Sports Betting News, Reviews & More

Me and my buddies were watching the game at our favorite watering hole in Las Vegas when we decided to place a bet on it.  After the game was over, we had lost our pants off and one of them mentioned that we could make a killing if we had our own online bookie operation.

This is when we decided to go for it and the process was much simpler then we had imagined once you know how to do it.  So I thought that I would share the experience so that anyone thinking about opening their own sports betting operation will have the information on hand.

The first step is to get a license

This is probably the toughest step as you have to apply to the Nevada Gaming Control Board and Commission.  The fee is quite high so this may not be for everyone.

If you do not plan on accepting U.S. players and want to run an international online operation, then you can get a license in other countries such as Antigua, the Philippines and several other countries at a fraction of the cost.

To get a license you will first of course have to start a corporation that you will use to also start a bank account for your sportsbook.

The second step is to get a sports betting software

A sports betting software will allow you to have your customers login, add funds to their account and place their bets.  The software will keep track of all of the sports betting odds, take the bets and keep track of your clients balance.

A good sports betting platform will cost around $300,000 or you can also get a programmer to create one for you for around $100,000.

In addition, if you do not know anything about lines, you will have to hire an odds manager who can manage your betting odds and know when to change them according to the action.

An alternative would be to use a sportsbook pay per head service.  This basically allows you to rent the software where you pay a fee between $5-$25 every week for all of your active players.

The third Step is to get Players

This is all about marketing where you will have to advertise as much as you can.  The more players you have the more money you can make as being a bookie is not about hoping all of your players will win but about volume.

A bookie makes a commission for every bet they take and what you want to do is have a 50/50 action on each side of the bet and then you just collect the commission.  Depending on your ability to keep the sports betting odds even and the vig you decided to take in, a decent sportsbook will usually have between 3.5% to 4.3% hold percentage on all of the sports betting action.

For example, if you have 58 players that made $1 million in bets in one year and average a 3.5% hold on the betting, you would earn $35,000 in profits.

Quantity or Quality

Most sports betting operations when they begin would rather have Quality players or whales.  That is a player that bets big, loses big and keeps on betting.  These types of players bring in a larger revenue because the bookie makes more money from them losing their bets

However, the majority of players are not like that and there is always the chance that the player could always go on a streak and win big.  However, this is not a good way to plan a sportsbook as it is an unknown factor when trying to project profit and losses.

Then you have Quantity, that is having a lot of players that bet on a regular basis.  For larger operation this is the way to go because they provide a steady stream of money from the commission or hold.

If a sportsbook has 1,000 players that bet around $30 million in action a year with a 3.45 hold percentage, then the sportsbook will earn $1.050,000 per year!

So just remember that quantity is its own type of quality.

Now that you know the basic that is involved in opening your own sportsbook, it’s time to take plunge and follow your dreams.  There is of course much more involved then what I just wrote about but in a nutshell this is it.

I did have the help of a sportsbook marketing company to help me get players when I started my betting operation which really made a difference in the success of my book as they provided me with a lot of information on how to better my sportsbook.

This article on how much money do you need to become a bookie should also help out.

So for all of you out there wanting to start your own bookie operation, good luck!