Sports betting has blown up in the United States since PASPA was repealed in 2018. More than $13 billion was wagered in regulated markets in December 2023 alone.
Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, the sportsbooks are still printing money; American citizens collectively lost more than $1.2 billion to the books last December. Sports betting is big business, but it’s hard to find good information and education about how to get better at it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but (again unsurprisingly) the voices with the biggest platforms are generally not the most educated. Today, we’ll walk through some resources for new and intermediate bettors who want to improve their craft.
BOOKS
- The Logic of Sports Betting by Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow – I put this category first because this is the first resource new bettors should go to. The Logic of Sports Betting is a must-read for anyone new to gambling. The book came out in 2019 and the sports betting industry evolves fast, so not everything holds up perfectly (which the book itself acknowledges), but Miller and Davidow explain the basic math and market dynamics of sports betting in an easily understandable manner. If you are a beginner — i.e., you don’t think you are a long-term winner — you should stop reading this article, read this book, then read the rest of the article.
- Interception by Miller and Davidow – Interception is a follow-up to Logic of Sports Betting that reflects on how the regulated industry has evolved over the past 5-6 years and focuses on modern betting topics such as live betting, player props, and same-game parlays. Once you’ve read Logic of Sports Betting to understand how betting markets work in general, Interception may have more applicable topics to the domestic space as it exists today.
VIDEOS
- The Hammer’s Rob Pizzola has a playlist on YouTube called “Sports Betting Education” that should be useful for new or currently losing bettors. Depending on what you bet, some of the videos may not be useful to you. Here are the ones that I think are helpful for everyone:
- The Unabated YouTube channel (headed by Captain Jack Andrews, a fantastic educator in the space) digs into similar introductory topics in an easy-to-understand manner. You can pick your poison of which you like better.
WEBSITES
- Establish The Run – We are primarily a fantasy sports website, and we strive to only put out high-quality information. Over time, we expect to add more betting content (and we already have a few articles on site). Some examples:
- Disproving popular sports betting myths (I am biased, but I would consider this a must-read.)
- How to use odds boosts
- Unabated – Unabated offers an odds screen for normal sports, plus a player props odds screen for NFL, NBA, MLB, CFB, and WNBA. They also have numerous tools that can help even the most experienced bettors, such as an optimal hedge calculator, a no-vig calculator, a hold calculator, and an odds converter. Finally, they have an Education section on their website with articles ranging from NFL to WNBA to MLS. Articles from Jack Andrews are especially good for new gamblers.
Also, some online tools that may be helpful:
- Parlay calculator (via Action Network) – If you enter the odds for two individual bets, this tool will tell you what the fair payout is on a parlay. This can be useful for either making sure you are getting fair odds on a parlay, or for figuring out what the odds would be for a same game parlay if the legs were uncorrelated.
- Odds converter (from Unabated) – Convert between American, decimal, fractional odds, and implied probability.
- No-vig calculator (from Unabated) – Remove the juice from each side (e.g. -110 on each side is really 50% probability, or +100, without the juice).
PODCASTS
- Circles Off – In my opinion, this is the best podcast in the sports betting space. Rob Pizzola and Johnny from BetStamp are successful sports bettors who host a wide variety of guests in the industry, plus they have FAQ/listener question episodes that should be extremely useful for inexperienced bettors. For beginners, it’s likely best to start with the FAQ and listener question episodes. 90 Degrees (part of the Circles Off family) is also good, but the flagship Circles Off with Rob and Johnny is the best in the biz.
- The Unabated Podcast – The Unabated crew hosts a variety of guests focusing on topics from modeling sports to gambling tax laws.
- Risk of Ruin – While not exclusively a sports betting podcast, Risk of Ruin is immensely popular with sharp gamblers because it focuses on people seeking an edge in many walks of life. It’s a very interesting listen first of all, but it also teaches you how to think like an advantage player.
- Be Better Bettors – Spanky is one of the most successful gamblers of this generation and interviews a variety of guests on his podcast. The target demographic is probably gamblers who are already winning rather than true beginners, but it’s a good listen regardless.
- Inside Betting – Likely targeted at a more intermediate/experienced audience and not the most engaging content in the industry, but you will be hard-pressed to find more correct information across a wide variety of betting topics. Episodes 4 (judging whether someone is a winning bettor) and 15 (staking) may be good for beginners. This podcast is no longer actively churning out episodes.
Note that the Twitter accounts @betpodratings (now inactive) and @hagrinBPR (currently active) both review individual podcast episodes. The target audience is more experienced bettors and ratings are subjective, but they can still be a useful tool for deciphering which pod episodes are worth listening to (especially if a rating is extreme in either direction).
TWITTER (X)
It’s very hard to tell on social media who knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t. Your base assumption should be to not trust someone, even if they have a big following or are doing the hot new challenge (e.g., ladder challenge or $1 to $10,000 challenge — don’t trust them regardless of whether they are successful in said challenge or not). Some good follows on Twitter (don’t use Instagram or TikTok for betting education):
- @adamlevitan – ETR co-founder and DFS pro who is also a sports gambling sharp.
- @JeffreyBenson12 – The Director of Operations for Circa Sports has a better pulse on how bookmaking works (and how it should work) than just about anyone else in the world.
- @spanky – Spanky is one of the best and most experienced in the business.
- @capjack2000 – One of the best educators in the industry.
- @DavidPurdum – Purdum writes great gambling articles for ESPN.
- @robpizzola – Rob is a pro bettor who also makes content for The Hammer/Forward Progress HQ.
- @goldenpants013 – A successful bettor giving out correct educational information on Twitter.
- @PlusEVAnalytics – Very strong math/stats background and approaches things from a different perspective than most.
- @RufusPeabody – Perhaps the most influential golf originator of the past decade, now co-founder of Unabated.
- @BetPlayerProps – Not super active on Twitter, but timeline and replies are beneficial to anyone looking to sharpen their process.
- @ShipTheJustice – Former PointsBet trader turned pro bettor who has good insight into how things work and why things are the way that they are from the book’s perspective. Replies are most useful; retweets usually indicate he disagrees with the post.
I will caveat by saying that just because someone is included on the list above doesn’t mean they are always correct or that every tweet has value, nor does it mean I agree with everything they have to say on non-betting topics. However, following everyone on that list will make you a smarter bettor in the long run.
Twitter has the highest ceiling in this article in terms of what you can learn (i.e., you can learn things on Twitter that are very hard to find elsewhere because people don’t want to give away an edge), but it’s also the easiest to internalize incorrect concepts if you believe the wrong people. Sometime over the next few weeks, I plan to do an article detailing who to trust on Twitter and how to figure out whether someone is trustworthy. Podcasts are the best medium for learning more advanced gambling topics from a source you know can be trusted. But for true beginners or losing bettors, the books and videos mentioned in this article are the best starting point.
