What’s required to lift our betting from a casual pursuit to the professional level? Could education be enough? Do you need a hefty budget in order to make sports betting lucrative? Are you made up to be a full time sports bettor? Here’s everything you need to know about becoming a professional punter!

Gambling has become incredibly popular in the last decade and now that most of the betting is done online, anyone who meets the minimum age can simply wager from the comfort of their home: sports betting, casino games, virtual games, poker, lottery and whatnot. Although gambling can be a dangerous passion to have, there some guys who wager on sports regularly that don’t like to be called that way.

They are the pros: they’re investing, not gambling, because their results depend on skill and not luck. But that’s not something that can be achieved very easily. In fact, it’s hard work and the downside is that you’ll never be sure of anything while doing it: you can’t be sure that what worked today will work tomorrow.

You can learn how to bet like a pro

Although you can actually get a degree in gambling, only a few of those who make a living from sports betting have ever used anything other than online betting guides to learn the tricks of the trade.

Everything starts with learning the basics, such as understanding how odds work, why odds change, what Asian Handicaps are, how to place a cover bet (manual cash out), how to manage your bankroll and stake and then with the more advanced topics: how to develop a match analysis model, understanding Back and Lay on Betting Exchange, how to avoid having your online betting account limited, value betting, specialisation and more.

This kind of information can be learned from a handful of free resources; for instance this 2018 updated online betting guide covers pretty much everything one has to comprehend. Even though the knowledge is essential, it is not always enough to turn the average punter into a winner.

Have you got what it takes to become a successful sports bettor?

To bet for fun is one thing and to bet for a living is a totally different story. When you’re relying on your wagers to pay the bills, you can’t really think of anything else but making money, so the entertainment part is out of the question.

Stop thinking that the professional punter is that guy who sits all day on the beach with his laptop drinking cold drinks. As a pro, you’ll need to rigorously follow a calculated staking method and the betting analysis model you’ve developed. No more messing around with live betting whilst drinking and other stuff like that.

And if that wasn’t enough, mind that sports betting for a living will be extremely stressful at times, especially when things go pear-shaped. You need to be mentally strong, emotionally detached from the sporting events you wager on, confident in the results of your hard work and incredibly disciplined, to stick to the original plan at all times and be able to resist the temptation of chasing your losses.

From beginner to pro

Okay, you have the knowledge, you are the ambitious type and you want to give professional sports betting a try. Where do you start?

First of all, you must test your abilities before doing anything stupid such as quitting your job or selling your properties – It’s really a bad idea to do so. Make sure that you can win on a regular basis for at least 12 months before investing serious money in this activity. When that time comes, you’ll need a substantial bankroll, or at least one that’s big enough for your needs.

Professional sports bettors will be happy with a 5% average profit after staking their bankroll once. This is usually a decent figure to use in order to estimate realistic expectations. However, how many times you’ll rollover the funds per month is completely up to your money management and the number of betting tips at hand.

So an online betting guide could be enough to turn you into a pro punter, as long as you have the required innate qualities and a large enough bankroll to be able to support the living costs. However, don’t forget that more than 90% of those who wager end up with a negative balance at the end of the year so don’t consider sports betting to be an easy way to riches, because it’s not.