Bitcoin Forum

Its amazing how many people think that its impossible to win in sports betting. Its true you cannot win in any casino games because they are all -ev games but sports betting is the only thing that you can use skill to turn it into +ev and in turn win. However, 99% of the bettors lose in sports betting. Some lose because they are horrible in picking games. But most lose even if they are good in picking games because they lack the discipline to manager the money and bankroll. If you can show little patience and composure, you can turn a small bankroll into a bankroll into a fortune.

The money management to use is the 3% max bet compounding strategy (http://www.bettingresource.com/sports-betting-money-management.html). You can read that money management in depth there but in short it is a 1 to 10 unit scale where the max bet (10 unit bet) is 3%. This means each unit is 0.3% of the bankroll. You will never bet more than 3% on any games (10 units). Basically after 1 betting day, you compound the winnings into the bankroll and adjust the unit size accordingly. If the day ends in loss, you maintain the same unit size until a new high in bankroll is reached, and then adjust the unit accordingly.  With this method you can double your bankroll pretty fast as long as your picking skills are half decent. Those guys double the bankroll on average about every 3 months. This means after 12 months you would have doubled the bankroll 4 times. So if you start with a 5k bankroll and use the compounding method, your bankroll would be 10k after 3 months, 20k after 6 months....80k after 12 months. You can check the picks in thisspreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15CSvrT3osJos4P-Fni102v5fvZqaqm8Q/edit#gid=644533306  The log section has all the picks, the dashboard shows the growth summary and the daily shows the daily ups and downs.

I am running two portfolios with those picks....one with $10k bankroll in pinnacle and the other with 2bitcoin bankroll in nitrogen. I am loving the bitcoin portfolio because its one of the best way to increase your bitcoin volume.

The strategy has some sense and it’s similar to what good poker players do: to move up the stakes when they win. But you are painting it too nice: what about downswings?


And what about ending some consecutive days with a loss? Don’t you need to adjust the size downwards? In a game where 99% of people lose you say that you only need half decent picking skills to have impressive gains.

Sorry, too good to be true.

It's like taking advantage of the compounding strategy in investing. Taking the accumulation of the invested amount then just taking it in periods in years or decades. It takes longer, but I think it is useful. It's like your savings that are on steroids. Only this time, it's just the principal balance and taking control of your money with management strategies that wouldn't allow you to bet more than 3% which is considerable. I haven't tried this strategy but I think it could work, and probably I would apply it soon in my betting.

It will only work if you are able to pick correctly to beat the odds and the rake, and you will inevitable have downswings, which is something OP hasn’t addressed. In poker, downswings make you go down the stakes, and those who don’t do so end up bankrupt.

I agree that It would only work like that. Beating the odds is not easy,  but it is doable.i haven't thought of that part, but at least there is something. Proper management would be the best thing and not getting bankrupt. I haven't thought of it when you are playing poker, but I guess it's also applicable. Hopefully, the OP would address that because of the possibility of having a losing streak.

Yes, downswings happen but this model addresses that. Usually many fall to big downswing because they do not have the patience or discipline to go navigate losing bets. The same thing also goes when they win--they get greedy and they want more of it and instead of waiting for the right bets, they will push bets to win more. Both winning and losing can accelerate someones downswings because of human psychology.

This model addresses downswings. This model sets the max bet on any given wager at 3%, which would be a 10 unit bet. So if you have a $100 bankroll, the max bet you would make is is $3 (this is a 10 unti bet). And a 1 unit bet would be $0.30.   In order for you to go bankrupt, you will need to go on a 333.33 unit downswing. If you are doing only max bets, that translates to losing more than 33 bets in a row. Yes, its possible to have such big downswing if you are terrible at picking games but if one is that terrible, they shouldn't venture into sports betting.

