Lesli Braden asked 6 months ago
Bookmakers and casinos give themselves an advantage and 99% of people fall into their “trap”. How do they do this and what should be avoided?
Let’s look-at the example of roulette in a casino.
On the surface, it looks OK. 36 numbers, choose one and acquire 35-1 if you’re correct right? Wrong. a lot of people forget that you will find actually 37 numbers including zero (or perhaps 38 with a double zero on American roulette). This make a huge difference when it comes to payouts. So just using European roulette, let’s crunch the numbers.
If you choose one number, professional online gambling agency the actual odds of getting that number correct is 1 in 37 or 36-1. So by offering 35-1, the casino has instantly stacked the odds ever so subtly in their favour. Just the reduction of 1 point gives the house an edge of about 2.7%. Not only a lot you might think but over the course of Ł100,000 that is Ł2700 in favour of the casino. A small margin but a margin nonetheless.
So what about red/black or odd/even? Again, it would appear to be a 50/50 bet. But with the inclusion of zero, you truly have an 18 in 37 chance (48.65%). That favours the house by 1.35% which over the course of one day, could equal to thousands of pounds.
But this is nothing when compared with bookmakers.
As I have demonstrated, a “50/50” at a casino is really a 48.65/51.35 against you. At bookmakers, the margin is significantly greater. A seemingly 50/50 bet can be priced up at 9/10 or 1.9 in decimal odds.
This means the bookmaker is giving themselves a huge 10% margin on these kind of bets, the most typical of that are called “handicap bets”. The handicap bets are setup in such a manner that there are actually only two possible outcomes, rated as equally likely. But regardless of what your decision is, the bookie stands to keep 10% of the particular odds. Not fair, you might think. Well, they are not going to give you anything for free. They are within the business of making money after all.
Now how can you counter these edges?
It is possible with bookmakers to use a system of “handicap doubles”. I will explain this at another time. Otherwise, only good fortune will counter a bookie’s edge and which is not something to rely on.