at school.
Understanding Betting Algorithms
An algorithm is basically a set of rules you follow to find the answer to a problem. So an algorithm for sports betting is a process that works out the assumed result of a wager, looking at all the probable outcomes.
This can go pretty in depth, so in order to take it from a starting perspective, let’s make things as simple as possible. The key to creating your algorithm is in getting to grips with probability theory. Sadly, that can’t be summarised in a few short paragraphs, so spend some time online or with your head in a textbook to learn about it.
If you’re a computer programmer or software genius, you’re in more than luck, because you can build a digital system to do the work for you. Or you can buy a programme that does it for you, such as Z-Code, Prediqtor and Bet Labs. After some time spent using this will get you into the swing of which algorithms prove profitable – which ones to keep and which to dump.
If you do want to build your own, it’s worth starting with these, to get a better understanding of the algorithms first (unless you’re very good at maths indeed). These are unlikely to make you a fortune, as the best secrets are well kept, but they do give you a starter for ten.
Test, Test, Test
Before you get really excited and go throwing loads of cash at your new model-based wagers, test it out. Models and algorithms are scientific processes, and you need to be factual and scientific in your approach. Do many dummy runs and work out whether it’s really working for you, then continue your testing. But start small, so you don’t risk too much.
We’re not going to tell you that it’s going to be easy, we’re not into false expectations (and nor should you be with your wagers), but we will tell you that it’s going to be worth it. Put in the effort and you’ll reap the rewards. Before you know it, all your mates will be coming to you for tips. Just don’t give all your secrets away.
