OddsJam Betting Results for October 2023

After a good month in August and an outstanding month of using OddsJam in September, October was almost flat. Even though I managed to place a lot more bets compared to August and September, October’s profit per wager was just about 1%, far lower than usual. With a significant downswing to start the month, it is actually significant that I managed to turn it around and end with a positive. Again, I know that is how variance works and it is to be expected. Of course, a third straight positive month of betting is nice to see.

You can read about my results for August and September or the beginning of this Year of OddsJam.

If you take a bit of a step back and look at the bigger picture for October, the initial downswing was easier to overcome simply because there were more bets to make, many with a large edge. That is the nature of positive expected value (+EV) betting: keep betting with an edge and, over the long run, the profits will follow. OddsJam is great for consistently finding an edge.

Results

Here is my OddsJam ‘Wordle’ for October 2023. (Side note: The 31st should be green. OddsJam knows about this issue with the time difference — I’m in New Zealand — and they will fix it at some point.)

A few days in October I wasn’t able to make bets. Life gets in the way some days. However, now that the NHL and NBA have started their regular season, daily bets are easy to find. As you can see, the first half of the month was not kind and variance was a bit nasty. However, the second half was good and I managed to erase the early hole for the month to end slightly positive. As mentioned, it was easier to climb out of the hole as there were simply more bets to make once the NBA season started.

October ended up with a slight profit of 10.6 units (units are the minimum bet that I make). The profit margin per wager was 1.06%, far lower than September. Between October and September, there is a happy medium rather than these significant swings. The 85% of bets that beat CLV is off the charts, again, but it just goes to show you that variance is a long-term game. The win rate is 49%, which is around the expected number given the odds I’m betting. With 335 bets in for the month, I more than doubled the number of bets placed in September, even with days where I didn’t place a single bet.

I should note that a high number of the player prop bets that I am placing are not at the recommended bet size. This is often a result of the maximum allowed bet with some of the books that I frequently use. Other times, it is because I am trying to avoid big swings in bankrolls at some of my books so I can keep betting and avoid having to move my bankroll between books.

I was very happy that I was able to shake off the poor start to the month of October and keep emotion out of the betting. We know the math works, we just need to give it the time to play out in our favor. It is a bit of a contrast to September. Again, we know that September was not sustainable and expected the variance to kick in at some point and bring us back to reality.

MLB was negative, but not significant. NHL has not been a good bet at all, especially ‘shots on goal’ player props. Knowing what my results were like last year for the NHL, I’m sure we’ll be on the positive side soon enough, although it will be worth looking back at how I did with ‘shots on goal’ bets.

NFL was only a slight positive, but that will certainly be down the first Sunday in October being a rough day. NBA is what really saved the day. Even though the season is less than a week old, NBA bets have been very profitable.

Last month a large majority of my bets were placed at a single book, which was a significant concern. Luckily, the tides have turned and I am now putting in bets across more books. This is still a result of the books I have available in New Zealand and would NOT be a problem in the USA, Canada, Australia or Europe where there are simply more books available.

Goals

As for the goals I set for October (updates in bold):

• Place more bets. Done. Way more bets placed.
• Place more arbitrage bets. These are guaranteed profitable bets. Done.
• Try and place some middle bets. These are like lottery tickets. If you manage to hit it just right, you push on one side and get a full win on the other side. Fail. I didn’t place a single middle bet in October.
• Place some parlays – yes, parlays can be profitable. This goal is more about some odds boosts that are usually available for NBA games at some of the books. Done, but not many.
• Find more books with a consistent range of +EV bets to make. Diversification is a good thing in profitable sports betting. Partially done. I’m spreading my wagers, but not as much as I would like at this point.
• Find more bets on soccer. When I used another service, soccer was way more popular than it is on OddsJam. It is offered, but to get the range that I used to I’ll have to use some custom filters. Fail. I’ve setup a filter for this, but the bets are not there.

So, some goals for November:

• Keep placing more bets – aiming for about 500 for the month.
• Place more arbitrage bets. With the different currencies at the different books, I have decided that it may be easier to place some of these as hedge bets as working with multiple currencies is a challenge. It changes the nature of the bet. However, I believe this will still help boost the bankroll.
• Do not worry about middle bets. The +EV and arbitrage bets are great and are taking up enough time so I’ll leave middle bets for now.
• Add at least one more book.
• Contact OddsJam about the filters for soccer as this could be a nice addition and some of the international books have fewer limits on soccer.

With a full month of NHL and NBA, I can’t wait to see what November brings!

Disclaimer: Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that links to OddsJam are affiliate links and I am not hiding that. I truly believe in their product and use it daily. Visit OddsJam to start a free trial and see for yourself. You will not regret it!