3% compounding is what they use with their picks because they tested it for over 10 years and it worked.  But if you are really good capper you can increase that up to 5% but in those cases you have to be supercareful with the picks because 5% max bet means, 200 unit downswing instead of 333.33 unit downswing to bankrupt.  And if you want to be extra conservative, you can set the max bet to 2% and in this case you would need a 500 unit downswing to go bankrcupt.

Bettingresouce, recommends 3% for those who follow their picks because they tested their model and their picks for over 10 years. But my advise is that higher you bankroll, the more conservative you should be. For example, if you are bankroll is very small, like $1000 or less, its probably good to start with 5% max bet. Then drop to 4% once you double your bankroll to $2000, then to 3% once you grow to $4k. Then stick at 3% until your bankroll reaches $25k or so then drop it to 2.5% or 2% if you want to play it safe with the big bank.

Since I started following this model, i have seen a big difference in my betting results. I didn't realize how much i was losing with my picks before because of not following a steady money management strategy. Right now I am running multiple portfolios with this model. 1 bankroll to follow my own picks and finally i am not losing--i am not winning big either because I am not that great at picks, however, small gain is better than having to deposit to the book every 2 weeks like i did in the past. My picking knowledge is limited to tennis and american football.

I am also running a another porfolio with dedicated bankroll to bettingresource picks, and that one is going great as you can see from the spreadsheets. I like them because they have bets almost every day since they do all sports and this helps grow the bankroll fast. I am actually running two bankroll to follow their picks with that strategy. One with actual fiat currency and the other with bitcoin bankroll in a bitcoin sportsbook. IN my experience this is one of the best method to increase your bitcoin volume. What sucks is that since i started the bitcoin bankroll with the picks, that portfolio almost doubled since i started this summer, but the value of bitcoin has gone down a bit. But i am sure bitcoin will climb back up and I can reap the profits. The great thing about this model is that the growth is exponential as time goes on, especially when you start with a small bankroll. For example, when you start with $2500, you spend about 3 months to double the bankroll to $5k and its just $5k. But in the next 3 months its up to $10k which is a much bigger growth than your original growth in the 1st 3 months. By the time 12 months finishes, its $40k and so on.

But yea, i wouldn't try this system if you are really bad at picking games or following a capper that is clueless. Even though 3% is somewhat conservative and can accomodate a 333.33 unti downswing, you still need to be decent handicapping games and playing value bets.

Downswings are more as a result of human psychology...not being able to control emotions rather than being bad at picking games or playing poker. Bad sports bettors and poker players are going to lose regardless of how conservative they play with money management.

However, there are good players and bettors who fall victim to downswing. This is mainly because in both sports betting and poker, you have to maintain your emotions the entire time--doesn't matter if you are winning or losing. But most are human and they will fall victim to the emotion--when they win, sometimes they would get greedy cocking and over bet--when they lose sometimes they would try to win back what they lost the same day or with in the next few days by pushing bets that they normall wouldn't do. Even to an experienced bettor who is good with discipline it can happen at any moment--all it takes is a small pitfall and things can go out of hand. You will have to be like a robot through out and you have to stick to the working principles.

This is the reason why i am running seperate portfolios. The portfolio where i follow my own picks, i started with smaller bankroll. The portfolios where i am following bettingresource picks are much bigger. For the bettingresource picks, my emotions won't play a part because I am blindly following their picks like a robot using the model.
The portfolio that i follow with my own picks, i am trying my best to stick to the plan but i know at one point the winnings/or losing can affect my decisions on how many games i bet. I have seen my self in positions where i would bet games that i wouldn't normally bet after losing a bet....i.e. chasing. But i have been better since i started implementing this model.

Strategies like this do not work in the long run, this is just a modified version of the martingale strategy, you will eventually lose when you have an unlucky streak and you no longer have the funds to cover the next betting round. Just because you got an extremely lucky streak and managed to survive this long, doesn't mean your strategy is viable for everybody, this is known as the confirmation bias, and you suffer from it.

