How to Track Your Results and Refine Your Process to Maximize Profits
One of the biggest differences I see between recreational and profitable bettors is tracking results and refining your process based on those results. As someone who does this for a living, I have built up a wealth of knowledge and data over the years which has helped to shape my betting process into what it is today. I’m going to share with you some thoughts today that you can apply as you are on your journey to being a more profitable bettor.
How to Track Your Results
In my opinion, I typically see three types/phases of results tracking based on how detailed and how serious you take betting:
Basic:
Total amount won or lost by sport per day (no calculation of ROI)
Advanced:
Total amount won or lost by type of bet per sport per day (no calculation of ROI)
Example: Each row in a spreadsheet would represent a day. The columns would be based on type of bet and sport. For example, in columns A through E you would have:
Date
Net Result of Spreads
Net Result of ML
Net Result of Over/Under
Net Result of Teasers
Net Result of Parlays
Professional:
Same as advanced but includes much more detail on an individual bet basis.
Example: Each tab in a spreadsheet would represent a sport. So for example on the NBA tab, you would have each row represent a bet and columns as such:
Date
Home Team (modify spreadsheet if using parlays or teasers)
Road Team (modify spreadsheet if using parlays or teasers)
Bet (Team name, etc)
Type of Wager (Spread, Over/Under, ML, Parlay, Teaser)
Line
Wager Timing (Live, 2nd Half, Pre-game)
Risk Amount
Amount to Win
Result
Notes (such as back to back games or late injury affecting the line)
Sure this may seem like a lot but it really isn’t once you have a spreadsheet built.
Experienced bettors tend to have less bets each night than recreational bettors. So an average NBA night may only be a few bets which wouldn’t take much time to enter.
Refine Your Process to Maximize Profits
Once you have all of your results and a large enough sample (at least a month….ideally a full season or more) you can begin to try and review your betting process and results. Being able to view your results in detail is key to improving your ROI and becoming a more profitable bettor.
I would suggest making summary charts based on the following items to see your ROI:
Type of Wager (Spread, Over/Under, ML, Parlay, Teaser)
Wager Timing (Live, 2nd Half, Pre-game)
Team
The reason for these charts is to see if you have any leaks in your process. Some examples may include:
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You are break even overall on betting but realize that you have a solid positive ROI betting spreads or MLs only. You see that parlays and teasers may be causing you some large losses. You then revise your process to focus more heavily on spreads and MLs.
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You see that you are having a sizeable positive ROI based on pre-game bets but are struggling mightily with live bets. Consider scaling down the size of your live bets or being more selective on them.
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You discover some interesting results when you analyze your results by team. Towards the end of an NBA season, we can generally see which teams we have had the most success betting with or against. Is this due to random luck or is this because we have a very solid understanding of this team? The opposite can be true for teams which we have not had great success with (or have bias towards such as a hometown team).
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FAQs
In what ways can I revise my process?
You can alter your unit size based on the bets with the highest ROI. Example: Instead of betting 1 unit on all plays, you may bet 1 unit on spreads and ½ unit on over/unders because you seem to have a better long term ROI for spreads.
If the results are dramatically negative for a certain type of bet, you may want to even consider removing a certain type of bet from your portfolio.
How often do I look at my process?
I look at my process for each sport monthly to see if any adjustments are needed.
I do a much further dive at the end and beginning of each season to make sure my process is solid and set up to maximize profits.
How do you account for parlays across multiple sports?
I myself very rarely play parlays across multiple sports.
If you do this, you may want to just create a separate tab in your spreadsheet to track these results and see if it is worthwhile to continue to pursue.