In the long run, making money with sports betting is an arduous task, and few players can do it consistently. Planning, strategy, experience, sports knowledge, and sports betting bankroll management are some of the most vital things a bettor should master to increase the chance of beating the bookies.
Even then, success is not guaranteed, so only a few dare to try turning a hobby into a career.
Making some extra income by following strict, sometimes dull sports betting strategies is achievable though, but bettors in the US are more interested in big parlay paydays than long-term profits.
Can Sports Betting Be Profitable?
Anyone can be lucky and land a massive 12-leg parlay for a huge payday. Being confident about consistently doing it is an illusion, at least in percentages, as the odds are always against the player.
A golden rule is always to bet money you can afford to lose. Leaving your job to concentrate on sports betting full-time is rarely a good idea unless you have a proven record of being profitable for multiple years. Turning a hobby into a full-time job sounds really nice in theory, but in reality, only a few can achieve it.
There is a very small chance of getting rich with sports betting in the US nowadays when sportsbooks can lock their profits by simply adjusting the lines. However, it is not impossible, and some have achieved precisely that.
There are dozens of highly profitable sports betting winners, and today we will look at three of the most popular ones who managed to beat the bookies and get rich through sports betting.
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Benjamin Patz — The Parlay God
Benjamin “Parlay” Patz has been one of the biggest sports betting superstars in the last decade. His primary betting strategy revolves around very aggressive parlay wagering, which netted him at least $1,000,000 in profits with licensed sportsbooks.
Born in 1996, Benjamin worked on advanced strategies before he reached the legal betting age. Led by a philosophy that teams cared less about scoring points and more about winning the match, Patz’s wagers were always on the money line, never touching the totals or prop bets.
He became famous after landing a monster $333,000 13-leg parlay in 1999.
Patz also landed a couple of big parlays in the mid-2000s but couldn’t withdraw half of the winnings (allegedly $500,000) from the shady offshore betting websites he used to place bets.
Cautionary tales like this are just one of the many reasons we encourage bettors to only wager on legal, licensed US sportsbooks. Learn how to identify a safe and legal sports betting site and avoid losing any potential winnings to an illegitimate site that refuses to pay out.
While being an extremely successful sports bettor, Patz had issues controlling his emotions after losing a series of bets, started to message players involved in those matches, and sent dozens of threats using social networks. He is currently under FBI investigation and could face jail time at the top of the $250,000 fine he paid for the threats alone.
Steve Fezzik — College Football and NFL Expert
Labeled as “The most successful NFL bettor in the world,” Steve Fezzik is another example of an excellent long-term strategy paying off in the long run.
A Northwestern University graduate, who worked as a statistician for a US insurance company, relied heavily on his stats and algorithms to place college football and NFL bets, mostly singles and doubles. Despite being very successful at his full-time job, Fezzik confidently moved to Las Vegas to work on his sports betting and casino strategies.
One of the biggest tipster tournaments in the world, the NFL SuperContest, gathers over 300 sports bettors across the states every year, and Steve was the only one to win it two times in a row, in 2008 and 2009.
This significantly boosted his popularity, especially after all the magazine interviews, so Fezzik launched his own website to sell football picks. This service has been up and running for over ten years with a constantly growing customer base. Today, a subscription for one football season costs around $800.
Billy Walters — Pioneer of Computer Algorithms
Billy Walters is undoubtedly one of the most controversial sports bettors in history, having proven stats of beating the bookmakers, winning hundreds of millions of dollars, and holding a record for betting the highest amount of money and staying profitable.
Billy Walters and his two close friends formed the infamous Computer Group in the 1980s, using advanced algorithms to find weaknesses in sports betting lines, which helped them make millions down the line.
Later, Walters always had other people go to the sportsbooks and place bets instead of him. It has never been confirmed, but it is believed he used this strategy so sportsbooks could not tweak the odds immediately after seeing the proven winner placing a wager.
Interestingly, when he was only nine years old, Billy’s father introduced him to land-based casinos and betting shops. He would stay in the back, watch his dad play poker, and learn the lesson of not getting emotional about the losses. Nowadays, his net worth is close to $200 million, accumulating that wealth through different businesses, not only sports betting.
Some of the inspection reports showed (yes, he was under federal investigation as well) that Walters was profitable in 38 out of 39 seasons of his wagering career, showing that his hit rate on +100 bets was around 55% on average, going up to 60% in his best-performing year of 1985 when he strictly focused on college football picks.
One of Walters’ former employees revealed that his boss mostly enjoyed betting on lower-division football matches across the US, which are less likely to be adequately researched by the sportsbooks.
Generous Welcome Packages Are Great Starting Point
If you are a sports bettor who doesn’t like massive investments, there are a couple of active welcome packages from different US operators which can serve as great bankroll builders. Getting $200 in Bonus Bets for a $5 deposit is one hell of a deal and if staked properly, has a decent chance to make you some money. Check out the hottest offers in 2023 below:
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