If you’re looking for ways to make money from sports betting, chances are you’ve heard of the term ‘courtsiding’. But what does it actually mean?

Read on to find out!

What is courtsiding? How do people make money from it?

Courtsiding refers to the practice of sending someone to a sports match (ie. courtside) and getting them to relay information about the match back to you.

This is usually done via mobile phone or a specially designed device that can allow for rapid communication.

The idea is that you transmit information about the match back to someone else faster than the bookmakers are able to receive that information and update their odds correspondingly.

By doing this, the person receiving the information could quickly place a bet at a bookmaker before their odds shorten.

For example, if a particular player was able to break serve at a crucial point in a tennis match, the odds may suddenly swing in their favour substantially. A person receiving this information before the bookmakers could theoretically bet on the player that broke serve before their odds dropped.

Courtsiding has been most popular in tennis, although it is possible in a variety of sports.

Does courtsiding still work? Is it legal?

These days, the bookmakers receive information about the match extremely quickly, with their odds often going up and down in response to events faster than humans are able to place bets.

In the past, there was possibly a lag period behind an event occurring and odds changing in response, but these days the lag is miniscule.

The bookmakers have gotten smarter and smarter when it comes to these kinds of loopholes in their systems and they have clamped down on this kind of activity.

That’s not to mention that courtsiding is borderline illegal in some regions. Wikipedia has more information on the legalities, but in any case, it is frowned upon by sporting codes and they tend to ban spectators that they suspect are engaging in courtsiding.

Is there another way to make money from sports betting?

I’m glad you asked! The answer, surprisingly, is yes.

The top 3 ways to make money from sports betting that are both reliable and entirely legal, are arbitrage betting, value betting and matched betting.

Arbitrage Betting

Arbitrage betting involves taking advantage of certain odds combinations to bet on all possible outcomes of a match with different bookmakers and profit regardless of which outcome occurs.

You can expect to profit 1-2% of your stake per bet with arbitrage betting.

As finding the various arbitrage opportunities is quite difficult, it is common to use arbitrage betting software to scan the bookmaker odds and alert you when it finds an arbitrage opportunity.

Value Betting

Value betting is similar to arbitrage betting, but rather than betting on all of the different outcomes, you just bet on the outcome with overpriced odds.

This means that you won’t win every match that you bet on (unlike arbitrage betting), but you will profit more in the long run as you aren’t paying the bookmaker vigorish (the profit margin that they build into their odds).

Again, finding value betting opportunities on your own can be difficult, so most people use free value betting software to find out the bets for them.

If you do plan on finding them yourself, feel free to use my value betting calculator.

Matched Betting

Finally, matched betting is like arbitrage betting because it requires betting on all possible outcomes of a match, but it involves using bookmaker bonuses to boost profits further.

Whenever bookmakers offer signup and reload bonuses or ongoing promotions, they are actually giving you tons of value that you can convert in cash, if you know what you are doing.

Bonuses that involve doubling your deposit in the form of free bets, or your bet winning even if your horse comes 2nd or 3rd all represent value that can be exploited for profit.

Courtsiding - Final Thoughts

While courtsiding may have been a way to make money from sports betting in the past, it is no longer possible (or even legal in some countries) so it really isn’t worth it.

If anyone tells you that you can make money from match fixing or courtsiding, your best bet is to just let it go.

You are much better off engaging in methods that are mathematically profitable, like arbitrage, value or matched betting. They’re actually profitable and entirely legal.

In saying that, the bookies don’t like it very much when you engage in profitable sports betting (they’d much rather you just keep losing money to them) and are liable to ban you if they suspect that you are doing this kind of betting.

It usually takes them a few months to realise though, and in this time you can make plenty of money! For more info, check out my free arbitrage betting course.