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How does Sports Betting Work?

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Sports betting is really not very complicated once you understand how it works. However for someone who is new to it Sports Betting came seem a little daunting. So if you are a Sports fan who is interested in placing some bets then you should arm yourself with some basic knowledge before you start betting otherwise you will end up betting ‘blindly’ which will only result in you making basic errors and ultimately losing your money. So in this article I will discuss just how does Sports Betting work?

Sports betting as the name implies is about taking an opinion on the outcome of a sporting event and then backing your opinion by the way of a bet. If your opinion is correct then you win the bet and if you are wrong you lose. With the recent explosion of the Internet, it has become possible to bet on virtually any sporting event from the comfort of your own home with either an online bookmaker or a betting exchange. There are many online bookmakers available on the Internet who are ready and willing to take your bets as well as several betting exchanges. However before you decide on which bookmaker or betting exchange to use you should do some basic research to establish which ones are the most reliable in terms of payout, the best in terms of odds offered and in the case of the betting exchanges the best in relation of the percentage of commission they charge on your winnings.

The bookmakers study the various sporting events and publish on their websites the odds they are prepared to offer based on their expert opinion of a particular result occurring. Their prospective customers the ‘bettors’ then study these odds and place their bets with the bookmaker offering the best odds on a particular outcome. The odds offered by the online bookmakers and betting exchanges can and do change pre the sporting event starting and this is often due to the weight of money being wagered on a particular outcome which will cause the bookmakers to shorten their odds. Additionally once the event has started again the odds will change due to say a goal being scored in a football match or a wicket being taken in a cricket match or the amount of time remaining until the event is over. Price and odds comparisons are a available in the Racing Post or online at www.oddschecker.com.

In order to place a bet with the online bookmaker or betting exchange of your choice you will first need to open an account with them and deposit some funds, this is normally done via a debit or credit card transaction. Once your account is set up you are ready to have a look at the available odds and place your bets. At this point I would recommend that before placing a bet you should consider taking some professional advice from a reputable sports betting advisory service. For further information on who run the good the bad and the damn right ugly services check out the respected proofing site www.secretbettingclub.com

Most sports betting bookmakers and betting exchanges offer special promotions such as free bets and cash back offers to encourage new and existing customers to open up accounts and continue betting with them. These offers are great news, as they will allow you to bet with other people’s money- a term I call ‘Opium’ and believe me using the bookmaker’s money to bet with is about as relaxing as you can get without actually taking “Opium”…

Mike Marsland FCA is the Internets #1 authority on strategic betting techniques. For free honest advice on Sports Betting Strategies and a complimentary download of his football correct score betting Ebook visit www.bigmikebetting.co.uk


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Sports Betting Systems – Are They Really Worth the Money?

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Everywhere you turn there seems to be someone new claiming to have the secret wonder system that you absolutely, positively must have to beat the bookies and win at either horse racing or sports betting. In fact, if I were to do a Google search right now on the term sports betting system, I’d get more than 806,000 pages of results. That’s a lot of people claiming to know THE secret.

Now I believe in everyone’s right to make a profit, but let’s look at these claims from a logical standpoint for just a moment. Say I come up with a system that works for me each and every single time I use it. For the sake of argument, let’s use horse racing and let’s pretend that my secret is to bet on every starting price favourite that finished second in the race previous to the one I’m betting on. Now for my system to continue working, the odds on the winning bets need to be high enough to cover all the losing bets as well. If only a few people are using the system, that’s not an issue.

But let’s say that since it has worked so well for me, I tell a few of my friends. When it works for them, I see an opportunity to make some money and I begin selling my system to anyone willing to pay the £47 I’m charging for my ebook explaining the ins and outs of my system. Before you know it there are hundreds of gamblers using my system and as a result the odds on the winning favourites are eroded as the bookmakers react to the weight of all the money being placed on them due to the system backers. Before you know it, my system is totally worthless as not enough profit is made on the winners to cover the cost of backing the inevitable losers.

Now just think about this for a minute – if you had a system that was consistently letting you win time and time again with excellent odds, would you share it with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes along? Of course you wouldn’t. You’d keep it to yourself and continue to profit from the system, whilst living an idealistic lifestyle on your private Caribbean island. Sharing it means losing the value of the system. Which is why I strongly believe that most horse racing and sports betting systems are worth about as much money as you paid me to read this article – absolutely nothing!

In fact, the only people making money from the horse racing and sports betting systems being offered all over the internet are the guys actually selling them and the affiliate sales people they draft into helping with the sales process. Let’s call my imaginary system the Sure-Fire Betting System. By getting twenty of my friends to promote my system along with me (and paying them 50% of whatever sales they refer to my website) I can generate all kinds of positive press about the system on the Internet. When an unsuspecting customer comes along, they see all these people saying great things about my system and before you know it, bang, I’ve got another paying customer. See how it works?