Martingale strategy is a chase strategy where the bettor increases the stake after each loss, so that the first win would recover all previous losses plus win a profit equal to the original stake. That strategy will make you go broke faster than you can blink in any form of gambling.

This 3% compounding strategy is NOT modified martingale strategy. It is a modified Kelly Criterion strategy. The stake in this strategy increases only if you win because the winnings are re-invested. If you lose, the stake doesn't increase. This is the exact opposite of martingale strategy. However, if you read the full article, you would see that this strategy is recommended only for a temporary period for those who start with smaller bankroll and want to grow the bankroll to a desired bankroll. Once that desired bankroll is reached, the winnings are treated as earning and withdrawn instead of re-investing. If you want to bet with $100k bankroll and have $10,000 you would apply this strategy to start. After about 3 months your bankroll would reach 20k then in another 3 months 40k, then 80k and in about 11 months you would reach 100k. At that point you don't compound the winnings anymore. Once you reach the $100k bankroll, you would simply bet $300/unit or max bet of $3000 and this bet size would be fixed regardless of how much you gain after the 100k.

This is truly a reversed martingale yet this isn't adding up bet on lose but rather on win. Actually my first time to see a compounding based strategy which do adds up on win which is unusual and not being used by most gamblers either on casino based games or into sports betting. Targeting out $100k bankroll on just having $10k usd wont really be that easy and it do takes time.There would be still lots of factors that would affect you along the way while you play which means theres no assurance to really have that kind of discipline on maintaining bet size if you do see opportunity.

Most people are going to lose sports bets because their interest goes alongside bias and personal interest where as a winning strategy would be to remain neutral to either possibility in a game and even more so recognise the occurrence of good odds vs the circumstances of the game.   I guess people dont judge all that while staying neutral.
There is a cost put into sports bets though, its not free or anything but I get some people will far prefer the open nature to the games rather then the set old style casino bets.   Theres going to be some who do better with a fixed game then sports bets which vary far more and I think are harder to judge

Again, this is a modified kelly criterion, not reverse martingale. Martingale is a dangers strategy that can bust your bankroll very fast. This is no where close to martingale.

And when you say casino games, if you mean all other games other than poker and sport betting then there is no way to beat those games with any strategy or skill long term because those games are -ev and works against the player. You cannot use those casino games as a method to make a living. If someone is claiming they are, then they are lying.

Sports betting  and poker are the the only games you can beat with skill. And if you are skilled enough the compounding strategy works very well. In order to be +ev you have to be skilled enough to win long term. If you dont have the skill then poker and sports betting are also -ev for you.

Even if you are half decent at picking games and have good discipline and self control, this method is golden.

This is true, most people let emotion get in the way. They may hold it together for a week, month or year and the emotion can strike anytime and affect the discipline patiently betting only when you find value.

This is why I always run multiple portfolios with dedicated bankroll to each portfolio.

For example, I have portfolio/bankroll dedicated for my own picks. Another dedicated to following bettingresource picks. And another dedicated to following picks from internet (if i find someone posting it with good reasoning and if i like it too).  All portfolios have their dedicated bankroll. Its a good way to do it because I don't trust myself to pick without emotions all the time...i will slip here and there and chase. But i have been lot better ever since i started implementing this method to my picks.

You don't have to keep compounding for ever. If you start with 5k bankroll or 1 bitcoin you can be close to 100k after 1 year and after that you can stop compounding or change the max bet to 2% or 1%. Its a great method for people starting with bankroll of $10k and under. I know many guys who deposit $500 every two weeks into the bookie and lose it all with in 2 weeks to repeat the same process. If they do this method with the $500 would last months even if they are bad cappers and if they are half decent at picking games, they would never have to deposit again and the growth is exponential. Problem with small bankroll bettors is that they don't have patience to bet small amount but if they do it patiently the growth is exponential with each double up.

