Three Strategies to Make Money with Automated Sports Betting

Discover how you can optimize your sports betting using SX Bet’s API for automated betting strategies

Three betting strategies that sophisticated bettors use

tl;dr

This article explores three distinct automated betting strategies that can be implemented using the SX Bet API: the Balanced Bookmaker, Opinionated Bookmaker, and the Copy Cat strategy. Each strategy takes advantage of SX Bet’s unique betting exchange, enabling you to act as a bookmaker or leverage the betting insights of top bettors. Let’s dive into each strategy and how you can start implementing them today.

Introduction

The world of sports betting is rapidly evolving, and one of the leading innovations is automated betting using APIs. At the forefront of this innovation is SX Bet, which has created an API that enables any bettor to automate their strategies and capitalize on real-time market dynamics.

In this article, I’ll explore three powerful strategies that you can implement using the SX Bet API: Balanced Bookmaker strategy, Opinionated Bookmaker strategy, and a Copy Cat strategy. Let’s examine how these strategies work and how you can employ them to optimize your sports betting.

⚖️ Balanced Bookmaker Strategy

The balanced bookmaker strategy revolves around creating a balanced book where you profit from the built-in margin known as the vig. Traditional bookmakers typically incorporate a 5–9% vig into their odds, which forms their profit margin.

SX Bet, as a betting exchange, enables you to step into the shoes of a bookmaker, offering odds on both sides of a market. As such, you’re essentially offering other users -110 (1.90) on a coin flip while gaining +110 (2.1-) when they bet. If you balance bets on both sides, you can secure a guaranteed profit, irrespective of the outcome. Here’s how this works:

Say the Raptors are playing the Bucks in an NBA game and the match is considered a 50–50 pick-em game. Looking at the graphic above, if a Bettor (“Bettor 1”) bets $110 on Raptors at odds of -110/1.90, then that means the Bookmaker is essentially betting $100 at +110/2.10 on the Bucks. Then later, another bettor (“Bettor 2”) does the opposite and bets $110 on the Bucks at -110/1.90, meaning the Bookmaker is betting $100 at +110/2.10 on the Raptors. No matter who wins, post-match, the Bookmaker will receive $210 and a net profit of $10. This is the strategy of the balanced bookmaker.

✅ Strengths

1. Guaranteed Profitability (if balanced): By offering odds on both sides of a bet and balancing your book, you guarantee a profit regardless of the game’s outcome due to the implicit vig.
2. Closing Line Value (+EV): By leveraging the vig, your bets should be consistently beating the “closing line value” of markets, assuming you’re not subject to adverse risk (covered below).
3. Control: As the bookmaker, you’re in control of the odds you set, which allows you to directly influence your potential profits. You can widen your offers (i.e. increase the vig) if you’d like, which can increase your profitability (albeit at the cost of less activity).

❌ Weaknesses

1. Market Activity: To ensure balanced betting, you need a high level of market activity. In less popular markets, achieving balanced betting might be challenging. This creates a risk in which you maybe unbalanced and therefore need to either put on expensive “hedges” to balance the book or simply accept the extra risk.
2. Adverse Selection: Since you have no opinion on the match, you’re subject to “toxic flow” aka sharp bettors. These are profitable bettors that — due to superior analysis or information — maybe able to consistently predict match outcomes. It can be difficult to be profitable as a market maker if there are too many sharp bettors, as it may leave you with an unbalanced book of losing bets.
3. Complexity: Balancing a book requires careful calculation and adjustment of odds, which can be time-consuming and complex. This can be magnified by small errors in your code base and/or “fat fingering” certain parameters that cause your bot to offer erroneous odds.

📈 Opinionated Bookmaker Strategy

An opinionated bookmaker strategy revolves around using statistical models or traditional analysis to determine which side of a bet you think will win then offering bets on that outcome.

