Starting this blog 6 years ago was one of the best decisions of my life. Without this blog it is highly unlikely I would have made the profits I have. The return on investment has been crazy. It has been fundamental to my success as a sports bettor.
That’s why I am surprised there are not many others out there. Hopefully this article changes that.
Let’s look at the positives and negatives of starting a betting blog. I’ll then show you how to start one in under 10 minutes.
Positives of blogging
- Learn as you progress (critical thought down on paper)
- It seems that after our schooling finishes we stop learning. But if you want to get good at something you need to be an eternal student. The best way to learn is via a feedback loop. You do something and then you write down what you learnt and how you could have done it better. Rinse and repeat. That is what I did at the start. By having a weekly update of my results and what I was thinking it allowed me to experiment and crystallise thoughts. This helped me shape my betting philosophy.
- It also allowed me to come up with insights I would never have had if I wasn’t writing down my thoughts. These insights lead to more profits and cool new hacks to use. For people thinking about trading sports for a living, this is very important.
- The blog also allowed me to vent my frustrations when things were not going well. Gambling can be a lonely hobby, and keeping our anger in is not doing anyone any good.
- The blog forced me to keep a schedule and to measure my results. We all know the old saying. “what gets measured gets improved”.
- Blogging has also taught me to be a better writer, social media marketer, seo expert and other skills that can be easily translated into other areas
- Grow your network (talk to others, learn new skills, tips and tricks)
- When I started I had no contacts in the gambling space. Now I have hundreds. I talk to other successful bettors, workers at bookies, and am sort out for my opinion from government & media agencies.
- These people have given me so many tips and tricks that would have either taken years to grasp or I would have never learned at all. People say I give away too much on the blog at times, but the return I get is far more than I give.
- This site is like a living resume and I’ve been offered jobs from most of the big corporate bookmakers (the UK owners) and other businesses in the industry. By becoming “a thought leader” and “expert” (not my words) in the field, I now receive offers for work all the time.
- Create side income (business, partnerships, courses, affiliates)
- This was an unexpected one, but for me now the biggest driver. As the site has grown over the years, I now have an audience of people who are very valuable to marketers. You guys who like to bet are worth a fortune to bookies and other businesses. If I choose to use sportsbook affiliates on this site, I would be making 6 figures from it in under a year. There are some affiliates in Australia making high 7 figures per year (yes, that means millions per year). Sportsbook affiliates pay a heap, and if you start your own blog there is nothing wrong with chucking these up on your site. You will get a percentage of the losses your affiliated players make.
- This post is an affiliate post. I will make money if people create a blog. I know from past posts and sign up figures that at least 20-50 people will be smart enough to follow my lead and start a blog. This post will bring in at least $1,500 and more likely well over $5,000.
- I started Dailyprofit (my own tipster site) in 2014 and just from people reading this blog, the business made over 6 figures in it’s first year alone. It continues to grow each year.
- I can use old content from this site to create products such as books and video courses. This is a very lucrative area.
- I receive a few emails a week from other people who have gambling related businesses asking to partner up.
- I can create something in the gambling space and know that I already have 1000’s of people willing to test it out. People pay millions to get those sort of numbers to their startups.
- Positive impact on the industry
- We need more people talking about how punters are treated. Right now, it feels like me against the bookies. A war one person can’t win. But if more of you start letting your voices be heard (and no, twitter does not count), we will have a chance to get minimum bet laws in and stop account restrictions. All it will take are more voices.
- Look back over your journey
- This site is a journal of my betting life as it happened. Not me looking back on it years later. In 50 years I will be able to look back on it and see what I was thinking all those years ago. I’m sure I will laugh at how little I knew. When retelling a story of success we usually skip over the painful parts and make it look like we knew what we were doing all along. But a blog makes sure that does not happen.
- Look more professional than everyone else
- I see thousands of tipsters and ranters on twitter, but none with websites. Why? because people are lazy and cheap. It takes 1 minute to create a twitter account (and it’s free). It actually takes about an hour to get a website up and running (and $50) and moves you from looking like every other twitter tipster/ranter to something more serious. No one takes people on twitter seriously, it’s about as useful as yelling into a void. It is so easy to do just a little bit more and rise above all the rest.
- You also own your website and email list. When you only use social media platforms you are at risk of losing your account at anytime or being forced to pay for your content to be seen. Why take that risk.
Negatives of blogging
- Hard work
- Blogging isn’t easy and takes time and effort. This post has taken me a few hours to write.
- When you start out and only have a few people coming to your site, you will think it’s not worth the effort. It takes effort (and good content) to get people coming to read what you have to say.
- It’s really hard to write when you are losing. But by far these are the most important times to share your experiences and for me have always produced the most feedback.
- I see blogs start with the best of intentions and within 6 months they are gone, you need to see blogging as a long term commitment.
- Trolls
- Welcome to the Internet (well, more so just Twitter). When you start doing well a small percentage of people will hate you. As they can hide behind their username, they will say things they would never say normally. If you don’t deal well with hate being directed your way than don’t be a blogger.
- It’s not difficult to block trolls or just not use twitter, but twitter and these trolls are a great driver of traffic to your site.
As you can see, the positives outweigh the negatives massively. If you can get through your first 6 months of blogging you will start to see real results. I’m not special in any way, I just stuck around longer then all the rest and tried to share as much as possible. You can to.
How to start your own betting blog
You can get up and running in 10 minutes and it takes no technical skills at all.
- Head to Bluehost.
- Signup for $3.45 USD per month
- Choose a domain name (daily25.com is already taken)
- Use the 1 click wordpress install and get a free theme.
- Start writing
- Share what you wrote
Those are the steps I took to get started 6 years ago. I use a free theme and my site looks pretty decent. The ~$50 you spend to get started will be paid back in no time in lessons learnt and new contacts and skills. I really can’t wait to read your thoughts on betting and follow your journey.