Greetings travellers.

If you're in need of help getting started with our latest and most extensive BetSmart tools, check out my five top tips that I think will help you get started with BetSmart, and help you understand the data in front of you.

I built BetSmart because for years, I've been writing about underdog picks on Pickwatch, but would often refer to other bets and strategies I use. Inquisitive users have often asked for more help or detail. Instead, we built the tools to bring the same strategies to you all.

Tip 1: Get as many accounts as possible

BetSmart scours millions of datapoints every second to find mispriced lines that you can convert into easy, often no-risk profit.

Most of these opportunities work by playing sportsbooks off against one another, or going to a particular book that has made a mistake. If you use BetSmart to only bet with the provider you have an account with, you'll be missing out on a lot of the benefit.

We advise that you sign up to as many sportsbooks as are active in your state. It's just good practice if you want to be able to place bets quickly and take advantage of offers that may only be available for a minute or two.

Thankfully, Sportsbooks are constantly incentivizing users to sign up to them. We recommend using our Promo Converter tool to check the offers currently active in your state, and then using Promo Converter bets to convert the maximum amount back into real cash, by hedging those bets elsewhere for a guaranteed net profit.

If you don't have a big bankroll to start with, you can start with smaller offers that require very little capital to convert, and build up to bigger offers without risking your own hard-earned cash.

My advice is to convert as many as possible over the first month of your subscription. An average player can convert anywhere from $500-$1,000 in promotional bonus cash - a huge boost to your bankroll!

More: Using Promo converters to turn promo cash to real cash!

Tip 2: Start small, and place your first arbitrage bet.

At the outset, you're going to be looking at our Arbitrage Tool and perhaps wonder if it can be true that you can guarantee a profit. You may also wonder whether you want to risk $100 or more on finding out!

Well, first of all, it is 100% true. Arbitrage bets are specifically those where the odds difference between two companies guarantees a small profit, no matter which side wins.

The only problem is that odds are forever changing, therefore when you first start, it's highly likely you will be flustered by the notion of placing two bets at once. Don't worry, that's entirely normal. Once you start doing it regularly, and you get the hang of how it works, it'll feel as natural as any other bet you place, and you'll get the hang of the layout of every sportsbook.

I suggest starting your arbitrage bet journey with small stakes while you practice. You can change this in the 'max wager' box at the top of the arbitrage page. I suggest limiting yourself to say, $20 or so at the outset. You'll still make a profit, just not as big as the ones you'll eventually get.

Once you have seen it working, and you get a good setup, you'll realize just how easy it is to make profit, and you can raise your stakes easily enough - though keep in mind our tips for Arbitrage bettors to not get too greedy!

More: Arbitrage Betting 101

Tip 3: Find your best value Props.

Our new Prop bet finder is a powerful tool, and it's something you'll be able to immediately use to your advantage any time you want to place a prop bet.

My first tip? Put aside your knowledge, and work on the premise of value.

I like to use the sorting and filters to find props. First, I filter only props with over 80% over the last 5 games. Then, I set the odds to between around -125 and +150. This is the sweet spot for value, in my view, where the repeatability of a player or team to beat a prop is inherently strong. Conversely, with longer odds, we have to be aware that those hot streaks are much more likely to be unsustainable.

But the beauty of the Prop finder, is that you can use it however you like. Maybe you want longer odds? You can still find those bets, and still find the players and teams most likely to deliver.

So from day one, you have a great idea of any prop's true value, and can easily find props for any slate of games.

Tip 4: Start using our Positive EV tool

Positive EV is a relatively simple way of increasing the mathematical probability of long term profit. Unlike some of our other tools, Positive EV isn't a guaranteed winner, but in the long run, this data is essential to generate profits, by getting the absolute best value possible.

Put it this way: If you get -111 odds on something that should be +100, you're paying a tax to the sportsbook of 10 cents per dollar won, or 10% of your winnings. Add that up over the long haul, and you're going to miss out on bigger profits, or even worse, make a loss, where a profit was easily possible.

Positive EV 'de-vigs' the odds, and thanks to our behind the scenes data deals to acquire the same data sportsbooks are using, we give you the true probability that the sportsbooks are using to calculate EVERY bet.

Positive EV bets are those where the odds you can bet on exceed the 'fair' odds, and give you an advantage of knowing the real probability of an event occuring. This is how Sportsbooks make money, by baking this profit into every payout, and shaving your profits off most winning bets.

Many Wall Street insiders use Positive EV techniques as part of their portfolio, effectively 'betting' on undervalued stock prices. This is the same principle, and our Positive EV tool is simple to use. Even better, unlike any other +EV tools you might find, we also include fully transparent data on the success rate of those markets and players, and provide the same win % rates as in our props tool, meaning you can see how often the player or team(s) convert over recent games.

Apart from Upset Watch's underdog picks, Positive EV betting is the lynchpin of how I bet, and has been for years. I rarely bet on anything that is objectively 'poor' value mathematically, and as a result, I am always in profit. You won't win every bet, but at the end of each month, you'll more often than not be generating a profit.

Read more: Positive EV 101

Tip 5: Be disciplined and avoid parlays

The biggest thing I would say to you when starting out? Don't get greedy too quickly!

The 'Kelly' stakes we put next to every Positive EV bet indicate the amount of your bankroll you should risk on each bet. Sure, you could sometimes feel a bet is so good you want to put 10x that amount on, but if you're wrong, you take a big chunk out of your bankroll, so do this very rarely if ever.

I tend to bet on only a handful of high value Positive EV or excellent value props per day, at low stakes no more than 1-2% of my bankroll, and never combined into parlays, all based entirely on generating a positive ROI (Return on Investment) every day. On the days I lose, I'm rarely much worse off, but because of Positive EV, when I win, I win more, and often it's the difference between a good or a bad day.

Stay disciplined. Sure you'll have days where you think you could have won a lot more, but you'll also have days where you're grateful a few bad beats didn't really matter.

PS: Why I hate Parlays

I hate parlays. They ruin bankrolls and destroy profits for bettors, which is why sportsbooks LOVE them.

Think about it mathematically. Like I said about Positive EV bets, the sportsbook bakes in the vigorish that makes them money into every bet, so while the odds increase exponentially with every bet you place in a parlay, so does the vig.

In laymans terms, what this means is that even if your three -110 bets end up with combined parlay odds of +500, the reality is that the probability of it coming off is likely around double those odds.

This is why you lose a lot of parlays - and I know you do, if you're betting, because I used to as a young bettor back in the day. The attraction of the 'big payday' is what lures people into giving money away. That's fine if you've got it to lose, but there's a reason why sportsbooks even publish big parlay tickets on their own social media pages, because they are by far the most profitable element of their business.

So my message? Again, be disciplined, take small wins, and be happy about them, but don't sweat your losses costing you a win that wouldn't even offset all the other losses you've made on previous parlays.

So my advice is to be super careful, and only use parlays for 'fun' betting, in a separate pool to the profitable betting that BetSmart can help you with!

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