The topic / question I get asked the most about on twitter DM / email / wherever people use to message me is what type of things that have made me a successful and, most importantly, profitable gambler long term. This is a great question and one absolutely worth the time to discuss.
First thing to note is being a long term profitable gambler is VERY HARD. It take lots of time and effort. It took me LOTS of losing to learn hard lessons that I am hopeful to impart here. Second thing to note is that only about 5% of gamblers are profitable long term. Yes, read that again. Winning is not the norm, losing is. Remember this when folks claim on twitter that they win 90% of their bets or are up some insane amount of units.
Given the very long length of this newsletter I am going to break it into three parts.
Part 1 covers more foundational information:
Why I do this
Buying picks
The 3 Magic Words
Parts 2 and 3 will cover more tactical topics such as:
Betting Math
Bankroll Management
Radical transparency
Trust the Process
What not to do
I hope you enjoy and I know this is absurdly long so you might end up reading it in parts, enjoying it over your lunch today or printing it to read on the can at work! Ultimately once both are published I will combine them into one long post so that you can always come back and refer to it.
Why I do this
Funny enough I am actually going to start this whole thing with the 2nd most frequent question I get which is why I do this and give it all away for free as it will help give context to the rest of this newsletter. The answers are simple:
I truly love gambling and I want others to enjoy it and it is always more fun when you win
I am not a “capper”. I am someone who bets and I am just sharing my picks with you like I do many of my friends.
I would be running my models, doing my analysis anyway so this is just me writing it down
While running this site adds a bunch more work, for the time being, I find it fun and when it stops being fun so will my posts.
There are many folks who truly want to get better at gambling and if I can be of any help to those people I would love to and, as I point below, once you start selling picks you are disincentivized to help others
For those who just want to turn a profit, I hate that people feel they have to pay for picks that aren’t profitable so I want profitable picks to be available to people who can’t afford $100 a monthly subscription or to bet $100 per unit
I make my bets just before I hit publish so others tailing doesn’t effect me at all other than in horse racing and frankly I do not think we are moving markets
The reason I am doing articles like this is that I want people to have a positive and healthy relationship with gambling and I think if you follow what I lay out here and in Part 2, the chances for that to be the case will be increased.
Buying Picks
I figure I would get this controversial a topic out of the way early…..When you set out gambling you have to decide why you are doing it. Are you looking to personally become a better gambler, are you in it to make money or both? Note, your answer can be different by sport and where you are in your journey, I know mine is / has been.
If your goal includes “becoming a better gambler” then I would tell you buying picks will do next to nothing to help you improve unless the person selling you the picks is willing to sit down and explain to you exactly what went into their picks (they likely won’t1) or be willing to chat through your view of their picks.
While the following tweet is true about trading it is also true about gambling:2
If you are going to buy picks because you want to make money and you do not care about improving as a bettor yourself, I totally get it so here are a few helpful rules of the road as you consider who to give your hard earned money to:
Check to see if there are people out there giving away picks for the sport you are interested in for free - trust me, there are tons of us.
Ask the person how long they have been a bettor, what is their exact profitability and do not just assume because they are active and have a big following on twitter or youtube this is something they do3.
Ask whether they publish their results publicly or, if not, if they would be willing to send you something that shows their tracking4. They should have this readily available (it should be updated at least weekly, but preferably daily) and it should break down their information in numerous ways that include at minimum weekly, monthly, annually, all time as well as cuts by sport and types of bets and amount wagered, etc.
Make sure they have reasonable bankroll management standards and watch out for folks who chase. This can take many forms but it will generally be them shortening their cards while raising units bet per side, starting to take big favs for big units, or starting to change their normal strategy. There is a reason most of gambling Twitter don’t have track records that are very long - it’s because they don’t practice effective bankroll management.
If you see someone saying “PLAY OF THE MONTH”, “lock emojis” or “10u (bomb emoji)”. Stay away.
Make sure you take into account the fee that they charge when you think about profitability. If you are a $10/ unit bettor and the service you are buying is $80/ month then you need that service to return at least 8u of profit for you to break even. Most of the people selling you picks do not do this math and will say it’s up to you to manage your own finances and they are right!! Do the math and see if they are worth the price!
Be wary of people who use betting jargon like “reverse line movement”, “fade the public”, “sharps are hammering X” or “chasing steam”.5 The footnote gets into some of the details why this is something you want to avoid but always ask “does this person actually have this info?” and that goes for ActionNetwork (they don’t) and VSIN (some do).
Have you ever seen someone post a pick that says “NY Giants +7” but when you look at your books they are +6? Many “cappers” will post picks with lines that are not real so ask the person where they get their lines6
Ask the person whether they personally bet their picks. Never put your money where they are not willing to put theirs and you should absolutely feel comfortable asking to see copies of tickets and they should be willing to show you them immediately with dollar amounts visible! (I know I always have them on demand and have zero issue when someone asks to see one). Be wary tickets that do not not show you dollar amounts, do not show the time and date of when it was placed, or look like it’s been edited. I have caught many guys with fake tickets.
Find out how much the person uses for the units. Do not think just because they bet a lot of money they are good or because they bet small amounts they are bad, but if someone is using $5/unit and they are dropping “10u play of the month bombs” it is good to know they are really risking $50 if you are sitting there wagering $100/unit and risking 1k.
