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Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

arxiv.org

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Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#101

Post by chillydawg »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #92
phillc73 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Betfair merged with Paddy Power, not Ladbrokes. They probably stopped offering their service in Canada due to unclear licensing and operating regulations for their Exchange product. It has happened in a number of other jurisdictions too. What you need is a good friend or relative in the UK or Ireland, and a VPN. However there are now other exchange betting options, with at least some degree of liquidity - Betdaq, Sma…

im actually curious how accurate the lines they show are, vs if you used their api. do you know? theres a lot of noise in them as far as i can tell- just wondering if its real or if they are jiggling the numbers around to make it look more appealing.

Site Vs API are identical. There may be some extra latency (order of milliseconds) on the site due to render time etc but they both use the same underlying data source.

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#102

Post by shakedown1 »

au_gambler wrote: post #67

A couple of suggestions to improve on this method. The authors' regression left an intercept or 'adjustment term' of 3.4% - 5.7%. For a perfect bookmaker, this intercept term would be equal to the overround. The number calculated unfortunately averages that overround between different bookmakers and at different times (overrounds often decrease over time). It might be more effective to adjust for the actual overround…

Interesting. Are you refering to kelly criterion?

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#103

Post by StanislavPetrov »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

"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…

One main difference is that the vast majority of sports betting occurs outside of casinos and "legality". The other huge difference is that the entity making the picks doesn't necessarily have to be the person placing the bets. There is a well established term in sports betting for one who places a bet for someone else, "beard". Fortunately for the bookies/casinos and the few winning bettors, there are always plenty of losing bettors to keep the system afloat and profitable for everyone with an edge.

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#104

Post by andr3w321 »

LittlePeter wrote: post #100
andr3w321 wrote: post #99

What the authors are doing is “chasing steam” and most books will ban or limit you if you try this. This should come as no surprise to people with experience in the industry. The books aren’t limiting/banning them for winning - it’s the way in which they were winning. They are betting slow moving books’ lines. Their strategy only works at poorly managed books as long as they can bet quickly. I doubt they made any bet…

How would I go about contacting you?

Contact info is in profile but andr3w321 at gmail

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#105

Post by solatic »

pgwhalen wrote: post #70
CPLX wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I my experience as a card counter they'd just swap in a new dealer who would count themselves and just shuffle whenever the count got really good. Ridiculously unfair and probably illegal but what are you going to do, complain?

Why would that be illegal?

Casino licenses are contingent upon offering a fair game at stated odds. The odds are allowed to benefit the house, of course, since that's how running a casino becomes a sustainable, profitable enterprise, but the stated odds cannot be dynamically changed in the middle of the game to benefit the house.

Published blackjack odds depend on "dumb" reshuffles. If the house is "smartly" reshuffling the deck to reduce house payouts, then the published odds do not match the real odds, which is illegal.

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#106

Post by grecy »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

"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…

I would love to hear more about your story.

I have always thought about learning to count cards, instead of say learning a new language.

Can't you just go to another casino until they kick you out, and repeat?

Do you actually make money now that you can count?

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#107

Post by posterboy »

dogruck wrote: post #34
skizm wrote: post #29

I always thought bookies just kept moving the lines until they were making money at the snap of the ball. Their initial line isn't as important as adjusting the line so that there is equal money on both sides of the line and therefore the bookie is guaranteed money due to the small fee they build into the bets. Their profits don't depend on accurately predicting the game's score, just moving the line strategically as…

Easier said than done. Suppose your book is balanced, and you have $25,000 on each side. Then a new bet comes in, size $250,000, on one side of your book -- what to do? Or, more simply, when you set your initial line, what do you do when a known sharp immediately wants action on one side?

You limit the pot according to what you can afford to loose betting against the sharp. If your odds are alright, the small edge that the odds give the house will play out over the long run. That means astronomic sums of money are needed if you want to allow unlimited bets. Few people would be regularly betting that much. Picking misplaced odds or whatever is exploited is based on luck in the end.

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#108

Post by eric_h »

phillc73 wrote: post #32
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to use the betfair platform until it they blocked themselves from being viewed in Canada for some strange reason right after they were purchased by ladbrokes I believe it was. Anyways, after playing with them for a few years, I was horrified to learn about their 60% tax on consistent winners that they have dubbed a "premium charge". Found some sort of edge to exploit and reap profits? Betfair doesn't even care…

Betfair merged with Paddy Power, not Ladbrokes. They probably stopped offering their service in Canada due to unclear licensing and operating regulations for their Exchange product. It has happened in a number of other jurisdictions too. What you need is a good friend or relative in the UK or Ireland, and a VPN. However there are now other exchange betting options, with at least some degree of liquidity - Betdaq, Sma…

Minor nitpick re: horse racing: it's "totalisator" (usually abbreviated as "tote") and refers to the machine that keeps track of the pools and odds, and the term for the betting pool type is "parimutuel".

Fun fact: totalisators were originally mechanical computers that were used to price betting pools around the turn of the 20th century (http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/racetrack-betting-mecha...).

Re: Beating the bookies – how the online sports betting market is rigged

#110

Post by danmaz74 »

solatic wrote: post #105
pgwhalen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be illegal?

Casino licenses are contingent upon offering a fair game at stated odds. The odds are allowed to benefit the house, of course, since that's how running a casino becomes a sustainable, profitable enterprise, but the stated odds cannot be dynamically changed in the middle of the game to benefit the house. Published blackjack odds depend on "dumb" reshuffles. If the house is "smartly" reshuffling the deck to reduce hous…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that not being allowed to count means that you should treat odds as if the cards were extracted from an infinite stack with a given statistical distribution of cards. Reshuffling when you only extracted a low number of cards from a finite stack basically approximates the infinite stack, so, the odds should be exactly as expected.
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