It really sounds like a very good strategy but you made it sound so simple. What happens when there is loss which is inevitable anyway and for sure, even though you really need strategy to always play and know how to analyze the sport of your choice, it is still centered on luck.

The money management thing though sounds reasonable with the whole compounding thing, but sometimes, when it comes to gambling and I see things like this, I feel we just make it sound so simple in the books and when you apply them basically in real life you tend to see something different. Well, if you said it has worked for you, then I would say you must really be good in analyzing sports then.

Well, reversed martingale or whatsoever kind of strategy would be I do get those points you have mentioned.If these being applied on Sports and poker games with proper risk management and discipline then this might work but to think that there would be no assurance just like on what you have exampled above on setting out a particular goal which is too high out of those small capital.It takes time for sure but one thing is important that we should never ever believe on unicorns. ;D / guaranteed win,profits.

I really think one can get a profit regarding Sportsbet and poker because of this two you can certainly apply strategy and analysis in these certain platforms, I really think you can do a consecutive win if you had the pieces of information regarding in sports bets, And naturally your skills will work out in a poker match, But even if you already know what you are certainly doing in each game there are still risk involved so have cautious about still losing.

Well just leave him be, I have been in this forum for quite along time already and I have seen countless of similar thread. Alot people in the past claimed that they will be able to compound their winning and keep doing so until they are rich but guess where they are now? GONE

Exactly what I was thinking and when I see things sound so cool and look good like this, most especially when it comes to betting, I really tend to question it a lot. The OP obviously did not factor in the possibility of picking correctly just as you have said, and in that case, where you are having a long streak of losses, it still would just be the norm where 99% of betters will still lose no matter how they compound and manage their funds, unless luck shines on you most of the time. Where is the possibility of even losing hugely before you even started ?

great job mate , I really hope to see more threads like this in the gambling section since it's now full of people spamming and tipsters who just tip without even recording how much they are up or down
I'm running a similar thread where I only invest in value tipsters and play their plays , so hope we can together profit and prove that it's actually possible to win from sportsbetting

you mentioned that you use pinnacle for fiat and nitrogen for bitcoin , so why you don't use bitcoinrush for bitcoin where the odds are better than nitrogen and you get daily betbacks ?

I can't believe some of the replies here. Of course that strategy is not going to get anyone rich. You still need the main skill of sports handicapping just like you need poker skills. What i am saying is that if you have the skill to pick games, this strategy is one of the best to rapidly grow your bankroll, especially if you are starting with smaller bankroll. You will not become a billionaire from this strategy because you won't be able to keep compounding. Even to make million a year it would be hard or not possible dependign on where you are because you cannot keep compounding for ever since most books will start limiting you or the lines will start moving to get the value out of the line. But if you are good at picking games, this strategy can get your bankroll to 100k to 250k and around that point, depending on where you are from you won't be able to compound the winnings due to betting restrictions or limits by sportsbooks. So when you reach that 100k to 250k, and play with that bankroll without compounding, you can make withdraw the winnings and treat it as income. Sure there will be losses but thats part of all investing--ups and down. This strategy is conservative enough to navigate the downs and come up in top if you are decent handicapper--it has been working for me very well.

Bettingresource's picks and their strategy have been around for a while now and some books like bet365, bovada etc have already taken measure. IF you deposit a small bankroll (say $2500 to $5000) and strictly follow bettingresource's picks with their money management, these books will limit you fast. They will limit you so fast that they won't even let the bankroll grow to $15k. And if you start with a bigger bankroll, they would limit you even fast, before you double the bankroll. This happens only if you use the betting account to strictly bet bettingresource picks. If you bet their picks and bet your own picks, the limitation may not happen as fast or may not happen at all if your other bettings are causing you to lose more money than what you are winning with bettingresource picks.

Perhaps the bad replies owe something to the thread title, might be clearer to just focus on the compounding strategy, which to be clear, has many similarities to career gambling with poker players.

