
CHEAT SHEET & FAQs
The Sports Betting Cheat Sheet Guide
Below is an in depth guide with thoughts and best practices to strategicallly utilize the SportsBook CheatSheet. If you are unfamiliar with the basics of sports betting or just want a quick refresher see SPORTS BETTING 101 below!
The "Cheat Sheet" refers to the predictions and advanced analytics provided to help gamblers make their picks.
Plenty of touts will tell you that they know how to pick winners with their own "system." Unlike those touts, we value statistics, proven results and transparency above all. For transparency all of our historical picks are made clearly available on our site.
Further, we do not "pick winners," but build statistical algorithms to utilize advanced statistics and data science to beat the oddsmakers. Yes, the sportsbooks do not like us.
The unfortunate reality is that most sports bettors lose or the sportsbooks wouldn't be in business.
With the normal -110 odds for a spread bet, a bettor needs to win 52.4% of the time to break even. So if the average bettor loses money that means they are below 52.4%. We can presume a solid bettor could likely win about 53% of their bets. If over the span of an NFL season a solid bettor places 10 bets a week (including playoffs) they would go 116-104, netting a win of 2 units or $100 if they bet $50 a game.
If one used the CheatSheet's predictions, which went 58% historically against the NFL spread one would go 127-93, a seemingly moderate differential. However, this would have net 19 units or $850 on $50 bets. The cheatsheet for the NFL only package is $125, leaving the bettor with $725 in profit!
Don't even get us started on our MLB and Golf models that are up 26 and 12 units respectively, netting one over $1900 on $50 bets, well surpassing the Cheatsheet's Full Package annual price of $239.
Further, the best strategies combine quantitative and qualitative factors. If one is able to correctly predict 53% against the spread, they could use the CheatSheet as a guide, to find games both they and the models like, possibly improving on the ChestSheet's predictions.
At SportsBook CheatSheet, we have created and tested proprietary algorithms to predict the outcome of sporting events. These models incorporate a wide variety of inputs including basic statistics, advanced statistics, weather, location, time of year, past performance in comparable situations, and more. The algorithms allow us to strip past human bias to find patterns and efficiencies to beat the oddsmakers.
All of the models on our site have either already been successful or, if created before the current season, have been back-tested to ensure that they would have a winning track record. Without these track records, we simply would not be posting these picks.
When assessing how much of your own analysis to include, ask yourself two questions:
How much about this matchup do I know?
What is my track record in betting on this sport?
The general recommendation for those confident in their knowledge and with a sound betting history to identify bets that both they and the algorithms find favorable, picking up on different edges that come to the same conclusion.
The algorithms we provide are very good, but obviously not perfect. No individual bet is guaranteed. The models zero in on patterns and numbers that provide an edge, which, over the long run, are very likely to yield success.
This is where bankroll and unit betting comes in. Whatever your bankroll (i.e. budget) is - $100, $5,000, or $500,000 - estimate how much you have to use in a specified timeframe (i.e. a month, year…). This allows you to easily break down your bets into “units.”
Units are expressed as the dollar amount a gambler makes on an average bet. The most common unit of analysis is 1/100 or 1% of a bankroll. So, if I have a $1000 bankroll, each unit is generally $10.
By making each bet 1% of my bankroll, I am ensuring that a bad bet, or even a bad run won’t do too much damage to my bankroll. You can also adjust your units up or down depending on how confident you are in a bet. Some aggressive professional bettors will regularly bet 3-5 units, but this is not something we typically recommend. It is more common for confident bets to be worth 2-3 units, and less confident bets a half-unit or less.
Additionally, when betting Futures (i.e. Who will win the Super Bowl or the British Open), the odds will generally be much higher and there are also many more bet choices than when picking a winner in an individual game. Therefore, one might want to place a larger amount of bets, and in this case they should lower their average bet size to proportionately reflect their standard unit bet. We recommend when placing more than a few futures bets at once (ex. 10 players to place in a golf tournament), lowering a bet to about 1/5 of a unit.
One of the most exciting parts of sports betting is placing a large parlay. However, parlays tend to be fool’s gold. They have the single worst return profile of any bet at a casino.
So should you never bet on a parlay? That depends on your goal. If you are trying to grow your bankroll and profit, then likely it is in your best interest to avoid parlays. Adding the different “legs” of the parlay together will generally decrease the expected return.
However, if your goal is largely entertainment, placing a parlay bet and rooting for a chance to win big can certainly add to the excitement of sports betting. Our recommendation for those wanting to bet parlays as entertainment is twofold: 1) Make this a relatively small portion of your bets, and 2) Bet smaller units – even down to 1/10 of a unit - on parlays with larger odds.
On SportsBook CheatSheet, we label our bets "Best Bets", "Great Bets", "Good Bets" and "No Bet".
A "No Bet" label means either it is a bad bet, or essentially a 50-50 toss up without any clear value.
A Good Bet will usually have an expected profit of roughly 5-15% and signifies there is value in the bet, albeit limited.
A Great Bet is in between a Standard Bet and a Best Bet and will usually have an expected profit of roughly 15-20%.
"Best Bets" are generally reserved for less than 15% of our bet recommendations and will usually have an expected profit of over 20%.
Yes! We are in development of Tennis algorithm! Following this we plan to work on English Premier League and NHL algorithms!
We only present algorithms that have been back tested and proven successful, therefore we can not guarantee any specific algorithm until we have built and tested it.
However, we are confident in our abilities to keep adding models to the site! One advantage of signing up now is you will get the current price for the remainder of your subscription, regardless of algorithms added!