Instead of simply betting on the side that you like, an opinionated bookmaker instead offers odds on that chosen side. That way you gain an edge of 5–8% over the odds you would usually get on a typical book. Over time, this strategy can prove highly profitable and could be the difference between breaking even or making a significant profit on your picks.

✅ Strengths

1. Potential for Higher Returns: By actively taking on directional risk with your bets, you can generate significant higher profits than other more balanced strategies. This strategy also encourages comprehensive knowledge of teams, players, and statistics, which can enhance your overall betting strategy.
2. More Action: By having an opinion on a side, this strategy enables you to undercut balanced bookmakers by offering better odds and deeper liquidity. This enables you to win a higher share of incoming bet orders as your bet offers will rank higher on the order book given your superior conviction.
3. Less Complexity: You simply offer odds on what you believe to be the winning side; there is less need to manage thousands of offers across hundreds of markets. There is less chance of any “fat fingering” and less need for ultra low latency technical infrastructure.

❌ Weaknesses

1. Higher Risk: By choosing a side, you’re taking on more risk. If your chosen side loses, you stand to lose your stake. This is in contrast to balanced bookmakers that often “hedge” out exposure across different bets and therefore have limited losses.
2. Requires Insight: This strategy demands a deep understanding of the sport, the teams, and the ability to analyze statistical data. Getting better odds doesn’t help if your models are consistently picking the wrong side of a bet.
3. Time-Consuming: Developing and maintaining a model or performing regular analysis can be extremely time-consuming. There is also no guarantee that you’ll be able to successfully predict market outcomes better than the rest of the market.

🐈 Copy Cat Strategy

The copy cat strategy involves piggybacking on the bets placed by the most successful bettors on SX. Thanks to SX Bet’s transparency, you can monitor what others are betting, providing valuable insights into potentially profitable bets.

With this strategy, you could set up a bot to alert you whenever a recognized smart bettor places a bet over $1000, allowing you to ‘tail’ their bet and capitalize on their insights. It’s very similar to “coattail investing”, which is an investment strategy in traditional asset classes in which retail investors mimic the trades of successful investors.

✅ Strengths

1. Leverages Expertise: You can benefit from the knowledge and expertise of successful bettors. Leverage their insight by simply copying what they bet.
2. Learning Opportunity: Following the bets of successful bettors can help you understand their strategies and enhance your own betting skills.
3. Simplicity: This strategy is relatively straightforward and doesn’t require you to conduct in-depth analysis or prediction. Simply find successful bettors and copy their strategy. You can find successful bettors using some of the third party tools built by the SX community such as SX Lab or SX Sharks.

❌ Weaknesses

1. Dependency: You’re relying on other bettors. If they stop betting or their strategy falters, your strategy could suffer.
2. Timing: The time between when a smart bettor places a bet and when you place your bet could affect the odds and potential profitability.
3. No Control: You have less control over your betting as you’re following the decisions made by others.

📋 How to Get Started?

To implement any of these strategies, start by thoroughly reviewing the SX Bet API documentation to familiarize yourself with its capabilities.

Once you’ve chosen your strategy, you can experiment with a small balance, placing real offers and bets to understand how the system works.

Feel free to hop in the SX discord to ask questions and explore, as SX Bet offers an exciting opportunity to revolutionize your betting strategies.

Conclusion

Automated betting strategies offer a new realm of opportunities for bettors. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced bettor, SX Bet’s API and these innovative strategies can revolutionize your approach, potentially leading to increased profits and a more sophisticated understanding of sports betting dynamics.

Remember, all strategies come with their own risk and reward profiles, so it’s important to start slow, understand the process, and only bet what you can afford to lose.

About SX Network

SX Bet is the #1 blockchain sports betting platform by betting volume across all chains. All bets are peer-to-peer and settled on-chain. SX lets you get the best odds when you bet on sports with crypto, all from the security of your own wallet. SX has processed +$335,000,000 in betting volume. SX Bet is not available in the United States or other prohibited jurisdictions.

SX Bet | Twitter | Reddit | Discord | Whitepaper