It's a process, but building a model does not require years of experience. Spend time on those above areas, acclimate yourself to statistics and sports and you'll be fine. 2) Collect Relevant Data.

Ever wondered how you are actually doing in sports betting?

1. Specify the aim of your betting model. This appears simple, but many sports bettors.
2. I build analytics models in Microsoft Excel that analyze sports betting lines. My models update daily and all members can view them, purchase them, or better yet, help me make them better!

Just like tracking your finances can be an eye opening experience (I spent how much at restaurants last month?!), tracking your bets can shed some light on your performance.

Download the free sports bet tracking spreadsheet below to get started (available for both Excel and Google Sheets):

Bet Tracker Spreadsheet: Instant Insights

If you want to measure your performance and see where you are succeeding and failing, you need to track it.

With this free tool, you can see your performance broken down by various dimensions.

Have a great ROI on betting NBA 2nd halves? Getting solid closing line value on NFL point spreads? This spreadsheet allows you to answer questions like this and more.

How to use the spreadsheet

Basketball Betting Model

While the spreadsheet is pretty straightforward, I’d like to walk you through how it works.

How to track sports bets

Everything lives in the “Bet Log” tab. This is the only place information is manually entered. Once the data is entered there, all other tabs will automatically populate.

In the “Bet Log” tab, blue columns are required while red columns are optional. The more information you input, the more useful the spreadsheet will be.

Entering things like the closing line, while slightly annoying, will also be the most important to your success.

How to analyze performance

Each tab will have different graphs and tables that show your performance. The beauty of this is that you can filter the data by any dimension you like.

Any yellow cell is an “input” cell that can be changed. All of these are dropdowns that are pre-populated based on the information you enter in the Bet Log.

How to add more leagues and teams

To add new leagues and teams, you will do so in the “REF” tab. This tab holds all of the lookup information for the dropdowns throughout the spreadsheet.

Again, the cells available to modify are in yellow. You can add the following dimensions:

• Leagues (ex: WNBA)
• Teams (ex: Chicago Sky)
• Tags (ex: 2nd half)

Bet Tracker Spreadsheet Metrics

Deciding what to track is important in determining how you measure success. The spreadsheet tracks the following key metrics:

Closing Line Value

Closing line value (CLV) is a measure of how much better or worse the odds you bet at were compared to where they closed.

If you believe the markets you are betting into are efficient (NFL point spreads, MLB moneylines, etc.), then CLV is a great predictor of long term success.

All you need to do is input the odds you placed your bet at as well as where the odds closed. Preferably you use a market making sportsbook like Pinnacle to decide what the “true” closing line was.

Profit

Profit is about as simple as it gets. Are you making or losing money?

While this is the “bottom line”, surprisingly it isn’t always predictive of long term success. Still, you will obviously want to see how much money you have made or lost.

ROI

Create Sports Betting Model

This is what most people tend to look at. It is a measure of how profitable you are relative to how much you are risking.

While at the end of the day, the money in your pocket is what matters, this metric focuses more on results rather than process and is a measure of efficiency.

ROI isn’t as predictive of long term winning as CLV, but is useful to track to see where you stand.

Risk

This one is simple, yet will likely give you insights into where you are putting your money.

If you have a model, does it consistently value the Dallas Cowboys differently than the market? Thus making many of your bets on the Cowboys? Analyzing your risk by league/team/bet type can give you these types of answers.

Bankroll

Bankroll will track our running total of how much money you have in your accounts across all sportsbooks. You can also see this trended over time to help you see any changes in your betting strategy and how that has affected your bankroll.

It is very useful to see, at a glance, where your money lies. Is 95% of our bankroll at FanDuel? Maybe you should shift some to DraftKings.

Bet Tracker Spreadsheet Dimensions

Having these metrics available is important, but insights really come from slicing the data by different dimensions.

League/Team

Tracking your performance by league or team can give you clues into where your strengths or weaknesses are.

Do you watch every second of every New York Knicks game? Think you have an edge on Knicks games? You can find out using the spreadsheet.

Same goes for leagues. Do you follow NFL closely but use strictly numbers for NCAA Basketball? Compare the performance of the two and see what’s working.

Bet Type

Looking at performance by bet type can also shed some light on your process, especially if it is model driven.

Track your performance by the following bet types:

• Spread
• Moneyline
• Total
• Prop
• Future

You can also use the “Tag” field to designate special types of bets. For example, if you want to see your performance on moneylines for NBA 2nd halves, you would put “2H” (or something similar) in the Tag field and “moneyline” in the bet type field.

Excel Sports Betting Model

Date

A common way to analyze performance is to look at metrics trended over time.

Look at any of the metric/dimension combinations above trended over any time period you’d like.

Want to see your performance over the last 14 days? Or how about the last 12 weeks? Both are possible here.

Google Sheets Sports Betting Tracker

The sports betting tracker is also available on Google Sheets. While the features are the same as the Excel file, Google Sheets has some notable benefits:

• Available/online at all times
• Can enter bets on your phone using the Sheets app
• You don’t need to be at a computer to enter your bets
• Google Sheets auto saves any changes
• Allows multiple users to be in the sheet at the same time and make changes

To make money betting on sports is possible, but requires discipline, practice, and understanding of odds and sportsbooks. The best way to illustrate what is required is to show the numbers behind becoming a successful sports bettor. In this article, we will take a look at a simulation that shows 10,000 simulated bets of $110 placed on -110 odds. We do this using the spreadsheets linked here: Excel, OpenOffice.

Listed along the top of the spreadsheet are percentages between 50 and 60%. You can focus in on the winning ratio you expect to attain. These numbers weren’t chosen at random. Because -110 is generally the odds that imply a probability winning 50% of your bets, this is your starting point as a sports bettor. 60% is about the highest winning percentage you can expect over time in sports betting. If anyone ever tells you they pick winners over time more than 60% of the time, they are either trying to get money out of you or they are deluding themselves. Run, don’t walk. A reasonable goal to make money betting on sports is 56-57%.

Below is a sample view of the simulation:

The first thing to notice is is the red “Expected Winnings” line. This line isn’t simulated. It is purely the math behind the expected outcome of these bets at the various outcomes. For example, a 54% bettor can expect to win 5,400 bets, winning $100 on each bet (remember, the -110 odds), meanwhile losing 4,600 bets costing $110 per time. That is going to win you $34,000 on average BUT that isn’t guaranteed to be the case. In betting there is volatility. That is where the simulated blue line comes in.

Because it is a simulation based on random numbers and the winning percentage, there is what we call volatility in the outcome. You see, over time the simulation should approach the red line, but in reality it is never going to be perfect. In a million bets…a billion…there is still going to be volatility. That is why increasing your winning percentage, even by a fraction is vital to make money betting on sports.

You’ll notice a very important point in the red line at 52.4%. This is the most important number for sports bettors. This is the break even point where you break free of the sportsbooks juice or vig, and start making profit. It doesn’t sound too hard, but as you can see, each fraction of a percent above that point means less chance that volatility is going to adversely affect the outcome and more profit.

Once again here are the links to the simulated spreadsheets: Excel, OpenOffice. I invite you to download them and run through some simulations by pressing CTRL-Shift-F9, which will make the blue line shift around.

Get used to fighting for every percent. Get used to fighting for every half-point in the spread. Get ready to fight for every fraction in the odds. In my articles, I am going to get you as close to 52.4% as I can. To make money sports betting, the rest is going to be up to you.