Most sports bettors work alone. They conduct research, watch games, make evaluations, and shop for lines and place bets by themselves.
Winning sports bettors try to protect their systems and models from others because they know that even a winning system can be destroyed if too many people use it. This is one of the main reasons good sports bettors work alone.
Working alone creates a few issues though. It’s hard to accumulate enough information to evaluate a wide range of games working alone. It’s also hard at times to get enough money down on the game you want to bet on. And finally, working alone usually means you have a limited bankroll to work with.
You can build your bankroll working alone if you know how to turn a long-term profit, but it can take a long time, and you’re not making as much as possible if you can’t make larger bets.
These issues and others can be eliminated by forming a gambling syndicate. But putting together a syndicate isn’t always easy and it leads to new challenges.
Below you’re going to learn how to build a sports betting syndicate. You’re also going to learn the possible benefits and potential issues that come with a syndicate.
What Is a Sports Betting Syndicate?
A sports betting syndicate is a group of two or more people who pool their resources to attempt to make a profit betting on sports. It can be something as simple as two people combining their bankroll to enable larger bets to a large organization run like a business with dozens of investors and employees.
Like most organizations, the larger an enterprise becomes, the more difficult it becomes to manage. But with proper planning and leadership, a sports betting syndicate can offer many advantages over going it alone.
Benefits of a Sports Betting Syndicate
The benefits of starting a sports betting syndicate are numerous. The most important one is usually a larger bankroll. With a larger bankroll you can make more and bigger bets. If you’re profitable this increases your profits.
You can also use people in the syndicate to place bets. This is a good thing in at least two ways. The first reason this is good is if the book makers figure out that you’re a long-term winner they start tracking your bets and look for a way to eliminate your edge. If they don’t know you’re placing the bets it’s hard to track you.
The second reason is because with more than one person being able to place bets you can get more down per game and place bets in different places. If you want to bet a large amount on a game you run the risk of moving the line. But if the large bet is spread over several different books and placed at roughly the same time you can get your bets down before the line starts to move.
You also can get around betting limits this way.
Another benefit of a syndicate is you can use members of the organization to accumulate more data used to evaluate games. Most teams have media reporting on them and these media people have Twitter feeds and blogs that often include important details about the team.
It’s hard to follow hundreds of different Twitter feeds and blogs alone, but if you have 10 people each follow 10 or 20 resources you can cover more ground.
Legal Issues
The possible legal issues involved with a betting syndicate vary by location. It’s impossible to cover them all here, but you need to be aware of the possibility of breaking the law and research the laws where you plan to form the syndicate and where you plan to place bets.
In some places it’s illegal to have other people place bets for you. But if the people placing the bets are part of the organization you may be able to get around this law. But I’m not a lawyer and don’t offer legal advice. It’s 100% your responsibility to find out how to form and run a syndicate legally.
In some areas, the best option is to form a business with each member of the syndicate owning part of the business. This might be as simple as creating a partnership or it can be as complicated as forming a corporation.
I’ll discuss this more in the section about transparency, but no matter what you do, it needs to have everything covered in writing. This helps avoid legal issues later.
It’s possible to form a betting syndicate without a legal arrangement, but I don’t recommend it. I know a few small groups of people who operate syndicates without a formal agreement and they basically ignore the law.
This can work on a small scale, but it’s always in danger of leading to trouble.
Other Possible Issues
Other possible issues involved with running a sports betting syndicate involve a few things that most people don’t think about. These include:
- How profits are split.
- The trust involved with the person or people making the betting decisions.
- The trust involved with members carrying cash and making bets.
- The procedure for a member to leave the syndicate.
- The procedure involved in buying out the syndicate or specific members.
- What happens when the syndicate has a down swing created by losses and how long will it operate with losses?
Deciding how profits are split is one of the first things you need to determine. The person or people with the skill to pick profitable bets usually receive a higher split than the other investors, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Profits can be split on a predetermined agreement or investors can be paid a set interest on their investment. If you set up a syndicate this way you run the risk of breaking laws based on investments. Once again, you need to find out about the investment laws where you’re located before you get started.
I know someone who set up a gambling syndicate and took money in the form of investments and ended up going to jail. Law enforcement determined that he was running an unlicensed investment company and they came down hard on him.
