Getting Started on Steemit (Sports Bettors Edition)

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New Sports Bettors are joining Steemit every day and I try to keep an eye out to give them a warm welcome and offer help in case they have questions about how the platform works. This post was made to make everything more time-efficient and contains the most important things to know and understand as a new member / Sports Bettor when starting on this platform.

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What is Steemit ?

Chance is high you joined Steemit because it can help you earn money. It absolutely can, but realise it's not a get rich quick scheme. Steemit can be compared with a RPG Video Game where you start with a Level 0 blog that you have to build over time if you want to increase your earnings. The game is Free To Play, but also allows you to buy-in to possibly increase your level-up speed. The better you are at playing the game and the more time you put in, the higher your chances to actually make an extra income on this platform.

The Steemit Reward System

Where all the money comes from is one of the big questions. STEEM is a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. 21 Million Bitcoin were created and can be found by mining them. The value of Bitcoin comes from its functionality and the belief an increasing amount people have in it. Steem works very similar, around 9% new Steem are being created each year and they are put inside a Reward Pool (The ~9% inflation rate decreases as time goes by and will eventually be below 1%). These newly created Steem can be released by users who have a stake in the network (Steem Power) by Upvoting posts and comments. The value from Steem comes from it's functionality, a working decentralised social media blog platform that can also be used as a payment platform. It has a big active community and is being improved and changed as it grows bigger. Steem is currently the Blockchain with most daily transactions while running at only 0.09% of it's network capacity. Bitcoin right now has 33% the amount of daily transactions and is running at 100% network capacity with 160k + unconfirmed transactions. Current numbers can be found on blocktivity.info

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STEEM | STEEM POWER | STEEM DOLLARS

To understand how steemit works, you need to know the difference between these.

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STEEM = This is the cryptocurrency that can instantly be transferred between users.

STEEM POWER = 1 STEEM can always be turned into 1 STEEM POWER (SP). Once transformed, it can't instantly be traded, it is locked up but can be turned back into STEEM over a period of 13 weeks with an equal payout each week. Holding SP gives you influence on the network and increases how much your upvote is worth, this is the reward your get for not being able to instantly withdraw your funds and makes the Steem price more stable.

STEEM DOLLARS = This is a seperate currency made to always be worth at least 1$. This means that 1 Steem dollar can always be traded for 1$ worth of STEEM. Steem Dollars are given as part of post payouts, not that many are in circulation and 1 SBD (Steem Backed Dollar) can now actually be sold on the exchanges or the market that is build into Steemit for ~10$ (check current price). this makes the shown post earnings amount below each post much less compared to what they actually pay out (38% of the earnings are worth x10 now!).

Voting Power

Everyone has a limited amount of upvotes which slowly regenerate. You start with 100% voting power and each full vote drains 2% of it. Every day 20% of your voting power is being regenerated, so you can cast ~10 daily votes on average without ever depleting your voting power. You can unlock a voting slider which allows you to cast smaller % votes once you have enough Steem Power. You can find your voting power on steemd.com/@yourusername. The lower your voting power, the less your vote is worth, keeping it above 70%+ is recommended. To see how much your upvote is worth check the steemnow.com upvotecalculator.

Earning Rewards

To earn rewards, you need to get upvoted by accounts that hold Steem Power (you can also upvote yourself). As a results 100 upvotes from fresh accounts will be worth nearly nothing, while 1 whale vote can be worth 200$+. When you click on your upvotes it will show the biggest ones on top. There are many initiatives by the Steemit community that support newer members (minnows) who create good content get some initial upvotes. .

Post Earning

Posts are paid out exactly 7 days after they were made, upvotes that come after 7 days won't earn you anything. When you make a post you can choose 50/50 payout or 100% Power Up, when steem dollars are above 1$, always choose 50/50 rewards. 50% will be paid out in Steem Dollars and 50% in Steem Power. To Give an example on how post earnings are calculated. Lets say your post earned 0.80$ after 7 days (this might have gone up and down along with the steem price).

• Around 25% of that 0.80$ (0.20$) will go to curators. (those who upvoted)
• 50% of the remaining 0.60$ will be paid in STEEM POWER (0.30$ worth of steem)
• 50% of the remaining 0.60$ will be paid in Steem Dollars (0.30$ x ~10 = 3$)

Getting Exposure

It can be extremely difficult to get some exposure on this platform as new posts are being created every second. Some things you can do

• Put some effort in making a proper introduction post and using the introduceyourself tag can be a good start as these tend to get picked up.
• Being engaged in the community, find like-minded people and post comments and upvote.
• Don't spam or beg for upvotes, have a giving mindset instead.
• Post Quality Original Content, Steemit is designed to eventually have it stick out thanks to the curation system.
• Make nice looking posts that are easy to digest (see below)
• Always use a picture in your post (drag and drop)
• Use 800x480 ratio for your first picture, it fits the thumbnail.
• If you post US Sports picks, check out @sportsteem they offer bet tracking.
• Be patient, it takes time to grow.

Making Posts Look Better

Steemit is using html | markup, a couple codes that can do miracles on how your posts look.

 <center>text</center> = center alignment
 <b>text</b> = Bold Text
 <h1>text</h1> text size 1 to 6
 <a href="url">text</a> = hyperlink
 <hr> = line

Many more can be found when you search for it...

Adding Tables

If you plan on posting betting tips, using tables is an excellent tool

 |Date|Stake|Sport|Bet|Odds|Result
 |-|-|-|-|-|-
 24/12/2017|0.007|NFL|Ravens -13|1.921|Pending

This code will list the bet in a similar way to this post
you can add as many as you want. First row states what each column stands for , second row is the amount of columns, 3th row and beyond is what you want to fill in. Make sure there is an empty line above and no spaces in front of each line when you copy-paste.

Steem Tools

There are many Tools available that can really enhance your experience on Steemit. Nearly all of them can be found on steemtools.com

Learn Learn Learn

Starting on Steemit can be quite a lot of information to process. I have been on the platform for nearly half a year and I'm still learning new things every day which actually adds to the fun. Always feel free to contact me if you have any questions and I will do my best to help out!

Good Luck !