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The rising human cost of sports betting

nytimes.com

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Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#281

Post by mod »

lmilcin wrote: post #219
slap_shot wrote: post #46

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

Don't be so naive to even suggest that these businesses would allow you to earn money on them. These only exist to earn money for their owner. That's it. Just like any other establishment, you will be thrown out if you find a way to earn money on them rather than loose your own. Any casino that notices you are earning money regularly will do the same.

> Any casino that notices you are earning money regularly will do the same.

Unless it's from other players, like in poker.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#282

Post by jamesfinlayson »

SilasX wrote: post #184
vgeek wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-b... This is a long read, but is really insightful on how the industry really works. If you're a consistently winning bettor, you're going to get blocked pretty quickly when you're betting against the house. Why would a casino want to play a game where they don't have odds in their favor when they can just ban the sharps and feast on the casuals? With parimut…

Why can’t they switch to a user driven system where they don’t place bets at all but just receive bid/asks from users, like the prediction markets do? Then they don’t have to worry about bettors being better predictors than they are and can just take a cut of the flow.

Companies like this already exist - BetFair is one example.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#283

Post by SilasX »

imrankhan17 wrote: post #221
SilasX wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can’t they switch to a user driven system where they don’t place bets at all but just receive bid/asks from users, like the prediction markets do? Then they don’t have to worry about bettors being better predictors than they are and can just take a cut of the flow.

That's exactly what the exchanges are e.g. Betfair. More popular in UK/Europe though.

Oh, then I’m not sure how the parents points (about “betting against the house”) are relevant, because sports betting (unlike casino games) doesn’t do that.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#284

Post by HWR_14 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #278
babypuncher wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that should be illegal. If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game. If that means their business model is no longer viable, then that is their problem.

> If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game Casinos aren't common carriers. The rules should be fair, disclosed in advance and not ad hoc . But why one would force a casino to e.g. take the other side of a billionaire's bet is beyond me.

I believe the proposed rule is that you can not choose between players. That's different from allowing a maximum bet amount for all players. That is, the casino has to take the billionaires bet, but not more than the 10k limit they enforce on everyone.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#285

Post by jamesfinlayson »

rdtwo wrote: post #269
slap_shot wrote: post #46

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

I don’t get it you guys are smart enough to do this but not smart enough to bypass a simple ban? If your system is that good it should be simple to recruit proxy betters in mass to use their accounts to beat the system. Like there are whole discord communities of resellers that do that and sell their tools for really good money

With lots of money on the line you're probably not going to trust strangers with this, and the corporate bookmakers aggressively search for "duplicate" accounts (might vary in different jurisdictions but in Australia at least you need to provide full name, date of birth, address and government issued ID to play and withdraw - you can't fake that and you'll run out of trusted family members before too long).

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#286

Post by jamesfinlayson »

nhoughto wrote: post #215
slap_shot wrote: post #46

I'm pretty Laissez-Faire about things, but a recent interaction with gambling is making me reconsider: My friend got a lot of free credits from the major sports books and wrote some code that he felt could generate a profit. We all threw in a little bit of money and let the program do what it does. Within a month we started doing 1k a day in profit on 3k wagered. Right as we approached 30k in profit, every major book…

Yep, few friends gone through the same thing. Seems like a coder-finding-betting rite of passage, 'oh right i can automate this process and earn whilst I sleep!' Nope, bookies only want to keep profitable customers, or provide some other upside to them. In the context of bookies they have limited other ways to make money but sometimes their are weird edges that pop-up, like legislated restrictions. In Australia those…

Do the people that run the tote make a loss? I thought they kept 10%-15% of the pool regardless.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#287

Post by HWR_14 »

animal_spirits wrote: post #8

Promotion of gambling should be likened to promotion of cigarettes. It should be illegal to advertise gambling, but I don't think it should be outlawed to gamble. People should be able to choose how they live their lives, but we should do all that we can to prevent mass manipulation through adverts in industries that are known to be harmful. I also think that alcohol and e-cig advertising should be outlawed as well.

Why stop at vices? At this point, given how much it destroys everything it touches, I'm almost willing to back outlawing advertising in general.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#288

Post by willis936 »

User23 wrote: post #216
vgeek wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of thing isn't exclusive to sports betting, either. Card counting isn't cheating, but is typically prohibited (when executed successfully) in most casinos due to the edge it gives players (which has been practically eliminated with shift to 7 decks, autoshufflers, etc.). When players figure out other edges, such as imperfections in the playing card printing process that gives them an edge in games like bacc…

Most strip casinos don't care at all about individual counters. They will cool you though if they see you wonging or other evidence of team play. But an individual? They really don't care. I've counted playing two hands and swinging my bets by a factor of 8 at the Bellagio. I might has well have been wearing a hat that said "Make Counting Great Again" I was so obvious. And the pit boss only asked if I'd like somethin…

I've sat at $5 tables where an old dude was openly discussing the count with the dealer. I bet when he bet and made out okay.

Counting theory is really simple stuff. Everyone does it subconsciously. Almost everyone can learn the concept of sampling without substitution. Banning such basic math seems ridiculous, but highlights that the average player is not there to win. Gambling institutions are sad places.

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#289

Post by vmception »

brandonmenc wrote: post #260
vmception wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh! You might like the Web3 ecosystem! In the Web3 ecosystem (in this context that means Ethereum and Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible, popularized by a library called web3.js), people fork the current state of the blockchain to localhost, this allows you to test your transaction with many iterations to see if it can push the chain/contract to a subsequent valid state, if successful your code switches back to the…

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not, but I'll call you when my bookie puts his contract on the the blockchain.

not sarcasm, eventually nuanced web3 related posts will be the frequent front page articles, instead of hot takes about the parts not fulfilling their purpose and pretending its an irreconcilable issue with the concept

for sports betting and prediction markets, the main limitation is the size of the bets possible, which is pretty boring after 5 figures

so even if your bookie was pointing their oracle (api results) to a blockchain to dictate payout conditions of a contract, its still about the size of the pool based on other participants, which would probably be limited, at least initially

Re: The rising human cost of sports betting

#290

Post by xapata »

rdw wrote: post #264
User23 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most strip casinos don't care at all about individual counters. They will cool you though if they see you wonging or other evidence of team play. But an individual? They really don't care. I've counted playing two hands and swinging my bets by a factor of 8 at the Bellagio. I might has well have been wearing a hat that said "Make Counting Great Again" I was so obvious. And the pit boss only asked if I'd like somethin…

> Incidentally I didn't really win much I've heard it said that the casinos encourage bad card counters, because someone who has a "system" that doesn't really work for them is going to lose even _more_ money playing. It's only when you start really winning that they care. The fact that you were obvious about it just made it easier for them to identify you once you won anything significant.

The table limits prevent serious losses from card counting. Information has a cost. So long as the maximum bet isn't large enough (relative to the minimum bet), on average even a perfect card counter will lose money.
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