---
title: "Sportsbook Trader"
description: "Sets and adjusts the betting odds at a sportsbook, watching games and betting activity to balance risk and keep prices sharp."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/sportsbook-trader"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Sportsbook Trader

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-1013 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-1013.00

Sets and adjusts the betting odds at a sportsbook, watching games and betting activity to balance risk and keep prices sharp.

Also advertised as: Sports Trader; Oddsmaker; Odds Compiler; Sportsbook Risk Trader; Trading Analyst, Sportsbook.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $63,820 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $30.68/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $41,400 to $84,750, with the middle half between $51,340 and $75,770
- **Total US employment:** 26,010
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +3.5% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 2,600 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 43/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 26,010 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $41,400 |
| 25th | $51,340 |
| 50th (median) | $63,820 |
| 75th | $75,770 |
| 90th | $84,750 |
| Mean (average) | $64,830 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WA | $77,350 | $72,281 | 910 |
| OR | $76,960 | $74,457 | 150 |
| AK | $76,340 | $74,581 | 90 |
| NY | $74,530 | $69,060 | 560 |
| MD | $74,160 | $70,656 | 600 |
| CO | $69,070 | $67,024 | 250 |
| AZ | $69,050 | $68,586 | 580 |
| CA | $68,010 | $61,425 | 3,010 |
| NV | $66,680 | $66,694 | 5,590 |
| RI | $66,660 | $65,174 | 100 |
| FL | $64,980 | $62,835 | 1,140 |
| IL | $64,620 | $64,647 | 510 |
| NJ | $64,210 | $59,014 | 1,120 |
| PA | $63,200 | $64,773 | 700 |
| MI | $62,090 | $64,531 | 1,000 |

25 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 40 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/sportsbook-trader/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/sportsbook-trader.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 27,200 in the 2025–2035 base year to 28,100 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 1,000 jobs, or +3.5%. About as fast as average: 3.5% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 2,600 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 47.7% |
| Some College Courses | 17.2% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 11.9% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 10.6% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 6.5% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 6.1% |

## What the work involves

- Set opening odds for upcoming games and events
- Adjust lines in response to betting volume and news
- Monitor and manage live in-play betting markets
- Identify sharp bettors and suspicious betting patterns
- Manage exposure and set account limits
- Review pricing model output with quantitative analysts
- Settle markets after events conclude

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Monitoring — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Service Orientation — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 5.93 |
| C — Conventional | 5.49 |
| R — Realistic | 3.70 |
| S — Social | 3.02 |
| I — Investigative | 2.50 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 88.8 |
| ESFJ | 78.4 |
| ISTJ | 73.6 |
| ISFJ | 68.1 |
| ESTP | 64.6 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [First-Line Supervisor of Gambling Services Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-gambling-services-workers) — median $63,820
- [Gambling Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/gambling-manager) — median $93,220
- [Gambling Change Person and Booth Cashier](https://nuecareer.com/careers/gambling-change-person-and-booth-cashier) — median $36,220
- [Gambling Cage Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/gambling-cage-worker) — median $37,580
- [Gambling and Sports Book Writer and Runner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/gambling-and-sports-book-writer-and-runner) — median $34,980
- [Gambling Dealer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/gambling-dealer) — median $34,320
- [First-Line Supervisor of Office and Administrative Support Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-office-and-administrative-support-workers) — median $69,500
- [Gambling Surveillance Officer and Gambling Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/gambling-surveillance-officer-and-gambling-investigator) — median $43,370
- [First-Line Supervisor of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-mechanics-installers-and-repairers) — median $79,860
- [First-Line Supervisor of Retail Sales Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-retail-sales-workers) — median $48,520

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/sportsbook-trader