Successful salespeople do well because they no how to isolate opportunity and direct a sales process. Students succeed because they pay attention in class and have effective study skills. Successful managers stay on top of their industry, understand organizational behavior, and know how to motivate employees. Almost any profession or activity has an established path to success that can be modified to an individual’s ability and interests.

Sports betting is no different than any other pursuit. There are established principles, beliefs, behaviors, and concepts that are common among people who succeed in the activity. People who win money consistently betting on sports share many common traits. The purpose of this article is to isolate those traits so recreational sports bettors can model winners in an effort to improve their game and turn themselves into winners.

Rule 1: Work Hard.
Jesse Tuggle was an undrafted, unheralded free agent out of Valdosta State who signed with the Atlanta Falcons. Ryan Leaf was an all-world multi-million dollar quarterback who inspired San Diego to virtually mortgage their future to move up in the draft and get him. So why did Tuggle enjoy a sterling 14-year career while Leaf may be out of football this fall a mere four years after the Chargers handed him the keys to their franchise? The most obvious answer is that Tuggle worked like a fiend to maximize his talent while Leaf was too busy living the high life to make the effort to take advantage of his bountiful natural gifts.

There is nothing wrong with someone just having fun betting on sports, using football as an excuse to stay in touch with buddies during the week while seeing them at the sports bar on the weekend. Many people bet on sports knowing they’ll probably lose, but enjoying it nevertheless. Handled responsibly, sports betting is a pleasant pastime that increases the enjoyment of watching ball games. Occasional winnings can be a thrill, while losses that are budgeted for are a manageable entertainment expense.

Modest recreational losses are fine, but if you’re intrigued by the challenge of becoming a winner and would like to enjoy the rewards of winning, there is work involved. Effort and time are required to learn the activity, understand the sports you play, and bet properly. Working to become successful involves taking at least a few of the following concepts to heart and committing the time and effort to become a winner.

Rule 2: Wagering skills are as important as handicapping skills.
Sports betting is not about sports. It is about money. Sports are simply the vehicle that transfers wealth from the winners to the losers. There are stock traders that succeed using technical market analysis despite their lack of knowledge of the companies they invest in. Similarly, there are sports bettors who earn a living by exploiting their wagering skills. They understand value. They bet overnight lines, take advantage of sports book specials and bonuses, and bet on obscure sports. They bet a matchup in a Formula One race involving two drivers they’ve never heard of because they catch a sports book that has been slow to move a line, and the neglected line offers value compared to what everyone else is doing.

Like arbitrageurs who earn a living on slight differentials in price in securities and commodities markets, scalpers and middlers earn a living by betting both sides of a sporting event. They’ll bet a football game over 40½ and under 43 with different sports books. They’ll take advantage of price differentials in a baseball game and will be happy to make 2% on their three-hour investment if the underdog wins, while breaking even if the favorite comes in. They know nothing about sports; they simply know numbers and value. You have a job, a family, and responsibilities. You can’t match them, but you can model them in a limited fashion. Always refuse to take a bad price when something better is available. Respect the edge that these guys exert on a daily basis.

Rule 3: Bet with Multiple Sports Books
Middlers and scalpers earn a living on price differentials. You can do very well with “book differentials” in selecting where to bet. Some sports books offer significant bonuses. Some offer juice specials on Tuesdays or Fridays. Some offer free half-points at specific times. Others offer better teaser and parlay odds than others. Some local books inflate prices or are slow to move numbers on game days. While you may not be able to play at 15 or 20 books like a professional gambler does, you may be able to have the following in your repertoire…

Book one: An offshore outfit that offered you a 15% bonus, offers free ½ points on Fridays, and offers many proposition wagers. They have outstanding teaser odds.

Book two: Another offshore book that doesn’t offer a bonus but caters to sharp players. As a result, their lines are fluid, even on propositions. They offer reduced juice on Fridays for weekend football.

Book three: This local bookie often inflates the lines on local teams and favorites in TV games.

