Sports gambling just became legal here in Ohio and we've been flooded with sign-up offers. Since just about every sportsbook will give you free bonus bets (around $200) for a small ($5 or $10) deposit, I decided to dabble a little bit into sports betting to see what all the fuss is about. I signed up for three different sportsbook sites and quickly realized I needed a way to organize and track all my bets.
Naturally, I decided to make an Excel template to track which bets I'd made, track my earnings, and make sure I was still making a profit. First, I created a Lists sheet for all my drop down lists including which sportsbook, which sport, result, and so on. Personally, so far I've only stuck to football because that's what I follow the most and already have some interest and knowledge in it.
The Bet Tracker sheet is used to track every individual bet including the odds, wager amount, and formulas to determine the potential winnings and the actual result.
When you bet with your own money, if you win the bet you get the winnings plus your original bet back. But when you use Bonus money to place your bet, that "fake" money is not added to the winnings. I had to account for this in my Potential Winnings column formula.
If your own money then: Winnings = ((Odds/100)*Wager)+Original Wager
If bonus money then: Winnings = (Odds/100)*Wager)
=IF(E2="My$",((G2/100)*F2)+F2,((G2/100)*F2))
If you get lucky and win a bet, you'll be able to withdraw the money into your own bank or Paypal account. There's a summary sheet to track exactly how much money you've put in versus what has come out. The most important stat to me is my running total, and making sure it is well in the positive otherwise it's time to quit.
How have I done? In the past two weeks, I placed 33 bets and won 8 of them. I've only had to input $27 of my own dollars, while I've gotten to bet $650 bonus bucks. I'm not huge into taking risks, so instead of betting on crazy parleys with larger payouts, I've bet on safer, more likely outcomes but with smaller rewards. What do I plan to do with my winnings? Probably invest in an AI company since they're changing the game.
In all my years of making sports related Excel spreadsheet templates, I've never really gambled on sports. I'm not sure I'll keep gambling once my free funds run out, but it is a fun experiment while it lasts. Like playing fantasy football or Super Bowl Squares, it gives you an extra incentive for watching the game. Hey, speaking of Super Bowl Squares, I've got a new version coming out this weekend and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it...
