Have you been thinking about how to become a bookie agent on Long Island? That means you are on the right track. You have chosen your target clients and are ready to offer your betting services to New Yorkers living on Long Island.
Being an urbanized and heavily populated island in the southeastern area of New York, this is the best place you could launch your betting services. The region has a high population, including many who would gladly place their bets with you. Yet, you still do not know how to become a bookie agent.
We will help you answer this question below. In this guide, you will learn what a bookie agent is, his duties, and how to become one. We will also share some tips on launching your bookie successfully, retaining your clients, and making incredible profits.
Who Is a Bookie Agent, and What Are His Duties?
A bookie agent is someone or a company that takes and places bets on behalf of their clients. They choose their clients, limiting their wager amounts and transferring winnings to bettors. Usually, a bookie agent chooses the best markets to offer his clients.
He can offer bets for American football matches and ignore basketball matches. A bookie can run his services offline or online. However, with every business moving online and clients preferring online platforms, being an online bookie is ideal.
How to Become a Bookie Agent
The route you take to become a bookie agent defines your success. If you decide to take shortcuts, you will fail terribly. Here is a step-by-step procedure on how to become a bookie agent the right way.
Ensure You Have What It Takes to Become a Bookie
Most people venture into a business because it is lucrative. They forget their interests, and their new venture becomes a nightmare.
Since we do not want running a bookie to become your worst nightmare, you need to evaluate whether this is your thing. Ensure that you love the job and are willing to go far and beyond to make it successful.
Once that is clear, find whether you have the qualities of a good bookie agent. In other words, you should have the following characteristics:
- Have enough money to launch and run your bookie
- Be good with math, especially probability, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and percentage
- Understand the sports betting industry, casino gaming, and betting on horses
- Be willing to work even when everyone is taking a break
- Willing to take risks
It is crucial to possess these characteristics to succeed as a bookie. But, you can always acquire more knowledge as you progress.
Learn How You Will Be Making Money
It is essential to understand how bookies make money. This knowledge should help you decide where to start and whether you need professional help.
In case you cannot afford to hire professionals, you can rely on bad bettors to make money. So, enroll many novice bettors and encourage them to place bets with you. Considering that they have little or no knowledge about making good bets, they will lose a lot of money, leaving you with huge profits.
Yet, this is not a good enough method to make good profits. Unfortunately, you still cannot afford to hire a professional. But, you can work with a pay per head company.
The company provides oddsmakers who will create ideal betting lines and incorporate a vig. A vig is the commission bookies earn for facilitating bets for clients. Oddsmakers are able to identify an accurate possible outcome of a game and modify the odds to include a vig.
Pay per head can also allow line managers to move lines to ensure the books are balanced. That way, you can still earn your vig no matter the match’s outcome.
Decide What Kind of Bookie You Want to Become
The best thing about becoming a bookie agent is choosing which kind you want to be. You can take four routes, including becoming an on-track bookie, an online bookie, opening a betting shop, or becoming all of these.
If you have enough funds, you can open all the above venues. This is because you will need licensing money and much more to cater to other needs.
You need to consider how easy or difficult it is to launch any type of bookie. Usually, an online bookie is easier to launch and run. Moreover, you can use pay per head services to launch your online betting services.
Choose Between Becoming a Credit and Postpay Bookie
The other step is to choose whether to become a credit or postpay bookie. A credit bookie allows his clients to place bets for a specified period, usually a week. Then, the bookie will calculate and find out who needs to pay.
If the bettor wagered $10,000 during the week and won around $5000, he needs to pay the remaining amount to the bookie. A bookmaker is supposed to set a bet limit for clients to control how much a bettor wagers, wins, or loses. If you want to become a credit bookie, consider working with people you know can pay their debt.
A postpay bookie is the opposite of a credit bookie. Here, clients must deposit their funds before placing their bets. Also, bookies must pay out winnings immediately after the bettor wins a bet.
Most bookies utilize both concepts. They can ask their clients to pay before they place their bets during the first few months. Then, the bookie can analyze the betting history of a player and decide whether they qualify to wager on credit and whether they are likely to pay their debt.
Choose Sports Betting Markets
While you have chosen your target clients, you are yet to choose sports markets to offer bets on. So, find out what your clients would love to wager on.
Remember, your clients are Americans. Therefore, you should choose sports betting markets that Americans love, including American football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and tennis. Apart from that, ensure you have a few international betting markets to stand out from local sportsbooks.
You can offer bets on politics, celebrities, TV shows, cricket, darts, soccer, and other internationally recognized markets. Talk to your clients to identify their exact betting needs.
Secure Enough Funds
The other step you cannot skip on how to become a bookie agent is securing enough funds. Like any other business, you need money to start a betting business. The size of the capital depends on the size of your operations.
For example, Long Island has a big population. You would need a big bankroll to offer betting services to even 1/32 of the population. So, consider how much you have before enrolling clients.
You can start with 10-50 clients and increase the number to 100 and more as your bankroll grows. You also need money to develop a website and buy sportsbook software. You also need money to cater to other expenses.
Ensure you have enough funds to launch and run your betting services for six months. By establishing your bookie in Long Island, you can make good profits in a short period and grow your business.
Recruit Clients
If you have a circle of friends and family that wager, it is easier to convert them into your clients. If your friends do not wager, you will need to introduce them to betting and make them your first clients.
Yet, they might not be enough to create your client base. Therefore, recruit other clients from bars, sports events, colleges, workplaces, and other parts of Long Island. Listen to their needs and prove how you will meet their demands.
Create a plan guiding you on how to find more clients. Indicate how many times in a week you will go client hunting and strategies to use to acquire them.
Choose the Best Pay Per Head Solution
While you can get a web developer to create your sportsbook website and buy software from any developer on the internet, it might not be the best approach. Today, successful bookies are those that launch with pay per head companies. Partnering with price per head companies saves money and resources and comes with hundreds of advantages.
A pay per head is a solution provided to bookies. It comprises a bookie website, software, oddsmakers, customer support, bookmaking tools, IT technicians, server security, betting markets, player management tools, risk management tools, and everything a bookie needs to launch online.
When you become a pay per head bookie, you can leave the operation part to the PPH provider and focus on acquiring and managing clients. Notably, you will also use less money to launch a PPH bookie than a traditional bookie.
The pay per player concept allows bookies to pay for services based on whether bettors wagered. For example, if you have 100 clients and only ten wagered during the week, you will pay a fee for the active players. This works perfectly for bookies because they do not have to spend money before they start making profits.
Launch Your Bookie
The last part of how to become a bookie agent is launching your betting services. The process is easy for pay per head bookies. The PPH provider will configure the software and integrate it into your preferred betting template. Then, you can send a link to your clients and ask them to place their first bets.