If you have ever watched the TV show My 600lb Life you know Dr Now has a book that is titled Scales Don’t Lie, People Do. This is the sports equivalent of that - If you buy someone’s picks, make sure to keep your own track of their performance including the need to buy points because their lines are bullshit. While many “cappers” will report results they unfortunately tend to lie about them. Anyone remember my #IsYDCReal days? I know one twitter capper who recently claimed to be up 350 units in 9 months. If that were true (it isn’t) they wouldn’t be selling their picks on twitter and they would be the best gamblers of all time. If you can afford it, buy a service and just track their picks without betting them or bet them for like 1/4 of the risk they are telling you until you can verify their results.
Be careful of anyone who posts only winners. Take a look through the full timeline of what someone posts and you should be able to see quickly how often they are posting picks and how often they are posting winners. If they post often but infrequently post about winners, well they likely aren’t profitable. If they post a lot and seem to only win, they are likely a liar. You can even do quick math of their results on a ticket to see if it adds up or across posts to see if the math is consistent.
I am a believer that if you buy a service from someone it is because they are doing something you can’t / won’t do yourself. If that is the case then you should be willing / able to trust them fully and follow along with ALL their bets. If you buy a service and see something fishy or don’t believe you can follow their picks then you really should not be using them and be doing it yourself or finding someone else.
Remember, no one is an expert in everything so err on the side of folks who specialize in a specific sport or set of specific sports. Proceed with caution if a single person or group of people claim they can handicap NFL, MLB, NBA, Tennis, EPL, IPL, horses, UFC, Bellator, La Liga, CPL, Russian ping pong, AFL, horse racing, and F1
If you are someone who only buys picks and doesn’t do their own handicapping then you absolutely can keep reading this and Part 2 but you might not find the rest that helpful.
If you know someone who likes to gamble, please feel free to share this newsletter with them!
The 3 Magic Words
Years ago I taught the fall onboarding training for my company’s college grad new hires. The one question I got EVERY time I taught that class was “What will make me successful here?” and 3 word my answer to them is the same thing that will make you a successful gambler “Attitude and Effort”.
Look I am a pretty smart person, but I am not the smartest person in the world. I can’t control how smart but there are two things that are entirely in my control, my attitude and my effort.
Now, I believe these things are inextricably linked and frankly without the right attitude and the willingness to put in the effort nothing else I write here matters. It really doesn’t.
Thomas Edison once said “I didn’t fail, I just found 2,000 ways to not make a lightbulb. I only needed to find the one to way to make it work”.
When it comes to gambling you have to have the attitude of being willing to fail, to learn, to push yourself, to be humble, and most importantly to look yourself in the mirror and know your effort was worth it. Yes that is right, while your attitude needs to be one willing to accept losses, not sugar coat them, and to learn from them.
It can be really easy to remember the losses, especially the bad beats (Mito and my 175-1 ticket @ the PGA Championship will stick with me), but it is really important to not forget the successes as well (that three week run of 65-1, 10-1, 50-1 we had in golf about 6 weeks ago).
Another area where you can see this is how much effort are you willing to put in to learn. For example, a few weeks ago I put out my summer reading list. Did you look at that list? Did you buy any of those books? Did you buy one but not crack it open? You do not have to read every book on my list and certainly you can find your own list of books to help you, but hopefully your attitude is not one of “I can figure this all out myself”. If you find any good gambling books, I am more than happy to take recommendations myself! I just finished “The Logic of Sports Betting”, which was a reader recommendation7.
I could go on and on on this section, but just remember that you can have the best attitude in the world, but if you are not willing to put the effort it, then it doesn’t matter. As we get to Part 2 you will see why I say that but always remember this game takes LOTS of work.
I hope you have found this information helpful. I should have Part 2 out in about 10 days so make sure you are on the lookout for that!
My DMs and my email (titanic.gambler@gmail.com) are always open for folks who have questions, want to chat or discuss my picks, betting strategy, their picks, or really anything.
Think of it from their perspective - if they teach you what they know then at best they are losing a subscriber and at worst they are creating a competitor so they have zero incentive to help you get better
Frankly, that whole tweet thread is amazing and is almost entirely applicable to gambling
Do NOT take this for granted. There is a very well know horse picks service (main service is $90 a month) that has a guy that charges $400 a month for his add on. While he claims to be profitable he actually doesn’t track his results and if you press him about his actual results (a friend of mine spoke to him and showed me the interaction, he then bought the service and tracked his picks for 4 months and the was down over 8,500 BEFORE you take into account his fees). When asked about it this capper will tell you people buy his picks for entertainment and not to make money and then some how tries to take into account rebates certain websites provide.
I would make sure this person is able to produce results for you very quickly, have at least 18-24 months of track record. Many twitter folks do not have any track record this long because they are in this to make a quick buck and likely are full of it.
Some of this stuff is interesting and would be notable if you weren’t already too late (if Sharps hammered Dolphins +7, but the line is now +4 most of that value may be gone), some of this is reasonable but you need to understand the nuances (the public can win and get hot so you need to be wary of solely relying on betting against the public) and some are complete nonsense (like reverse line movement).
Beware of anyone who says “a local” as that means it is likely that is a line you won’t be able to verify or get yourself
I honestly didn’t love this book. It is a fine book, but I think it glosses over some important things and is really written for new comers to gambling.