Sports betting is becoming more and more popular everyday. As sports become more popular, it makes sense that more people are gambling on games than ever before. Unfortunately, many of these people are finding out the hard way how difficult it is to win bets.
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The biggest stumbling block for sports bettors is their own bias. They have a favorite team and like to bet on that team the most. At first thought it makes sense. You know this team the best. You know the players and coaches and have a good idea how they will fare against certain opponents.
Even though these people have this extensive information, they rarely use it to their advantage. That is because people have a hard time betting against their favorite team. If they can't bet against their favorite team, they are sure to bet for them to win and some of these are games they know in their heart their team probably won't win. If these fans could use this knowledge and but objectively, they could win and win consistently.
Using a sport betting system alleviates people of this problem. The system has its own formula and after plugging in the information, gives you some great betting advice.
One important element the system utilizes is selectiveness. The systems advise people to bet on about 10% of the total games during a season, if not less. This forces people to be patient and wait for the perfect opportunity to be successful. This is another pitfall for most bettors. They simply bet on too many games and it is impossible to win over the long haul betting this way.
During the 1980's, I was part of a group, that used computers to win millions in sports wagers from Las Vegas Casinos. This was before personal computers were in everyday use. The invention we not call the internet was years away from having access to handicapping stats and data. We were successful for two reasons. First we were ahead of the odds makers in collecting important information. They were still doing things the old way, and we took advantage of that loophole.
Those days are gone forever. The second key to success, is to understand how the numbers really work.
ODDS DO NOT PREDICT THE WINNER
Think of it this way. "Odds do not predict who will win. They are actually predicting who the public THINKS will win." Most sports punters, both professional and novice, do not understand the secrets of the bookmakers.
Two-way sports wagers, (meaning two teams with a 50-50 chance of winning with no ties) are posted at odds of 11-10. This means you wager £11 to win £10. Half the punters select team A, and collect their £10 when they win. The other punters choose team B, and lose the contest paying their bookie £11. You would think this gives the house or bookmaker a 4.55% advantage. You would be wrong with this assumption, but do not feel bad, 99.5% of the bettors think like you do.
THE BIG MISCONCEPTION
General thinking goes something like this. The bookmakers, insure themselves a profit only by balancing their books. In other words, they hope to get half the bets on each of the teams, thus they win every time. In reality, they hardly ever balance their books, or even come close. Your may find small local bookmakers, with small bankrolls, try to operate in this manner, but with so many internet shops available, even they can even up lopsided books. Many small bookmakers do not even know the secret. They are like the rest of the cattle and travel along with the herd. The erroneous belief that large sports bookmaking operations need to balance their bets is the big secret in the industry. What they do need to accomplish, is secure plenty of volume on both sides, without actually balancing the books.
THE BOOKMAKER'S SECRET REVEALED
Suppose the bettors in our example game, risked $165,000 to win $150,000 on the favourite. But the public only bet $82,500 on the underdog trying to win $75,000. This looks like a mismatch, with the bookmaker heading for big trouble if the favourite wins. If the dog prevails, the sports book makes a profit of $90,000. He wins $165,000 from the favourite bettors, and pays out $75,000 to the Dog winners. If the Favorite wins, the bookmaker loses $67,500. He will win $82,500 from the underdog backers, but lose $150,000 to the fans who bet the favourite. This results in a loss of $67,500.
Now you may be saying too yourself that math does not make the house a winner. So let us review, when the Underdog wins, the bookmaker wins $82,500 but if the favorite wins, he loses $67,500. Favourites and underdogs usually split the winning equally and each side 50% winning of the time. Half of the time he will lose $67,500, the other half he will win $82,500, so his profit is $15,000 no matter who wins. So in our example, what is the bookmaker really risking? The bookmaker is really risking $67,500 to win $82,500. In simple terms, he is essentially laying $75 to win $100. That means he does not have to even win 유로88 50% of the time to break even. The house only needs a 42.9% strike rate, after that, it is all profit.
TAKE DOWN A 33% PROFIT NO MATTER WHO WINS
Give me odds of losing $75 and winning $100 on a 50-50 coin flip wager. I will beat you every time with this huge house advantage. To most fans, the general thinking is the bookmaker needs to balance his books with equal wagers. From my example, you can see this is not true. When you have bettors risking twice as much on the favourite side, you are getting a 33% return on every dollar.