Sports betting isn’t easy. There’s so much to keep up with and factor into your betting and everywhere you turn, someone is trying to sell you something. To help you out, I have five completely free sports betting shortcuts you should be using in your journey.
I’ve been a professional gambler for over 20 years and have taken millions from casinos and sportsbooks. I did it through a lot of study, hard work and discipline. I like to tell people that there are no shortcuts to being successful. You have to put the work in. However, these days there are some shortcuts that can really help you improve your game.
Better yet, these sports betting shortcuts are all free. These are things you can use to build your bankroll, make smarter bets, expand your betting horizons, and generally be a sharper bettor. Let’s start this list with number five, something I like to call picking the low-hanging fruit.
5.) Boosts and Promotions
I’ve been making videos on YouTube for over four years now and this was some of my earliest advice. Take advantage of promotions and bonuses as best you can. Four years ago as legalization started to spread across the U.S., every sportsbook was eager to earn your business by throwing money at you. These days the sign-up offers aren’t quite as good as they were, but there’s still value at sign up as well as in daily boosts and promotions.
If you’re growing your small bankroll, it’s still the best thing going for you. I know because when I was just starting out as a fledgling card counter back in the early 2000s, I stumbled upon internet casinos and sportsbooks. It was a much shadier time back then but with dozens of sites to choose from, I stuck to the sites with decent reputations and simply bounced from deposit bonus to deposit bonus. I quickly turned my meager $10,000 bankroll into a six-figure nest egg.
If you have a small bankroll and at least a handful of sportsbooks in your state, you can do quite well subsidizing your betting with those daily promotions. I call this picking the low-hanging fruit because too often bettors set their sights too high when approaching sports betting.
They try to beat markets that are way above their skill level. NFL or NBA sides for instance. Or they pick markets with a very high house edge, single game parlays for instance.
If you focus on low-hanging fruit you make your road in sports betting much easier. As a warning, sometimes sportsbooks don’t like someone just picking the low-hanging fruit and they may limit or cut off those accounts. Also, sometimes the expected value of a promotion might not be easy to calculate.
However, this is where your next free sports betting shortcut comes in handy, and that is building a network.
4.) Leverage Others’ Knowledge of Sports Betting Shortcuts
As I mentioned, being a winning bettor isn’t easy, and it’s made even more difficult if you try to do it solely on your own. Having a wise network is important. I’m not talking about just a group chat among all your buddies where you all list your five-team parlays. You need people you can exchange useful information with and bounce ideas off of. Like is this promotion worth playing?
Finding solid people to network with isn’t easy. In my own experience, when I was starting out we had a few different web-based message boards that were popular among other card counters. The one I was partial to was BJ21.com. It was an odd collection of blackjack card counters and some very interesting characters. I made a lot of friends there and still exchange information with some of them today.
One thing that I’ve always found useful is finding people who are better at a certain skill than I am. Maybe they travel more and know what works and doesn’t work betting in-person at a certain sportsbook. Maybe they have better applied math skills and can figure out the expected value of a bet boost.
In return, I look for something that I may be better skilled at to offer in return, so that it’s not a one-way street. Some of my biggest scores have come from people who shared an angle with me. Don’t underestimate the power of networking and don’t overestimate your ability to cover all this betting surface area by yourself.
Nowadays, message boards have given way to Discord servers and you still have to navigate some interesting characters on them. We created a free Discord server at Unabated because the need for solid trustworthy networking still exists.
It astonishes me how strong the content is on that forum, and a lot of profitable connections have been made. Come in and hang out.
3.) Automating Your Information
Coming in at number three on our list of sports betting shortcuts is automating your information. I’ve been told the YouTube algorithm likes shorter words, so let’s just call this one, “get info fast.”
Sports betting at its core is the exchange of information. The bettors are trying to gather information and use it to beat the sportsbook, while the sportsbook is looking to adjust to new information quickly and efficiently to maximize their profits.
You should always be looking for ways to get information faster. Some people aren’t even aware what information moves markets. Do you know when NFL injury reports are released? What about Major League Baseball daily lineups? Who is playing and who is out when it’s a game time decision in the NBA? Which QB practiced with the starters today? These are all things that greatly impact betting lines.
If you’re relying on Googling and searching for information after it’s out there, you’re probably behind the curve. Back in the day I used to use Google Alerts to notify me of news, but in time that was replaced by TweetDeck.
That product is not really available since Twitter became X, but there is the pro version of X which has the same functionality as the old Tweetdeck. That’s what I currently use. However, I did say that these were all free shortcuts and that is only available in a paid plan.
You can still set up a lot of the same functionality using multiple windows and cultivate different accounts to follow. For instance, the news accounts from Underdog Fantasy are really fast with pro sports lineup information. You might put them in one window.
If you’re looking for college football news, we have an Unabated CFB account which tweets a lot of valuable college player news and is second to none in terms of speed.
Combine this with your network of other bettors and this can be big. Having multiple eyes on breaking news can be very rewarding.
2.) Use an Odds Screen
The number two free shortcut for you is: use an odds screen. In fact, shopping for the best price is the single sharpest thing you can do as a bettor. It’s the one piece of advice that will make you win more or at the very least lose less.
Studies have shown that the average bettor uses just two sportsbook apps and they tend to make the decision of which one to bet at based not on price, but which one they’ve been winning at recently.
If you’re not already, you should be using every sportsbook app you have access to. Before you make a bet, take time to compare the odds at each sportsbook.
Now if you’re doing a lot of betting, this can be a laborious process. That’s where an odds screen comes in. You can quickly compare prices and find which sportsbook offers you the best odds for the dollar.
A paid odds screen can cost as much as $800/month. But we’re talking free sports betting shortcuts here. Most free odds screens offer you delayed lines. With their lines being up to five minutes behind real-time. This really defeats the purpose if you’re shopping lines based on some fast news you sourced.
We even give a color-coded signal of how fast the current feed is. See that little green light? That’s real-time. We even identify the Best Line available on the screen as well as the synthetic hold for the market so you can see how narrow the margins are. For a lot of bettors, this will immediately help them to make better decisions.
The free odds screen is a huge shortcut for bettors and one we’re happy to provide as you continue your journey to become sharper.
1.) Never Stop Learning
So what is the number one free shortcut to help you become a sharper bettor?
It’s actually you. It’s your drive. Your desire to continue to want to improve. Never stop learning. Never stop seeking out new information and new angles to attack sports betting. Do this and you’ll be on the fast track to being hugely successful at it.
One thing that has always fueled me as a gambler is wanting to know a better way to gain an edge. To never be satisfied with what I know, but always looking to expand upon it. Two decades ago I was reading books and reading posts on a message board. Now, I listen to podcasts while reading posts on a Discord server.
I keep a notebook with various ideas and things to explore. Some are sports betting related, some aren’t. Some will pan out, most won’t. But I keep learning and keep trying to find my next edge. Keep your own notebook and keep searching and your thirst for knowledge will be the most sustainable of our sports betting shortcuts for your growth.
If you liked this video, we’ve got plenty of others that cover a variety of topics related to making you a sharper sports bettor. Like this one. And be sure to check out the links below. I’ll see you next time.
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This site is strictly for educational and informational purposes only and does not involve any real-money betting. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER. This service is intended for adults aged 18 and over only.
