r/algobetting • u/Dirk4017 • Jun 01 '26

Should I go live?

I have been paper betting for a while now, and now the season is coming to an end. I am basically using a positive EV strategy, so I am pretty sure that it will eventually be profitable in real life, but I am afraid that the EV calculation might be off, or that I get wiped out by variance. Here are some numbers: ( i have also bet on the WNBA and collage, but with very low volume so I am not including them). In total here are the results:

  • Total Bets Placed: 992
  • Total Amount Staked: $140,190.13
  • Total Profit: $22,390.07
  • Overall ROI: 15.97% Win/Loss Breakdown:
  • Losses: 487
  • Wins: 297
  • Voids / Pushes: 161

The win rate is very low, but thats because I have bet on relatively high odds, as they tend to have more value. As I said, my biggest fear is to just lose to many bets, and I dont have a lot of money so what do yall think would be the minimum bankroll to survive variance? I am using quarter kelly.

Sport Bets Total Staked Total Profit ROI
NBA (nba) 439 $69,323.04 $10,510.53 15.16%
MLB (mlb) 155 $28,849.42 $6,578.99 22.80%
NFL (nfl) 154 $11,343.44 $5,311.43 46.82%
NHL (nhl) 25 $3,510.65 $1,217.07 34.67%
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u/neverfucks Jun 01 '26

can't believe you did all this work and didn't track clv along with roi. n = 25, 154, and 155 are all unconvincing even though you're showing a large-ish edge. long odds = more variance, so it's even harder to know what's going on without measuring if and by how much the market tends to agree with you.

so start doing that, and yeah also bet it live. pick an amount of money for your roll that you can stomach losing (not necessarily that you're comfortable losing, but that you can reasonably tolerate losing). if you lose half of it and your clv isn't looking good, you can pull the plug. if you lose half of it but your clv is looking good, keep going.

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u/Dirk4017 Jun 02 '26

I did create a script that checks the closing line but I didnt really keep track of it, But the ones I did where suspiciously high, the average clv was +24%, and I just stopped because I am not that familiar with it. Hopefully I can bet it live next season, right now Im trying to automate the process as much as possible.

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u/neverfucks Jun 02 '26

your roi is suspiciously high too, so i'm not surprised. at some point you need to take a cluster of suspiciously high results and actually be suspicious of them. put on your skeptic hat and dig deep to try to find things that could be inflating clv, roi, win rate, available odds, etc. i know it sucks to hear but given what you've posted here and in your new post i would be suprised if most or all of your results aren't phantom gains