Sup fellow degens, 

It's Boxing Day. 

December 26th feels like a hangover. 

The presents have been opened, the turkey leftovers in the fridge are getting dry, and if you are like me, you're reviewing your betting history from yesterday and really wondering if you can return your family's gifts for a store card refund. 

Not that you need the refund to eat. You just want to fund a Boxing Day parlay. 

It's pretty normal for a degen to start the month feeling like a sports investor. By the 26th, you realize you've been nothing but a charitable donor. 

I decided earlier that I don't want to live that life. So I am sharing some proven methods that I use to ensure gambling doesn't end up making me feel like I need to empty my stomach. 

Here are Top 4 strategies to stop bleeding and actually give yourself a fighting chance in 2026. 

This isn't gambling; it's accounting.

You use the bookie's own greed against them. Matched Betting involves taking those "Sign Up and Get $200 Free" offers and betting on both sides of a match (using different bookies) to unlock the cash without risking a cent of your own money.

This is when Bookie A thinks the Chiefs are a lock, but Bookie B thinks they suck. The odds are so different that you can bet on the Chiefs and against the Chiefs at different sites and lock in a profit no matter who wins.

 It is boring. But it is literally one of the guaranteed ways to beat the system.

When everyone, your barber, your Uber driver, your mom, is betting on the Lakers, that is your signal to do the exact opposite.

The public is almost always wrong. Sportsbooks are built on the losses of the average Joe. If 80% of the money is on the favorite, the books need the underdog to win to make a profit.

Be a hater. If the internet loves a team, bet against them. It’s emotionally painful to bet on a team that sucks, but it’s financially rewarding when the popular team chokes.

Stop betting on the NFL because you will lose. The oddsmakers for the NFL do not sleep. You have a gut feeling and a beer. 

The bookies are lazy with the small stuff. Instead of betting the Super Bowl, become the world's leading expert on Estonian 2nd Division Volleyball or Japanese Ping Pong.

Find a league nobody cares about. If you know that the star player of "FC Niche" just broke up with his girlfriend, you have an advantage the algorithm doesn't.

This is the holy grail of professional betting. It is a formula used by everyone from Warren Buffett to pro poker players to determine exactly how much of your bankroll to wager.

The concept is simple: degens bet random amounts based on "vibes" (e.g., "$50 because I feel lucky"). The Kelly Criterion ignores your feelings. It uses a mathematical formula: (BP - Q) / B.

It is pretty straightforward. If the formula says your edge is high, you bet big. If your edge is small, you bet small. If you have no edge, you don't bet.

Easy to get it even if you failed math at school.

The Kelly Criterion is mathematically designed to grow your bankroll at the fastest possible rate while preventing you from ever going to zero. It forces you to be disciplined.

The formula relies on you knowing the true probability of a win. If you are delusional and think every bet is a 100% lock, the Kelly Criterion will just help you go broke faster. 

Pro Tip: Use "Fractional Kelly" (betting half of what the formula says) to account for your own stupidity.

Let’s have a real conversation before I let you go. 

The gap between "knowing the strategy" and "actually doing it" is where the casinos make 90% of their profit.

It is easy to say you will only bet 2% of my bankroll on a Tuesday morning when you are sober and optimistic. It is much harder to stick to that rule at 11:30 PM on a Saturday, when you are down $400, slightly intoxicated, and staring at a random Korean Baseball game that starts in ten minutes.

Here is my actual game plan for this weekend:

The sportsbook has enough money; they don't need your Christmas bonus, too.

TL;DR: You are tired of losing money by betting on "vibes" and "locks" from random internet people. This newsletter explores four actual strategies to stop being a donor to the sportsbooks. The most important part is discipline. Never bet more than 1-5% of your bankroll, and never chase losses.

Stay degen,

Dima