How to Track Your Bets and Improve Your Results Over Time
Most bettors have no idea whether they're actually profitable. They remember the wins and forget the losses. They think they're doing better than they are.
Tracking every single bet is the only way to know the truth — and the only way to improve.
Why tracking matters
Without a record, you can't identify what's working and what isn't. You might be profitable on football but losing on tennis. You might win at short odds but give it all back at longer prices. You might perform well early in tournaments but bleed money in later rounds.
None of this is visible without data. With it, patterns emerge quickly and you can adjust your process accordingly.
Tracking also enforces discipline. When every bet goes into a spreadsheet, you think twice before placing impulsive bets that don't fit your process. The act of recording forces accountability.
What to track
At minimum, record these fields for every bet:
Date — when was the bet placed? Event — what match or game? Market — ML, handicap, over/under, player prop? Selection — what exactly did you back? Odds — at what price? Stake — how much did you bet? Result — win or loss? Profit/Loss — how much did you make or lose?
For a more detailed setup add:
Model probability — what did your model give as the win probability? Edge % — how much value did you assess? Bookmaker — which bookie did you use? Notes — anything relevant like injuries, weather, line movement?
Key metrics to monitor
Once you have data, these are the numbers to watch:
Win rate — what percentage of bets win? For most markets, 50-55% is solid. For short-odds favourites it should be higher.
ROI (Return on Investment) — total profit divided by total staked, expressed as a percentage. Positive ROI over 100+ bets means your process has genuine edge. Even +3-5% ROI is excellent long term.
ROI by market — are you better at ML or handicap? Tennis or NBA? Breaking down ROI by category reveals where your real edge lies.
ROI by odds range — many bettors find they perform well at one odds range and poorly at another. If your ROI is strong at 1.5-2.0 but negative at 2.0+, that tells you something important about where to focus.
Average odds vs win rate — these two numbers should be consistent. If you're winning 60% at average odds of 2.00, something is off — at 2.00 odds you'd only need 50% to break even, so 60% implies significant edge. Track this carefully.
How the HMJOROTips tracker works
The tennis and NBA trackers on this site do exactly this automatically. Every value bet flagged by the model is logged with the model probability, bookmaker odds, edge percentage, market and result. The stats tab breaks performance down by market, odds range, edge band and surface.
This is what the data looks like after Madrid 2026 — 36 bets tracked, broken down by ATP vs WTA, by round, by market and by edge band. Patterns are already emerging after just one tournament.
You don't need a sophisticated system to start. A simple Google Sheet with the fields above is enough. The discipline of recording everything is worth more than any complicated tracking software.
Start today. Record every bet from this point forward. In three months you'll have data that tells you more about your betting than any tipster or prediction service ever could.