Book four: This neighborhood old-timer is not technically savvy, gets his lines from a telephone line service, and only receives two updates per day. While lines move elsewhere, his stay the same.

Checking lines at these four sports books doesn’t take up too much of your time, as you can access lines of offshore outfits on the Internet. These four books provide you with many options and different prices. While not truly playing like a professional, you have given yourself a very good chance to be on the right side of the line on most of your wagers using bonuses, vig specials, free half-points, and inflated prices. Simply using four books with different qualities, you have many options at your disposal to increase your chances to win.

Rule 4: Know your strengths, and focus on them
Are you a wizard with steaks on the grill but couldn’t bake a cake if your life depended on it? Specialization is a key to success in many endeavors, including sports betting. You may be a terrible NFL handicapper but have a solid opinion on college hoops. Does college football flummox you but you have a great feel for baseball? You’re not alone. Very few people can truly have a strong opinion on more than a couple of sports. Those who bet every day year round are probably the scalpers, middlers, and numbers-getters we spoke of earlier in this piece. Public handicappers who claim to dominate all sports are perpetuating a lie in an effort to drive calls to their 800/900 numbers. In the real world, we all have our specialties. Focus the most on the sports that you have a valid opinion on, not those that see you guessing.

Rule 5: Learn the art of handicapping.
Most sports bettors have “they’regonnakillumitis”, afflicting casual sports bettors who overreact to the last performance they saw. The Bengals looked awful last week and the Broncos looked great? Guess who everyone is going to bet? After all, they’regonnakillum.

Winning bettors who do their own handicapping do not look at things so simply. They look deeper into games to determine the true strengths of teams, studying box scores and personnel. They focus on the personalities of coaches, studying what coaches do well motivating their teams in what roles. They study past history and current strengths. They see how a team historically does on this surface and in this price range. They study how a club has done defensively against this style of offense and how they’ve done offensively against this style of defense. They study a game from many different angles, looking for an edge in the line.

As in the study of any pursuit, the shortcut to success is learning of the success and failures of others. Read voraciously in an effort to gain exposure to many different handicapping ideas, theories, techniques, and strategies. Gambler’s Book Club in Las Vegas is a fine source of handicapping literature and their catalogue contains a wide array of sports handicapping instructional titles.

Rule 6: Become a statistician.
Last year’s Pittsburgh Steelers were dominant team, finishing the regular season at 13-3, yet Pittsburgh bettors never had to lay more than 4½ points to support the Steelers until November 18. What took the betting public so long to catch on to the Steelers’ dominance? Pittsburgh’s success was based on a bone-rattling defense and steamrolling running attack. Casual bettors are attracted to “basketball on grass” and “the greatest show on turf”. The proliferation of sports highlight shows has fans in love with the big play. The long pass in football, the slam-dunk in basketball, and the home run in baseball are the focus of our smarmy hair-sprayed sports communicators. As a result, teams that may be spectacular but unsound are often overvalued in the line. So how do we find the unspectacular, but sound undervalued teams to bet on?

The answer is often in the statistics. Look for football clubs that defend well and can run the ball. If their quarterback is efficient but not spectacular, like Kordell Stewart, even better. Team statistics have it all over individual statistics and yards per rushing attempt and yards per passing attempt are excellent ways to judge the prowess of a college or professional teams.

Undervalued clubs are usually unglamorous clubs. Look for college teams that with no Heisman trophy candidates and NFL clubs without any Monday Night Football appearances. Let everyone else talk about the spectacular playmakers. Evaluate team statistics to find undervalued clubs under the public’s radar screen.

Rule 7: Respect the line and the early line moves
I’ve spent a day in the offices of Las Vegas Sports Consultants. The folks who are the force behind the opening numbers for Nevada and many of the world’s sports books are not stupid, nor are the people at the books who hang the first offshore overnight numbers in daily sports. But neither are the people who do battle with them when the numbers first come out. Whether it is Sunday night at the Stardust and offshore or overnights during basketball and baseball, the early moves are to be respected. The people who move the line early are not fooling around; they are serious players who love to take shots at virgin numbers. The linemakers are sharp, but they have to make a line on every game and do make occasional mistakes. Bettors have the advantage of picking and choosing specific games and when they focus on specific games when they first come out, their opinion should be noted with respect.

