Alex Monahan: From Promo Hunting to a $160 Million Betting Tools Exit
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Key takeaways
- Monahan studied math and computer science at Stanford and worked as a securities, derivatives, and quant trader.
- He started betting when Pennsylvania legalized it in 2018, beginning with sign-up bonuses and promos, the same way this site recommends.
- He co-founded OddsJam in 2021 with Ankit Goyal, without outside investors, to give US bettors better odds data and tools.
- Gambling.com Group agreed to acquire OddsJam’s parent company in a deal valued at up to $160 million, announced in December 2024.
Alex Monahan’s story is the modern American version of the sharp bettor’s career. He didn’t start with a syndicate or a Vegas betting window. He started with sign-up bonuses on sportsbook apps, applied a trader’s mindset, and ended up building one of the best-known betting software companies in the US.
A trader’s background
Monahan attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia and went on to Stanford, studying mathematics and computer science. After graduating he worked in trading, including securities, derivatives, and quantitative roles.
He has often compared the two worlds. Betting on a team and betting on a company involve many of the same skills: estimating probabilities, comparing them with market prices, and sizing positions.
Starting with promos
When Pennsylvania legalized online sports betting in 2018, Monahan started betting, and he began where the edge was easiest to find: sign-up bonuses and promotions. That’s the same starting point this site recommends. See how to convert bonus bets and valuing welcome offers.
From there he moved into +EV betting and arbitrage. He has summarized +EV betting as a volume game: an edge only shows up over a large number of bets, just as a weighted coin can still land the wrong way on any single flip.
According to Pikkit, a bet-tracking app, his YouTube content has documented about $205,000 of profit in a single year, tracked through his synced sportsbook accounts.
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As he bet more, Monahan noticed how poor the available data was for US bettors, especially for player props. The pandemic pushed him to rethink his trading career, and in 2021 he co-founded OddsJam with Ankit Goyal, a childhood friend and Stanford classmate. They built it without outside investors.
OddsJam grew into a subscription service that collects odds from major sportsbooks and offers tools for +EV betting and arbitrage. Monahan leaned heavily on free content, including YouTube videos, livestreams, and social media, to explain the strategies behind the tools. By mid-2025 he had close to 200,000 followers on X.
In December 2024, Gambling.com Group announced a deal to acquire Odds Holdings, OddsJam’s parent company, valued at up to $160 million. Monahan has described the sale as essentially his entire career and net worth, and he has stayed involved, still livestreaming his betting.
His view of the market now
In a 2025 interview after the sale, Monahan said traditional sportsbook promotions have become less generous than in the early years of legal US betting, but that newer exchange-style platforms give skilled bettors fresh opportunities. We cover how promotions and limits interact in why sportsbooks limit winners.
What you can borrow from Alex Monahan
- Start with promos. Welcome offers are the lowest-risk profit in sports betting and a good way to learn the mechanics.
- Think like a trader. Every bet is a price. Compare it with the fair price, and only take the ones that are better. See how to devig odds.
- Volume matters. A few +EV bets prove nothing. Hundreds start to.
- Use tools. The difference between hand-checking a few apps and scanning every book is the difference between occasional and consistent edges.
- Adapt as the market changes. When promos dry up, move to +EV, arbs, boosts, and exchanges where they’re legal.
Sources and further reading
Let software find the hedge for every promo
ProfitDuel's Promo Converter scans the books in your state and tells you which market to use for each bonus bet, no-sweat bet, or deposit match, plus exactly how much to hedge.
Start the $1 ProfitDuel trialAffiliate link. The $1, 3-day trial applies to ProfitDuel's Starter plan as listed in September 2026. 21+ and in states where online sports betting is legal.