Marcelino Nowacki asked 6 months ago
Bookmakers and casinos give themselves an advantage and 99% of folks fall into their “trap”. How do this is accomplished and what should be avoided?
Let’s look at the example of roulette in a playing online casino casino.
On the surface, it looks OK. 36 numbers, choose one and obtain 35-1 in case you are correct right? Wrong. almost all people forget that you will find actually 37 numbers including zero (or perhaps 38 with a double zero on American roulette). This make a big difference with regards to payouts. So just using European roulette, let’s crunch the numbers.
If you choose one number, the particular 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 advantage of about 2.7%. Not a lot you could 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 actually have an 18 in 37 chance (48.65%). That favours the home by 1.35% which over the course of one day, could equate to thousands of pounds.
But this really is nothing compared to bookmakers.
As I’ve demonstrated, a “50/50” at a casino is actually 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.
It means that the bookmaker is giving themselves a massive 10% margin on these kind of bets, the most frequent of which are called “handicap bets”. The handicap bets are set up in such a way that you’ll find only two possible outcomes, rated as equally likely. But no matter what your decision is, the bookie stands to keep 10% of the particular odds. Not fair, you could think. Well, they’re not going to give you anything for free. They can be within the business of making money after all.
So how can you counter these edges?
It really is possible with bookmakers to work with a system of “handicap doubles”. I will explain this at another time. Otherwise, only good fortune will counter a bookie’s edge and that is not something to depend upon.