Betting Turnover Guide: Optimize, Don't Maximize

Learn why more turnover doesn't always mean more profit, and how to find the perfect balance.

Betting turnover is one of the most misunderstood concepts in value betting. Many bettors think more turnover automatically means more profit. They're wrong.

This guide will teach you what turnover really means, why optimization beats maximization every time, and give you six practical tactics to increase your turnover sensibly.

What is Turnover?

Betting turnover is the total amount of money staked across a given period.

So if you take a one-month period and add up all of the money that you staked across that month, the sum would be your turnover for that month.

Simple example:

• 50 bets placed in January
• Average stake: $20 per bet
• Total turnover: $1,000 ($20 × 50)

Turnover is NOT the same as profit. You could have $10,000 in turnover and lose money if your expected value is negative. Conversely, you could have $1,000 in turnover and make $100 if your edge is strong.

Optimize, Don't Maximize

If you can't find enough value bets or are too timid with your staking, then your turnover is going to suffer and as a result, your ability to earn money off value betting will follow.

So we must know what levers to pull to sensibly increase our turnover if/when we find ourselves struggling to keep it high enough.

You might notice that I emphasized sensibly—that's because there is a big pitfall that bettors often fall into while chasing higher turnover. Let me demonstrate this now.

Let's Compare Two Months of Betting

To illustrate the optimization principle, let's look at three scenarios for Month 1 and Month 2.

In Month 1 we would expect to earn $250, while in Month 2 we would expect to earn $500.

It's obvious that Month 2 was a better month for us than Month 1. However, there's one key assumption in this example that would often prove to be false in reality: the expected value remained constant as the turnover increased.

In reality, higher turnover often requires lowering your EV standards. You accept 3% edges instead of only 5%+ edges. Let's bring Month 2 closer to reality...

Even though our overall expected value across all of our bets for Month 2 dropped 1.5% from Month 1, we still would have made $100 more than we did in Month 1 (Month 1 = $250, Month 2 = $350).

So we were better off lowering our expected value hurdle by 1.5% across all of our bets because it allowed us to double our turnover.

As you might have predicted already though, if we are forced to reduce our expected value too much to achieve higher turnover, we end up worse off. Let's once again reimagine Month 2...

In this situation, we would expect to profit $200, which is $50 LESS than Month 1 even though our turnover has still doubled.

How to Increase Turnover

With all that being said, I am going to show you the levers that you can pull to increase your turnover. Please use them wisely.

There are two broad strategies to increase turnover:

• Place more bets (4 tactics)
• Stake more on each bet (2 tactics)

In this guide I am going to focus more on placing more bets because there's simply greater potential for turnover gains down this route.

One can only be so aggressive with their staking strategy before it becomes completely idiotic, so it's more important to figure out how to increase the number of bets you are placing than how you can risk a greater and greater percentage of your bankroll on each bet.

Six Tactics to Increase Turnover

1. Monitor More Sports in the Terminal

If you only watch soccer markets in the terminal, consider expanding to basketball, handball, volleyball, tennis, and other sports.

The dropping odds strategy and value betting approach are sport-agnostic, meaning you can find value across any of the sports FairOdds Terminal covers. Don't limit yourself to just one or two sports.

Why this works:

• More markets = more opportunities
• Different sports have different peak hours
• Some sports have slower recreational bookmakers
• Diversification reduces downswings in any single sport

2. Open Accounts at More Soft Bookmakers

Bet365 might have adjusted to a drop too fast for you to catch the value bet, but that doesn't mean there isn't still value at other bookmakers. Quickly check another tab with one of your other soft bookmakers to see if there's value they haven't adjusted yet.

Not only do different bookmakers react to the same market movement at different times, they also have different markets from each other. If Pinnacle drops odds on a handball game that DraftKings doesn't offer, don't panic—head over to another bookmaker and see if they do.

Having multiple bookmaker accounts is one of the biggest strengths a value bettor can have.

