A lot of my content in the ‘Blurbs’ has to do with figuring out your own identity as a bettor. I think there are some questions that everybody has to ask themselves in order to get the most out of this business. What do you want to achieve? What are your goals? How will you reach those goals? What kind of bettor do you want to be?
I think the last one is really important and the recent COVID chaos across the sports betting landscape has put this question at the forefront. Yesterday, I wrote about protecting your bankroll, which means getting the full picture of information before firing away. Adam Chernoff, a sharp, well-respected bettor that you hear regularly on VSiN, said on Twitter yesterday that it’s the opposite for him and that it’s all about racing to beat the books to the information.
If you can do that, it’s great. Most people can’t and won’t. The vast majority of bettors don’t have the luxury of watching Twitter or the odds screen all day. If you do, that’s awesome and maybe you can pick off some value before lines move.
What this all boils down to is risk tolerance. This is an extremely important betting concept. Are you willing to stick your neck out there for the sake of line value, knowing that you may lock in a bet early in the week that goes awry because of COVID? This is no different than investing in the market. Some people will invest in a basic annuity or buy into a blue-chip fund to make modest gains. Others will take more of an aggressive, volatile approach, like investing in cryptocurrency or riskier stocks that have a higher risk of ruin, but also more profit potential.
If you are a bettor simply doing this for entertainment, there is nothing entertaining about betting early in the week just to have the QB get COVID.
If you are doing this as a side hustle, you may want to take some positions and try to get out in front of it.
If you are trying to do this as a pro or as a legitimate supplement to your income, these are absolutely the types of situations you should try to take advantage of in any investment market. Volatility is oftentimes better for the bettor than the book, just like volatility in the stock market is good for the sharp investor.
With our work here at VSiN, and with what others are doing across the business at their respective sites, it is important to write to the general public, while remembering that each individual out there has a different skill set, bankroll and approach. There are also a lot of different levels of risk tolerance out there, which includes things like the number of games you bet or how aggressive you are with live betting.
How you handle the COVID crisis in the betting markets is up to you, but it always circles back to the kind of bettor you want to be and that is something you absolutely have to figure out.
