21–30 of 158 posts
Once you start beating them ( being profitable in value prices ) they will simply close/ban your account. Nowadays, it happens extremely fast ( in a day or a few hours, depending on your moves ). It's a well known tactic, and in practice, you cannot do anything about it ( other than keep opening new accounts in new names ).
Try beating a betting exchange.
If you want to make money you have to bet against, and be able to beat the books that know what they are doing - The high limit, low margin books like Pinnacle, SBO, IBC et al will happily take you on.
Isn't this like literally one of the oldest tricks in the book? I remember reading Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, which talks in part about early 1900's bucket shops, and the same stuff was there even then. Similar stuff is also mentioned in market microstructure textbooks with market makers on one side and informed traders on the other side.
Is rigged even the right word here? It might be, but did the bookmakers have a responsibility to keep accepting their bets? Is it different from claiming that casinos are rigged?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that they limit the accounts of successful bettors doesn't mean that it is "rigged". It simply means that they reserve the right to do business with whom they choose.
They are artificially manipulating the market. That's about as textbook rigging as putting three masts on a ship.
If there was an obscure way to play craps that made the house advantage negative they would either change the rules or ban the practice. You could call it rigging but by that token every game is rigged, that's the whole point, you're playing in the hope of beating the odds. The rules and odds are completely transparent, 'rigging' would be like using weighted dice.
There has to be more to this story. I would like to hear the bookmakers side of this. Perhaps the researchers were scripting or triggered some other kind of security tripwire. Winning $900 split across several different bookmakers is absolutely nothing in the sports betting industry. William Hill, one of the companies that the researchers claim restricted them is a multi billion dollar company. They aren't sweating s…
My guess is that it’s the manner by which they were winning. Thirty $50 bets per week over five months is over 500 bets. That’s not the long run but winning at an 8.5% ROI over that many bets is probably enough for the house to realize they’re somehow a winning player even if the stakes aren’t huge.
But $900 is pocket money bookmakers are willing to give away: around the time this study collected it's first data points I made more from fewer bookmakers just from intentionally +ve expectation welcome bonuses (and that was after they'd responded to the first wave of people pocketing welcome bonuses by eliminating them... for people from Denmark)
Bookmakers sell excitement / entertainment - the thrill of the potential win is the product, and costs approximately 10% of what you can afford to stake.
I disagree with this assumption and I think they have painted themselves into a corner because of it. To illustrate, imagine charting win rates against bins of price-implied-chances. $3 horses win roughly 33% of the time, $4 horses 25% for example. It resembles a noisy 1:1 linear relationship. Do the same for your selections and your line will be noisier, but crucially you're not taking bets where the price is worse than your estimate. This can leave a window of profitibility when you subtract the two, even when you are less 'accurate' as measured by win rate or KLD or other measures.
The goal is profitibility, not accuracy. The problem with including the odds you are betting against as a feature for your ensemble is that it dampens that window. If you're right about your selections, you'll bet less and win less. * If you're concerned about the volitility that comes with being less accurate, there are better ways to address that.
I've been doing this for a couple of years and in many ways it's a dream side-project. Location independent, no customers, automatable, and in some jurisdictions tax-free. It can be a little lonely at times though. I would love to chat with anyone else applying tech/math to beat the bookies. Sorry for the throwaway, I'll put a contact in my profile.
"Send enquires about this paper to our newly acquired private island in the Bahamas." :-) One of the most depressing things I realized when I learned to count cards, and confer upon myself a small but meaningful advantage in the game of Blackjack, was that the casinos simply ask you to leave if you win too much. That put an upper limit on the rate at which one could win. The folks who figure out slot machines have a…
the casinos simply ask you to leave if you win too much. I was actually backed off from the first place I went to after I learned how to count cards while I was losing . If the pit boss or dealers know how to count themselves and identify you as a counter, they want no part of it. In most cases, they'll either "flat bet" you (tell you that your initial bet is your maximum), or they'll tell you that you cannot play bl…
"Send enquires about this paper to our newly acquired private island in the Bahamas." :-) One of the most depressing things I realized when I learned to count cards, and confer upon myself a small but meaningful advantage in the game of Blackjack, was that the casinos simply ask you to leave if you win too much. That put an upper limit on the rate at which one could win. The folks who figure out slot machines have a…