Bookies have a fantastic job, one that comes loaded with tons of perks, lots of time off, time for great vacations, the money to buy expensive cars, live in penthouse suites, and just basically live the highlife; said no one ever! Ha, for anyone that is a bookie or has ever been a bookie, you know that none of this is true. Bookies are pressed upon daily and their job is a never-ending barrage of late-night phone calls, text messages, grading bet slips, setting the daily lines, making sure they are not going to get burned on any future odds and staying competitive with the next man up—the competition. There is always another bookmaker somewhere trying to get a leg-up on everyone else. The competition is fierce. The ever-present question is this; how are the small guys competing with the big offshore bookies?
A Bookies Life
- Prepare, set, and offer the daily lines for each sporting event, and/or games for that day.
- Have a working phone number, email or better yet-a website, where you can be contacted by each of your betting clients, so they can ask you about the lines and the odds for the individual events and games.
- Setting futures odds for each respective sport that you are going to offer future odds on. This does not have to be done daily but it certainly should be looked at daily. The world of professional sports changes at a moment’s notice, and a bad line can kill you later on in the season. You must stay on top of every future line you offer.
- Grading each day bet slips. Your clients want paid when they win a bet and most of them will want to make new bets with their winnings. You must be prepared to have their event/game graded within five minutes after said event is finished.
- Knowing how much money you have! You must know on a daily basis how much you have to work with, how much you can afford to lose and how many bets and at what level you can allow players to play. Example: if you have $5,000 in the till, that’s it, no more not one penny more to your name. There is no money in a bank somewhere or in savings or under the mattress— you have $5,000. You must access your risk level. You can’t possibly allow yourself to be in a position to lose all $5,000. You must figure out how much of your net worth that you can afford to lose on a daily basis. You must set a tight budget and stick to it.
- Setting daily player limits. You need your clients and you want them betting with you as much as possible, but you must qualify the bettor and you must not let them bet more than you personally can afford to lose.
- You must make sure that the way in which your clients reach you in order to place their bets; you must make sure that’s it up, running and fully functional during your set business hours. If you are operating a website than you must make sure that your website is never down and always 100% fully-functional.
- You must be spreading the word. You want new clients, you depend on new clients and cross-action. You make money on the juice, so you must have people betting both ways on not just big events, but everyday sporting events.
- You must be offering more than simply sports betting. You must offer a fantastic Las Vegas style casino with all of the latest in slot machines, table games and live dealers. You also want to offer a world-class racebook. One that offers the 75 great tracks from around the world. Horse racing is a stabilizer to any bookies business, you must offer it.
**There is a lot more to a bookies life than simply what we have outlined above but that’s a great starting point! The real point is this; bookies are busy people and what they do is never ending. As a bookie you may never beat the “big time” online boys but that shouldn’t necessarily be your goal.
Priorities
- Have an online presence. This is a must if you want to build a client base and start seeing real profits come pouring in and a must if you care at all about competing with the big offshore bookmakers.
- Get help. You can not go this alone. You must find a support system that can help you along the way.
- Find help that’s affordable. There is help out there and it’s called a PPH or pay per head. Find a fantastic PPH provider and get the help to do your job correctly.
You can be competitive, but you must choose to walk away from bearing the workload alone.
If you desire to have a sportsbook that’s making money then you must switch your clients over to an all-inclusive, turnkey ready online sportsbook, racebook and Las Vegas style casino.
- You can do all of this for no up-front cost and around $10-$15 per head after the extensive free trial.
***There is one way to be competitive in the online gaming business and that with the use of a pay per head. Stop going this alone. You do not have time to be a bookie and find clients and service their needs. The pay per head will do all of the client-based work for you and now you have time to advertise, get the word out and find more paying clients.