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What’s a better way to gamble? Are you better off playing poker, or would you make more money betting on sports?
It’s an interesting question with a lot of factors. I once read in a book about gambling professionally that successful sports bettors make more money than any other kind of gambler, including poker players.
But that’s an over-simplification. Some people are better at playing poker than they’ll ever be at betting on football games.
The purpose of this post is to compare both types of gambling and draw some conclusions about which might be a better fit for you.
The Biggest Similarity
The biggest similarity between betting on sports and playing poker is that you can theoretically do so professionally. Everyone knows that a percentage of poker players make their living from the game. A lot of people also know that a percentage of sports bettors also make a living from their activities.
We have some statistics about the percentage of poker players who are actually profitable, and it’s a smaller number than you might think. Somewhere between 85% and 95% of all poker players lose money over time.
That makes the percentage of players who are true poker pros quite small indeed. We don’t have the same data for sports bettors, but my guess is that it’s a similar percentage, if not smaller.
In either case, the profitable poker player and the profitable sports bettor looks for inequities in the market. Then, he pounces on those inequities to get a mathematical advantage.
Another Big Similarity
The other big similarity is that, if you’re going to profit long-term from either activity, you need a bankroll big enough to withstand bad luck. Both poker and sports betting outcomes can be random. You’re not playing chess, here, and you need enough money to avoid going broke in the short run.
Think about it this way. The casinos have an advantage over the gamblers who show up there. But some gamblers come home having won a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars. This doesn’t hurt the casinos’ profits at all. They have plenty of losers who are covering your winnings.
But if the casino didn’t have enough money to stay in the game for the long run, it couldn’t stay profitable. The amount of bankroll you need for each type of gambling is similar.
If you’re playing poker, you should never buy in for more than 5% of your bankroll. This means that if you’re going to buy in at a table for $100, you should have at least $2000 in your total poker bankroll.
If you’re betting on sports, you should never wager more than 1% of your bankroll on a single game. If you’re really aggressive and confident, you might risk 2% of your bankroll on a single sports bet.
This means that if you want to bet $100 per game, you should have a bankroll of $10,000. And that bankroll is money you’ve set aside specifically to gamble with. It needs to be money you don’t need for any other purpose.
Both Types of Gambling Cross Borders
Until recently, this wasn’t true. For the most part, a pro poker player was limited to playing with his local buddies. He certainly wasn’t playing internationally on any kind of regular basis.
And if you’re betting on a football game, you’re usually dealing with a neighborhood bookie that you met in a bar somewhere.
But with the rise of the internet, you can now tap into a worldwide marketplace of competitors. Regardless of where you’re from, you can still find websites to play poker for real or bet real money on sporting events.
Those companies, unless you live in one of the tiny handful of US states which legalized online gambling, operate internationally by necessity.
If you’re going to play poker or bet on sports on the internet, you need to make sure you’re comfortable dealing with international customers and competitors.
Online Poker Is Dying as a Form of Professional Gambling
If you’re an average poker player, you can probably forget about making any money playing poker on the internet. Even if you’re good, with a tight aggressive approach, you’re facing all kinds of collusion and bots. Your opponents probably have more data about your poker playing tendencies than you do, and they know how to exploit those tendencies.
Online sports betting is tough, too, but for different reasons. Internet-based bookmakers charge a higher vigorish than most traditional sportsbooks. This makes it harder to win in the long run.
Think about the kind of win rate you need to have just to break even if you’re having to risk $120 to win $100, which is common online. Then, compare that with the $110 or $105 you’d have to risk playing in a traditional, brick and mortar sportsbook.
Either way, you can make a living with either type of gambling. With poker, you need to put in more hours sitting at the table grinding it out. In fact, depending on which game you play and at what limits, you’ll face a much lower variance with poker than you will with sports betting.
After all, when you’re playing poker, you’re making multiple bets every hour. Compare that to a sports bettor who’s making bigger bets but is limited to betting just once a day or even just once a week.
Another way to look at this difference is in terms of your probability of winning a bet. In poker, you can fold until you find yourself in a situation where you have a 65% to 80% probability of winning, then bet heavily when you’re in that situation.
You will rarely, if ever, find yourself placing a sports bet where you have that probability of winning. The best sports bettors in the world are thrilled with a win ratio of between 53% and 57%.