But hold on I hear you say – didn’t the Sure-Fire Betting System website promised a money back guarantee? Well yes they did, however most of these people are scammers and unscrupulous traders so they bank on the following scenarios playing out, firstly most people are apathetic and never get around to asking for the refund and secondly those that do are generally ignored anyway.

Sadly putting all your faith into the guaranteed wonder system that you bought online from the so-called systems expert is not going to help you make the promised untold riches from betting. Hopefully you are beginning to realise now, that the only people making any money from the ‘get rich quick’ betting systems you keep reading about are the people actually selling and recommending the systems – as the old proverb says ‘If something looks too good to be true then it probably is!’

So if you posses a ‘get rich quick’ approach to gambling then I am afraid you are destined to fail just like 99% of your fellow gamblers. However if you are prepared to stop gambling and willing to learn how to bet like a professional by treating your betting account as if it were an investment account, betting in the right kinds of punter friendly races, protecting your profits and reducing your controllable losses then it is entirely possible to make slow and steady profits from betting with out relying on the latest betting system to hit the market.

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Each Way Betting on Horse Racing Explained

Friday, June 19th, 2009

The main point to understand with each way betting is that basically you are placing TWO equally sized bets one part is a bet on the horse to win the race and the second part is a bet on the horse to place in a race i.e. finishing in the places 1st, 2nd, 3rd or even 4th in some types of races (see table below).

Thinking about Each Way Betting in this way as two separate bets will make it far easier for you to understand each way betting.

For Example

If you placed a £20 EW (each way) bet on a horse in a race your two bets are a £10 bet on your horse to win and a second £10 bet on your horse to finish in the places, so the total cost of the bets is therefore £20. The win part of the bet is fairly easy to understand it is the same as if you had put £10 to win bet on the horse concerned. Explaining how the place part of the bet is settled by your bookmaker is a little bit more complicated and depends on the type of race you are betting in. The following table explains how the bookmaker’s rules for settling each way bets works.

No. of Runners/Type of Race Place Terms
2-4 Runners No Place Betting Allowed
5-7 Runners 1st and 2nd 1/4 of the odds
8 + Runners 1st, 2nd and 3rd 1/5 of the odds
Handicap Races 12-15 Runners 1st, 2nd and 3rd 1/4 of the odds
Handicaps 16+ Runners 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th 1/4 of the odds

As you can see from the above example, races with up to 4 runners are win only (so each way betting is not offered by Bookmakers).

You will also notice that handicap races are treated in a different way. Theoretically all the horses are given different weights to carry. The ‘weighting process’ is compiled by an Official Handicapper and its his job to try to arrange for all the horsesin the race to acutally finish together in a straight line! Therefore forecasting which horse will finish placed is considered a more difficult task (the handicapper may make a mistake with one or two horses but surely not with the whole field.) So for the purposes of Each Way Betting in handicaps the bookmakers offer improved place terms i.e. one quarter of the odds instead of one fifth and in fields of over 16 runners they generally offer one extra place position (1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th).

Each-Way Bet Example

You decide to place a £10 EW bet on Loopylu in the 2.30 at Newmarket at odds of 10-1 (the race is an 8 runner race non handicap, so the EW terms are 1/5 of the odds for 1st, 2nd or 3rd place.)

Your bookmaker will take the £20 stake out of your betting account (remember £10 EW is TWO £10 bets) the first bet is a £10 win bet at odds of 10-1 and the second is a £10 bet at odds of 2-1 (2-1 being 1/5 of 10-1) the second bet is for Loopylu to finish placed (i.e. 1st, 2nd or 3rd.)

Now there are 3 different outcomes for this bet as follows:

1. Loopylu Doesn’t Win or Place

Loopylu finishes in none of the places (1st, 2nd or 3rd) i.e. 4th or worse, so if this outcome was to occur you have lost both your £10 win bet and your £10 place bet so in this case the total loss is £20.

2. Loopylu Places but Doesn’t Win

Loopylu finishes 2nd or 3rd but doesn’t win. There is no difference between 2nd and 3rd; they count as the same i.e. they are both “a place”. So if this outcome was to occur, remembering that your £10 EW bet is two bets (£10 win and £10 place) your win bet of £10 has lost and your £10 win stake remains with the bookmaker. However your £10 place bet has won and your return at 2-1 (2-1 being a 1/5 of the odds) = £30, that’s £20 profit and your original £10 place stake. So the overall profit on this bet is £10 (you staked £20 (£10 EW) and received £30 back.)

