Neville Webber asked 6 months ago
Bookmakers and casinos give themselves an advantage and 99% of people fall into their “trap”. How do this is accomplished 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 obtain 35-1 if you are correct right? Wrong. plenty of people forget that you can find actually 37 numbers including zero (or even 38 with a double zero on American roulette). This make a significant difference on the subject of payouts. So just using European roulette, let’s crunch the numbers.
If you choose one number, 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 home an advantage of approximately 2.seven percent. Not really 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 might appear to be a 50/50 bet. But with the inclusion of zero, you really 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 really is nothing in comparison to bookmakers.
As I’ve demonstrated, a “50/50” at a best online casino gambling is in fact a 48.65/51.35 against you. At bookmakers, the margin is significantly greater. A seemingly 50/50 bet will be priced up at 9/10 or 1.9 in decimal odds.
Consequently the bookmaker is giving themselves a massive 10% margin on these kind of bets, the most typical of which are called “handicap bets”. The handicap bets are setup in such a way that you will discover only two possible outcomes, rated as equally likely. But no matter what your choice is, the bookie stands to keep 10% of the specific odds. Not fair, you might think. Well, they’re not going to give you anything for free. They’re in the business of making money after all.
So how can you counter these edges?
It is possible with bookmakers to make use of a system of “handicap doubles”. I will explain this at another time. Otherwise, only good fortune will counter a bookie’s edge and that’s not something to depend upon.