When you’re winning a lower percentage of bets, your variance increases, because you will unavoidably lose more bets over the long run.
What’s a Good Return on Investment?
Your return on investment is the amount you’ve won compared to the amount you’ve risked. The higher that percentage is, the better.
In poker, return on investment is usually used by tournament players to measure how well they’re doing. Realistically, the best poker players in the world are lucky to see a return on investment of 25% to 35%, which is an impressive number. (Compare that with the kind of ROI you’d see on a savings bond.)
In sports betting, your return on investment will almost surely be in the 5% to 15% range, and that’s if you’re one of the elite.
Return on investment isn’t the only way to measure how successful you’ll be at a given gambling activity, but it’s good to track it and be aware of the difference.
Conclusion
Which is better to bet on? Poker or sports? This post doesn’t provide a definitive answer, because that answer varies too much from one person to another.
If you’re lousy at poker but good at sports betting, it’s obvious which kind of gambling you should do. The reverse holds true, too.
If you’re good at both, you should do both. Many professional poker players are also pro sports bettors. What about you? Which activity are you good at betting on?
Leave me a comment and let me know.
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A pair of poker pros teamed up to win a combined $785,623 in two separate sports betting competitions in Las Vegas.
David ‘ODB’ Baker and Mark Gregorich paired up in the Las Vegas SuperContest hosted by the Westgate Las Vegas and in the Circa Sports Million II. The duo won the SuperContest, one of the most coveted titles in the Las Vegas sports betting world, for $435,623 and finished in a tie for second in Circa’s contest, adding another $200,000 to their bank accounts.
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They also won the SuperContest’s first quarter prize for $100,000 and came in second in the exact same contest at Circa. They received an additional $100,000 for sitting atop the leaderboards after the first four games of the NFL season, and an additional $50,000 for second in Circa’s first quarter leaderboard, bringing the total profit to money won to $785,623.
With the victory, the two showed off their overall gambling prowess, not just their proven track record at the poker table, which is already impressive. There is nearly $7.9 million in combined tournament earnings between the two longtime pros. Baker also adds two World Series of Poker bracelets and a World Poker Tour title to their combined resume.
Both the SuperContest and the Circa Millions were sports betting competitions where each team would pick five NFL games against the spread. A win was worth 1 point and a push/tie were worth .5 points. The team with the most points at the end of the season wins.
Playing under the team name ‘ODBMG2,’ Baker and Gregorich put up the $1,500 buy-in. With a record of 54-26-5 and 56.5 points, they bested the field of 1,172 entries to earn the SuperContest title and the first-place money. They narrowly edged out ‘Yugo77’ by 1.5 points for the title.
After racing to the top of the leaderboard by the start of Week 3, Baker and Gregorich never lost the top spot. Heading into the final week yesterday, it was essentially a two-team race between the team of poker pros and ‘Yugo77.’
Update after morning games.
We win super contest if Rams +2.5 OR Chicago + 5.5 OR Wash -2.5 tonight. However we want GB to cover as we have them in Circa and need them Carolina and Seattle to either win or set up Washington’s tonight. Decent morning. Not perfect but fine
— David Baker (@audavidb) January 3, 2021
Baker and Gregorich picked the Dallas Cowboys (-1.5), Pittsburgh Steelers (6.5), Baltimore Ravens (-12.5) and Washington Football Team (-2.5). ‘Yugo77’ went with the Green Bay Packers (-5.5), Carolina Panthers (3), Detroit Lions (+6.5) and Arizona Cardinals (-2.5).
Baker and Gregorich went 3-2 with their picks, while ‘Yugo77’ went 2-3, securing the title.
Circa’s contest was a $1,000 buy-in with a $1 million guaranteed first-place prize and what ended up being a field of 3,148. The pair was in the lead for a seven-figure score heading into Week 17 but fell just shy of their ultimate goal.
So close to the double win. Ugh Seattle gave us the miracle then took it away….we won WestgateVegas</a> SuperContest for $435k which is so cool and a dream! We managed to tie for 2nd in <a href='https://twitter.com/CircaSports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw'>CircaSports for $200k consolation prize! What a fun ride @markgregorich
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— David Baker (@audavidb) January 4, 2021