In sports betting, the quality of your investment will be determined by a few very important factors. Firstly, you will need a lot of knowledge of your selected sports and betting markets (i.e., types of bets), but that alone won’t be enough to make you successful. In order to truly succeed at betting, it would be a good idea to consider it as an investment as opposed to pure chance or gambling.
If you are able to think of sports betting as an investment, this should result in a more professional outlook and you can then better decide on which betting strategies best suit your needs.
Regardless of your approach, investing, betting, and gambling, are all associated with huge risks to lose all of your money. Be very careful. This is not, in any way, financial advice.
How Sports Betting Is An Investment
Many don’t see betting on sports as pure gambling or a waste of money, in fact, some people see it as a real investment. The colorful owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team, Mark Cuban is on record as saying that he prefers sports betting to stocks. In 2004, he wrote in a blog post that it is easier to make money betting on sports than investing in stocks. This might initially leave you with raised eyebrows, but why don’t we dissect the reasons why this might be the case?
The perceptions between these two practices are widespread and you can guarantee that if you told 100 people you were either a professional sports gambler or an investor you would receive very different responses. The simplest way to differentiate investors from casual bettors is how the former is betting to win while the latter is betting to risk.
If 95% of the people who bet, do so without much thought, let alone ponder their investment, this doesn’t mean we can’t be different. A person who knows what they are doing will be able to tell you what numbers they hope to achieve within a certain time frame. Some know this amount over 5 years because they have factored in a lot of volatility. While others are looking to make money on a monthly basis and want to turn their investment into a salary. This reason is why professional bettors treat their wagers as investments.
Familiarity With The Investment
Investing in stocks can be very complicated and certain scenarios will occur in the stock market that simply cannot be accounted for. Any particular market is far more likely to be subject to market manipulation; suppose a sports game being subject to match-fixing, for example. Also, there will be no equivalent of a financial crash that will affect the entirety of the bets you have just placed. These are all things that need to be considered when investing in stocks. This uncertainty can cause great anxiety and ultimately a lot of financial pain.
If you have a great love for sports and sports betting, it is likely that you will not be able to recreate this passion for investing in the stock market. This is an often-overlooked factor when looking to find success.
Additionally, most people are not well-versed in the economic forces that drive the stock market up or down. Very few people are financially savvy and literate to the point of being able to strategize. However, many bettors have a huge passion for their favorite sport(s) and understand the gameplay and strategies better.
Able to Diversify Your Portfolio
In the world of financial investments, it is very difficult to consider your knowledge to be sufficient enough to cover a wide range of markets. With sports, however, even if you only have a strong love for one sport, there are markets within markets in the betting industry that will give betters the chance to diversify their portfolio. Diversifying your portfolio is important as it allows you to be protected from the obvious risks that come with sports betting.
This is something that is very important in the financial markets also. If you were to only invest in airlines for example you would have been hit heavily when the pandemic hit and the majority of flights around the world were canceled. You should use a similar strategy when betting as you do not want to employ a strategy where you are essentially putting all your eggs into one basket.
Immediate Return On Your Investment
With stocks or crypto you will have to be patient and hope that in the long run, your investment will pay off. While in betting you can allocate your money to bets every day with instant results. Many people aren’t built for investing in stocks as patience is a virtue of great value in this field while investing in crypto can be an anxiety-ridden passion as the volatility of the market can be too much for some.
Betting doesn’t need to be like this as when you recognize good value using your betting strategies, you can just go ahead and place a bet in relation to your bankroll management strategy. You can this way develop a strategy where you know the number of bets you intend to place within a month and what type of return will constitute a good month in your eyes.
Easier To Understand
Explaining and understanding what it takes to become successful whilst gambling is not that difficult. Your success will be determined by how often you have successful bets with good odds. This is in contrast to investing in stocks and crypto where the explanation of the activity will very rarely have a concrete answer. This value can’t be overestimated as when you are completely knowledgeable about why your investment is the way it is this should lead you to have a less stressful experience.
Investing In Sports Betting Stocks
Sports betting is without a doubt one of the most profitable lines of business throughout the globe. In some countries, the act of regulated gambling is forbidden while in countries like the UK, one report found that over half of the adult population has had an official bet at one point in their life. Roughly $150 billion was wagered in the United States back in 2019. With such high figures, investors have turned their attention to betting stocks. With the industry unlikely to diminish in the years to come this could represent a great opportunity to invest.
One of the key advantages of sports betting is immediate results with numerous events. In fact, sports betting events are held so frequently, anyone can drastically grow their investment in a few hours given that they are finding success with the strategy they are employing. An investment of $1,000 in a reputable stock can take from several weeks to a whole year in order to turn a 10% profit. Punters can exponentially grow their investment faster than the stock market with such a high turnover rate.
Generally, there are three categories of investing in sports betting:
- Sportsbooks have regulated establishments for punters to invest in. Sportsbooks offer a safe environment for bettors, but they are generally less profitable than casinos.
- Casinos capitalize on the sports betting opportunities run by sportsbooks. Casinos offer the highest profit margin.
- Gaming industries now offer compelling betting opportunities for the gambling industry in the form of online gaming and tournaments.
Here are some betting stocks you can invest in:
- DraftKings mobile sports betting operator with a market cap of $11.3 billion
- Flutter Entertainment a global sports betting operator with a market cap of $20.3 billion
- William Hill is the oldest and largest betting company in the UK with a market cap of $1.5 billion
- Penn National Gaming an American-based racetrack operator with a market cap of $16.29 billion
- MGM Resorts a global entertainment company with a market cap of $20.68 billion
Betting stocks pose the perfect opportunities for punters and investors to earn large returns rapidly. It offers smart investors plenty of chances to earn rewards from those with little understanding of the game.
Betting is not widely considered to be an investment, but after reading this article we pose the question, why not? Maybe you will have a hard time explaining this to other people but if you are making money who cares? the term investment largely revolves around the concept of having a plan. This plan can vary in nature significantly but if you believe that in the long term you will make money then this in our view at least can be considered a genuine investment.
This article was published on August 3, 2021, and last updated on October 24, 2022.