Rule 8: Be a contrarian against public line moves
After the pros have their shots at the numbers more public, or square bettors have an opportunity to get involved than ever before. Later in the week when the line moves on big nationally televised “spotlight” games, don’t treat these line moves with the same respect that you give to the early moves. The public loves to bet on what they watch and these moves are often the result of uninformed public money from “squares”, not the product of “sharps”. Looking to fade big public TV moves can be the final reason to either play a game or stay off of the popular side. Games out of the public spotlight, involving Tulsa, Louisiana-Monroe, and the like should be treated with more respect. The “televisibility” of an event is often the determining factor in how to treat the line move. Remember: More public, less respect. Less public, more respect.

Rule 9: Treat your sports betting like a business
Unless you’re just fooling around with fun money, treat your sports betting like a business, or at least the serious avocation that it is. This means keeping records, not only for accurate accounting but for the purposes of analysis. Accurate financial record keeping is a must. While offshore sports books are generally accurate in maintaining your balance, they are far from infallible. Your local guy who makes you quote your own balance instead of doing it for you? What does he do when the error is in your favor? Has their ever been an error in your favor? An error by you can equal a losing streak, so keep accurate daily records to make sure you’re not throwing money away. Don’t assume your online wagering balance is infallible. I’ve had even some of the most reliable offshore sports books grade winning plays as losses, which I may have missed without my record keeping.

Keeping records has the additional benefit of giving you a means of analysis. Where do you do well and where do you do poorly? Are your profits all on NFL underdogs and you’re getting slaughtered on college favorites? Are you just breaking even because teasers are showing a net loss? Taking just a couple of minutes in order to keep accounting records like a small business does can do nothing but help you in your pursuit of profit.

Rule 10: Have a bankroll
This may be the most important rule. Everyone speaks of a bankroll, but do you have one? I mean money, separate from your household funds, that gives you the freedom to wager without fear of paying your bills or affecting how much you are putting into your kid’s college fund. Many winning bettors of my acquaintance have told me that in their search for success, a big step was actually having a separate wagering bankroll. A losing streak is much easier to take when the money is set aside purely for this speculative venture. Bankroll should be more than a term you use in describing how you’re doing this year. Whether in a bank account, in a safe in your deposit, or on deposit in several sports books, a bankroll should be a reality.

A final rule, have fun:
Unless you’re winning killer money, why would you bet on sports if you weren’t enjoying yourself? If you’re someone who sweats out close games, why subject yourself to that kind of emotional toll? If you’re spending less time with your kids, having trouble concentrating on your career, or you’re losing money betting on sports, why bother? Not everyone is programmed to succeed betting on sports, nor are we all wired to enjoy it. If sports betting is detracting from your life rather than adding to it, remember that not betting is always an option.

For the rest of you, onward and upward and all the best to you in your quest for sports wagering success.

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Readers of O’Neill’s three previous editions of Maximum Profit Football Annual have scored with a 101-69 pointspread record by focusing on the eight overrated and underrated college and NFL teams and following the “Full Season Value Strategy” to determine when to bet on and against these teams. These in-depth team forcasts only scratch the surface of this high-content preview prepared specifically for bettors. Call our toll free 24-hour voice mail right now at 1-888-559-0551 to claim your free copy. Just leave your name and address on the voice mail, your phone number is not required. Nobody will call you, you’ll simply receive the most streetwise, savvy, “under the radar screen” annual available anywhere. Call 1-888-559-0551 for your free copy of the Maximum Profit Football Annual for the best in football handicapping and betting information.

About the author: Kevin O’Neill is an author, researcher, publisher, and handicapper, as well as director of content for www.ConsumerBet.com. Readers can claim a free subscription to Kevin’s weekly e-letter Sports & Gaming News and his get a free copy of his report “Profit Strategies of Professional Gamblers”. Get both these report right now by clicking here.