What You Need to Open a Sportsbook

Submitted by Aaron Baker on

Written by :

Aaron Baker

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To open your own sportsbook, you just need a few players and a quality pay per head.


The best pay per head services will offer sports betting on all major sports around the world.  In addition, they also will include live betting, horse racing, online casino and a live dealer casino. PricePerPlayer has been with the Gambling911.com family now for five years and is available for only $5 per player with no hidden fees.

The right financial backing is also necessary in order to pay for the PPH service, payout players and for advertising.

The later might not be necessary if you start off with a loyal player base and work off word of mouth referrals.

Assuming you have a good month on how much money is needed for becoming a Bookie:

Basic Assumptions for the Estimations

    Type of Bookie – Credit Shop
    Number of Player: 25
    Operating Costs: Since most bookies run their betting shop out of their home, we will assume that the operational cost will be $5 per player
        This is based on using the PricePerPlayer.com Bookie Pay Per Head Service for a total of $500 Per month.
    Player Credit Limit: $1,000
    Max Bet Allowed: $500
    Bonuses: none
    Banking Costs: 5% Banking Fees
    Estimated Monthly Turnover: Total amount of money wagered every month by all players
        (Number of players x (credit limit x Max bet/100)) x 5 = $125,000
    When do you settle up – end of each month
    50/50 Action – You have excellent line and you have 50% action on both sides of each wager
    Vig/Commisssion – 10%

Bookie Profit/Loss for a Regular month

    50% of the players get a payout that average 65% of their credit limit ($8,125 )
    50% of the players that lose, average a loss of 85% of their credit limit($10,625)
    your monthly fees are $1,437
    Your Vig/Commission is: $5,312

This means that you end up with a profit of $6,375

One bad month will likely cost you $11,867.

Three bad months $35,062.

If you are unfortunate enough to have six bad months, you probably shouldn't be doing this, but your bankroll will likely need to be in the $70,000 range.

In other words, before starting your sportsbook, you should have a minimum of $70,000 in the bank, even when using a pay per head service.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com

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