He made a lot of people a great deal of money for years, but it all came crashing down because he didn’t have it set up the correct way. It turned out that if he’d simply set the business up in a different way he’d probably still be in business today.
The person or people that make the betting decisions are the most important part of a syndicate. If they don’t make profitable bets the syndicate is doomed. But betting on sports is a long-term game and it can take a long time for the profit to materialize.
This can lead to friction within the syndicate and erode the trust the members have in the decision makers. You need to have clear guidelines in place covering how long the business runs without a profit and what happens on extended down swings.
You also need to deal with the issue of members getting cash and placing bets for the business. How do they get the money and what happens to the betting slips? What happens if a member doesn’t place a bet? These are issues you must know how to handle before they come up.
It’s also important to know how the syndicate deals with new members and old members leaving. Can you buy someone out of the group and what happens when a member leaves on their own?
The syndicate also needs to have a specific plan in place for ending the business. Who gets what and what percentage of the assets does each member receive?
Many people who consider building a sports betting syndicate decide the possible issues outweigh the benefits and decide it’s best to keep betting on their own. Or they find one or two people and try to keep everything simple.
Only you can decide if it’s the right thing for you.
Win First
Before you consider building a sports betting syndicate, you need to figure out how to be a winning bettor. This requires a long track record of success, and systems and plans in place to continue winning.
In order to get people to invest their money in a syndicate, you need to be able to convince them that they have a realistic chance at a return on their investment. You need to keep records and have enough of a track record to show that you can win and your results aren’t from short-term variance.
Anyone would love to find someone that can win consistently betting on sports and have them make betting decisions for them. But if you came here looking for a way to do this you’ve come to the wrong place.
It’s harder to become a winning sports bettor than to have some extra money to invest. Most winning sports bettors don’t need you if you don’t bring anything to the table except money.
It’s possible to find them because some of them need extra money to make more money. These are the ones that consider starting a syndicate. But now this is about you joining a syndicate, not starting one.
If you want to start a syndicate you need to be a winning bettor first.
Putting One Together
I’ve covered just about everything you need to know about starting a sports betting syndicate. Here are a few ideas beyond what you’ve learned to help you get started.
Start small with one or two other people. These can be other sports bettors or friends. Keep things as simple as possible, but have plans in place for growth. Make sure everyone knows how things are set up and how things are going to change if you expand.
I prefer not to have other sports bettors involved, but it’s up to you. You don’t want multiple people making betting decisions unless they’re all good sports bettors. It has a better chance to succeed with one person who knows how to win and everyone else restricted to non-betting decisions.
It’s easier to find investors once you have a successful syndicate in place than finding them when you’re getting started. Create a track record of success and then expand as needed.
Handle Possible Issues with Full Transparency
The best way to handle any and all of the issues covered so far is to write everything down and operate with full transparency for the members of the syndicate. Make sure everyone understands completely how things are set up and run before they join.
Nothing is too small or insignificant to be included. Try to envision any possible issue that may come up in the weeks and years ahead. Make plans for everything you can think of and lay out exactly what happens if something that isn’t covered happens.
Who makes the final decision and what can members do if they don’t agree? Make sure you have clear details about how a member can leave and what they receive. Also make a list of how the syndicate can dissolve, why it will dissolve, and who makes the decision about it.
You should also make a detailed list of what each member is responsible for. If you need them to place bets and / or gather information, write it down. Go over the details with each prospective member and explain what happens if they don’t do what you need them to do.
Another thing you need to put together is a report schedule. You need to know how often you are going to update the members on results and what’s going to be included in each report.
One thing I recommend is including a clause that none of the members can place personal bets on any games the syndicate bets on. One way to keep them from doing this is not telling them which games you bet on until after the fact, but if you have them place bets, they know which games you’re betting on.
Conclusion
A sport betting syndicate offers many benefits and a few issues that you need to know how to deal with. But if you follow the advice on how to build a sport betting syndicate on this page you can enjoy the many benefits and avoid most of the pitfalls.
When you build a well-run and profitable syndicate, everyone involved can benefit. But if you don’t do it the right way everything can quickly fall apart.