3. Loopylu Wins the Race

If Loopylu wins the race then both of your bets are winners as a win also counts as a place (1st, 2nd or 3rd.)

So if this outcome occurs the win part of your bet returns £110 i.e. £100 profit at 10-1 and your £10 original stake.

However the place bet of your bet has also won and as already explained above in number 2., that bet returns £30 (£20 profit and your £10 original place stake).

So the total return in this instance is £140 i.e. £120 profit and the original £20 stake.

Sometimes bookmakers will offer enhanced place terms on races with well in excess of 16 runners, a good example is the Grand National which usually has over 30 runners, and in this instance many offer a 1/4 of the odds for a horse finishing 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th and sometimes even 6th.

Having explained the concept of how Each Way Betting on horse racing works I would like to point out that the placing Each Way Single Bets is only one of my recommended approaches to betting.

So for a more Strategic and Profitable approach to EW betting read my further article on “The Bet the Bookies Fear Most – The Each Way Double”.

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Betting For a Living – Is it Really Possible?

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Betting For a Living – Is it Really Possible?

Is it possible to make a good living from betting?

Well many betting professionals myself included are living proof that it is indeed possible to do just that, however success as a betting professional requires a lot of endeavour and a long term approach.

Betting for a living is not an easy career path to follow. There will be many sleepless nights and much disenchantment along the way. However provided you have an interest in betting, understand betting principles, are numerate, determined and posses the ability to become emotionally detached – then the goal of betting for a living is achievable.

“Is gambling for a living too risky for the average person?” you ask. Well the truth is, as betting professionals, we don’t really consider ourselves gamblers at all.

We like to think that we are on a par with Investor’s playing the stock market – selecting the right opportunities – when to bet and when not to bet. So operating a safe, reliable and profitable betting business has nothing to do with blind luck or chance; rather, it is the combination of our observations, form study, selectivity and intelligent decision-making. Additionally it is important that you thoroughly understand money management and posses the required discipline to bet with only a percentage of your total betting bank. By following such a course, betting professionals will make a living.

Like any self-employed individual, there are advantages and disadvantages in betting for a living. One of the advantages of this career path is that you have the opportunity to build the new business slowly in your spare time without giving up your day job. This approach will enable you to determine if & when the time is right to become a full time professional. However as with any new venture it will take time and dedication to succeed, so please don’t think for one minute that you are about to become a ‘betting pro’ overnight. Nothing could be further from the truth and you will need to take time serving your apprenticeship, making mistakes from which you will learn, while also becoming the master of your trade and capitalising from the errors you will have made along the way.

Thanks to the proliferation of the online betting exchanges and bookmakers, betting is now a worldwide industry. Thus another advantage of betting for a living is that you can now run your betting business from anywhere in the world and operate with minimal overheads. Finally betting is a truly recession proof industry with downturns in the economy having no effect on the betting exchange markets – even when money seems to be ‘tight’ betting markets are always awash with money.

Of course there are one or two disadvantages associated with betting for a living. Most notably this is tough work psychologically and your lifestyle will change dramatically with no more 9-5 days in the office, instead they will be replaced with long lonely hours, spent 7 days a week in front of your computer and TV screens with no work colleagues to interact with. Secondly, you and you alone will ultimately be responsible for placing bets and trades on the exchanges in order to ensure the success or failure of your financial future.

There are literally hundreds of sporting events available for betting on during any given afternoon and unlike the stock market where it can take days or weeks to receive settlement one way or the other, sports bets are settled within minutes of the event completing – often in minutes.

So your financial outcome is known within minutes of an event finishing. Therefore cash flow is always positive but bear in mind whenever you play a bad bet the impact on the cash flow is immediate, so good money management is therefore the ‘key’ to success in your new career and it remains an essential skill for the betting professional to master.

What really draws people to this profession though is the potential tax-free (in the UK!) return on investment. So just what kind of return can you expect? Anywhere between 15% and 25% of your annual betting turnover would be typical, even as much as 30% in a good year. Losing years are also very rare and I have not personally experienced many in my lifetime and I am now confident I will never experience another one again. I can thank the betting exchanges for that probability. The exchanges offer the professional opportunities for hedging so that we can take profits, reduce losses and maintain that all important positive cash flow.

Clearly for the individual with a strong enough mindset, capable of withstanding adversity there are distinct advantages to making a go of this new career. However it is important to ensure that you have enough capital to commence and also posses the required discipline to use a small percentage of that capital each time you place a bet, then provided you follow strict guidelines betting for a living can become a difficult but achievable goal!

Mike Marsland FCA is the Internets #1 authority on strategic betting techniques. For free honest advice on Sports Betting Strategies and a complimentary download of his football correct score betting Ebook visit http://www.bigmikebetting.co.uk


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