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

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

#91

Post by au_gambler »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #86
au_gambler wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In paramutuel betting the prices are not fixed, so you cannot leverage differences between the odds on offer and your estimate of the prospect's chances. The final odds you receive are equal to the total stakes placed on that prospect divided by (sum of all stakes less the operator's take). You can't formulate an optimal staking plan with unknown odds, and you're forced to compete on win rates rather than price ineff…

I don't think your reasoning is correct. A bookmaker setting the odds presumably would hire the most accurate handicapper analytics team to set the odds appropriately, then take their cut. In paramutual betting, you need only be better than the average bet..and there are a lot of stupid betters. You know the odds pretty well by posttime.

My reasoning is that the 'invisible hand' of many less informed bettors leads to market efficiency in aggregate, particularly in highly liquid markets. Greater liquidity in parimutuel markets makes for odds that are less of a moving target, but it leaves fewer mispriced prospects to capitalise on. So not only do you have to beat a fairly efficient market, but you have to beat it on average by a margin equal to the parimutuel operator's take. In less liquid markets the unknown odds are more of a problem. That's not to say it profits can't be made, just that it's harder imho. With fixed pricing, even though the numbers don't 'add up to one' there either, you can lock in a positive expectation long before price consensus is reached.

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

#92

Post by the_cat_kittles »

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…

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.

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

#93

Post by nl »

utnick wrote: post #10

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…

proof their bets were restricted are for bets on very minor football leagues (Australian semi pro football)

That's... interesting.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-22/soccer-clubs-obvious-m...

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

#94

Post by phillc73 »

GigabyteCoin wrote: post #57
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…

>However there are now other exchange betting options, with at least some degree of liquidity - Betdaq, Smarkets and Matchbook for example. That's good to know. But do they impose the same sort of "60% winners tax" that betfair does? Or anything close to that? Because if so, I wouldn't even bother signing up. I don't need to gamble that badly!

The so called "60% winners tax" doesn't kick in on Betfair, according to the linked article above, until you've reached a total lifetime profit of £250,000. Up until that point you'll still pay the normal 2%-5% commission in winnings.

How long do you estimate it will take you to clear £250k profit in Betfair? I'd say sign up and worry about it when it's likely to happen.

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

#95

Post by phillc73 »

joosters wrote: post #73
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However there are now other exchange betting options, with at least some degree of liquidity - Betdaq, Smarkets and Matchbook for example. That's good to know. But do they impose the same sort of "60% winners tax" that betfair does? Or anything close to that? Because if so, I wouldn't even bother signing up. I don't need to gamble that badly!

Unfortunately the other betting exchanges have far far less liquidity than Betfair, and much of the bets on offer are from bots that are simply mirroring the odds on Betfair (with their own margin added on) Basically, all the money goes on Betfair because that’s where all the money is. It’s a vicious circle, great for BF and very difficult for any competitors to break in to the market.

Betfair is for sure the most liquid. Smarkets and Matchbook are growing. I've not used Betdaq.

However, if people are worried about hitting the Premium Commission levels on Betfair, and the other exchanges are mirroring prices, then surely it's worthwhile spreading stakes around.

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

#96

Post by phillc73 »

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.

Do you mean the Betfair lines? I think their market is pretty accurate. More so than many traditional bookmakers, although a lot of them use Betfair to make their own markets now, so there's very little chance of arbitrage between them.

I've written an R library for the Betfair API[1], which I use every day to retrieve prices.

https://www.github.com/phillc73/abettor

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

#98

Post by maaaats »

repsilat wrote: post #71
maaaats wrote: post #31

They claim the market is inefficient. I worked for a company that to some extend fixed that. