What is a "good" win rate?

Let's talk betting smart

We built Rithmm to help you understand exactly what you’re doing so that you can make better, more informed decisions as a bettor. Our vision is to be the one place you can go from idea-to-bet. We want to be a resource that helps you save time, makes researching easier, and where you can use statistics to verify your gut instincts. While we build toward that vision, it’s important you understand our methodology and approach. A large part of betting smart is thinking for yourself.

We all love the instant gratification of winning a one-off bet but here, we’re all about the long game. We look at overall expected value and model performance over time. The longer you use the platform, a funny thing will start to happen - you’ll come to rely on certain models and you’ll look at a game and be able to tell what you trust and what you don’t. You’ll start to understand the “rithmm” of your models and that’s the best possible way to use this platform.

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What is a "good" win rate?

When looking at betting models, it’s helpful to know what number needs to exist in order to have an edge. It’s not just anything over 50% and it can differ depending on what type of bets you’re placing. Let’s dive into an example. With Rithmm, you can build models for Total Points, Spread, and Moneyline bets. The following are considered “good” win rates for each type of model:

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For high-scoring games like football and basketball, Total Points and Spread bets are usually even money bets minus the rake, or -110 odds. To not lose money over time, you need to win at least the break even rate of 52.5%. Moneyline bets aren’t even money; the favorite wins most games, but pays out less. So the win rate is less telling than your long-term return-on-investment. But generally, our winning ROI models have a win rate above 75%. With any model, an edge of 5-15% is believable. Anything that looks too good to be true (like an 80% edge), probably is.

Now let’s look at our first best bets of the season. The first pick is a Total Points model recommending we take the over. It’s estimating 57% (right at the top of the “good” range) with a 9.5% edge. We feel pretty great about this one.

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The second pick is a Moneyline model telling us we have an edge of 84.1%. This is in no way a sure bet just because your model says so - so let’s not bet the farm during our beta mode testing phase!!
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This will be a more common occurrence at the beginning of the season. As we have more data and add more player level statistics, this will balance out. The nice part about Rithmm is whether or not you actually track a bet, the platform will keep track of every recommendation made and what happened, so you’ll be able to see how right or wrong any given model is without spending all your money. Once you have some models you’re relying on, that’s when the true magic happens.