Recommended sportsbooks to have accounts at:

• Bet365, FanDuel, DraftKings (major recreational books)
• Caesars, BetMGM, BetRivers (good for US markets)
• Unibet, Betway, William Hill (European markets)
• Regional books in your jurisdiction

3. Bet Closer to the Match Start

Let's imagine that we place two almost identical bets with an expected value of 5%. One of the bets is for a match that starts in three days and the other is for a match that starts in two hours.

If we could only place one of the bets, then of course we would place the one on the game that starts in two hours because we are going to lock our capital up for a far shorter amount of time.

Once this bet has settled, we can place another bet at 5% EV, whereas with the first bet, we have to wait three days for our bet to settle before we can re-deploy that capital. I might be able to place nine or ten bets in the three days that it takes for the second bet to settle!

4. Invest More Time

Arguably the greatest lever you can pull to increase your turnover is to put more hours into it.

The more time you spend monitoring the terminal on your laptop or phone, the more value bets you are going to find. It's as simple as that.

Time optimization strategies:

• Set aside dedicated betting blocks (e.g., 7-10 PM daily)
• Bet during peak sports hours when more events are running
• Keep the terminal open on a second monitor while working
• Use mobile to monitor during commutes or breaks
• Focus on weekends when major leagues are most active

If you work a day job and can only bet in the evenings and at the weekend, then it is vital that when you do have time to sit down and bet, you are spending that time as effectively as possible—which means you need to be betting with turnover in mind.

5. Add to Your Bankroll

Probably the most obvious and most easily said advice is to add to your bankroll so you can place more on each bet.

If you are working a job alongside betting, then consider putting aside a certain percentage of your paycheck so that you can add it to your betting bankroll. If you have an old guitar lying about that you don't use, perhaps chuck it on eBay.

Always be responsible when doing this. Bills need to be paid before returns can be made, so make sure you are only putting aside what you can afford to put aside.

Bankroll growth strategies:

• Reinvest 50-100% of monthly profits
• Set aside 5-10% of paycheck if employed
• Sell unused items or assets
• Start small and compound winnings organically

6. Use More Aggressive Staking (Full Kelly)

Kelly Criterion is considered to be an aggressive staking strategy. To put the aggressiveness in perspective: if you were being offered odds of +100 (2.00) which have an implied probability of 50%, and you think the odds should be -150 (1.67) which have an implied probability of 60%, then full Kelly would have you staking 20% of your net worth.

I say that to say this: if you aren't happy with your turnover, are comfortable with significant drawdowns, and are using a less aggressive staking strategy like a low percentage of bankroll fixed unit strategy or fractional Kelly, then you might want to consider going full Kelly.

Staking strategy comparison:

• Fixed unit (1-2% of bankroll): Lowest variance, slowest turnover growth
• Quarter Kelly (25%): Moderate variance, steady growth
• Half Kelly (50%): Higher variance, faster growth
• Full Kelly (100%): Highest variance, maximum turnover potential

Most professional bettors use quarter to half Kelly as a compromise between growth and safety.

Closing Advice

We should always be trying to grow our turnover when sensibly possible. It all comes down to how much time and thought you are willing to put into your betting.

Remember the key principle: optimize, don't maximize. A 2x increase in turnover with a 1.5% drop in EV is good. A 2x increase in turnover with a 3% drop in EV is bad.

Track both your turnover AND your expected value over time. If you're increasing one while decimating the other, you're hustling backwards.

Summary

Key takeaways from this guide:

• Turnover is the total amount staked across a set of bets
• Increasing turnover can improve your returns, but there is a point at which it starts to be worse if it causes you to decrease your expected value hurdle too much
• There are two routes to increased turnover: 1. Place more bets 2. Stake more on each bet
• Six tactics to increase turnover: monitor more sports, open accounts at more bookmakers, bet closer to match start, invest more time, add to your bankroll, use more aggressive staking
• If you want to be spending your time most effectively, you need to be betting with turnover in mind

Ready to optimize your turnover? FairOdds Terminal monitors thousands of markets across all major sports 24/7 so you never miss a value betting opportunity.

Betting Turnover FAQ