ROI vs yield: measuring whether betting works

Yield is your profit divided by the total amount you have staked: $300 profit on $10,000 of bets is a 3% yield, meaning you made three cents per dollar wagered. ROI, as most bettors use it, is profit divided by the bankroll you started with: the same $300 on a $2,000 bankroll is 15%. Yield measures how good your bets are; ROI measures how hard your money worked. Profit is just the dollar result. The catch is that people use "ROI" for both, so always check what the denominator is.

Which one to watch

Yield, for judging a method, because it does not change when you bet more often. A 3% yield bet twice as often doubles your return on bankroll without the bets getting any better. Return on bankroll is the number that matters for your wallet, but it mixes skill with volume and with how much you left sitting idle. And the dollar profit is what you pay tax on, so it matters for a different reason.

Why a year of results can still be noise

Every result is a win or a loss, so profit swings by roughly one stake per bet around its average, and that swing only shrinks relative to the edge as the bet count grows. Over the 200 bets above, a real 3% edge is smaller than the normal spread of outcomes. The example works it for even-money bets.

CLV is the number that moves first

Closing line value compares the price you took with the price the market settled on just before the game: take +110 on a side that closes at −105 and you beat the close. It is measured on every bet, win or lose, so it becomes informative after dozens of bets rather than thousands. Average CLV that stays positive is the best early evidence that yield will follow; positive yield with negative CLV usually means you are being paid for luck. See variance for how long a sample has to be before profit agrees.

How promo money distorts ROI and yield

Converted bonus bets add profit without adding much to the amount you have genuinely risked on an opinion. Blend them into one yield and a flat +EV record looks strong. Count the bonus bet's face value as a stake and you get a third, different number. Neither is wrong arithmetic; both answer a question nobody asked.

How TrueEdge reports it

The Bet Tracker shows Net Profit, ROI on Risk and Promo Profit. ROI on Risk is profit divided by cash actually risked on settled bets — a yield with bonus bets correctly counted as risking nothing — and the By funding table splits it into cash, bonus bet and site credit rows. Beat CLV and Avg CLV sit beside them, measured only over bets that have a closing price. Analytics repeats the figures with bars by sportsbook, sport and market. The walkthrough works a 41-bet example that is down in money and ahead on CLV.