I recently tried to structure my sports gambling (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5011930.msg45221358#msg45221358) as well, and agree that the most important is to be patient and disciplined. I'm perhaps even more conservative, waiting for bankroll to go 20% before increasing units value by 10%. So it will be a slower compounding, but since I'm learning and experimenting, as well as noting the limits, I can still bet for a long time before reaching those limits.

Note, bankroll was only $600 or so, I will consider the experiment a huge, huge success if I could double that in a year.

SyGambler has a valid point as well with Bitcoinrush. Lowest margins on pinnacle. My series of only 30 plus bets already show unit advantages over Nitro well over 100... Similarly, compounding fractions of margin amd, therefore, profit advantages add up!

Compounding interest can be a beautiful thing. How often do you project interest to compound to hit $80k? Have you tried something like this, before? What were your results?

One point to consider is interest will never truly compound due to betting limits. At a certain point 3% of your bankroll will become greater than maximum bet limits offered by bookies. Offhand people will probably think that $5,000 to $80,000 on 3% compounding interest is unworkable under real world conditions and they would be correct to think so due to limitations inherent in bet limits, etc.


I would be curious to know your current ROI % (return on investment).

In the past, the highest I achieved gambling on sports was 16 times my initial bankroll. I got overconfident, lost discipline and went *all in* on what turned out to be a losing call. Earnings and profiteering potential are so great it can be intoxicating. There could be a correlation between big wins and big losses. lol

It's only my first time properly recording performance, using a structured betting approach. In the past, I have made many more times bankroll on tournaments but with risky all in bets using enhanced odds, but probably breaking even when pitted against the losses on regular betting throughout football season.

In the thread I link above, I don't specify so i will edit OP but I only bet 1% of bankroll on every new wager, once a day on average, expressed in units. This 1% will only be adjusted once bankroll is at a certain profit level. Currently, after almost 40 consecutive days, the bankroll is over 10% in profit. Compounding at the same performance level should take me to doubling bankroll in under a year.

Conversely, if I don't do well, I would lose half that in the same time, if my performance deteriorates by about 40%. I didn't make the exact calculations but that wasn't the entire point of my tracking... The point was to illustrate long term gains from choosing a bookie with lower margins.

Incredibly I don't think that way.I just thought how a day can get 2x Multiply from my bankroll sounds crazy indeed cause lust and not the patience that is in me makes me greedy,but after seeing your strategy method I might apply it cause there is an old saying of patience is the essence of luck.

It is very interesting at least to me that the system that gamblers use to protect and manage their money is very similar to the systems that traders use in order to achieve the same results, for example when you are trading your stop loss, which is basically the amount of money that you can accept to lose in each trade, it cannot be bigger than 2% of your capital, you can choose a more conservative approach but 2% is the max that you can risk in each trade.

If you have a system that allows you to earn money out of your trades you can endure a lot of consecutive losses without losing too much of your capital and eventually when the good days come again your bankroll is going to recover very quickly.

The thing is most sports bettors don't use this kind of method, that is why they lose. I am trying to say that this method works. And like in stocks, in sports betting you have to run multiple portfolios for each tipster you follow and for your own picks. By running multiple portfolios with dedicated bankroll, if one sucks, it wont affect the other. So far the best tips i have seen are from bettingresource's and i use their picks for my biggest portfolio.

This happens with trading as well, I have seen people in different markets earning great profits in the first months of their careers because they take huge risks, but the risk of ruing is incredibly high since they are taking huge risks like risking 25% of their account in each trade, which to me is completely crazy because they only need to lose four times in a row to lose all their capital, they do not seem to realize that once you have a way to beat the markets then the most important step is to have great money management skills.

I have always thought that in order to become successful as a trader even a winning system is not really that necessary, in average a person should win about half of his trades if he picked randomly the point of entry, so if that person has good money management skills it could still turn a profit.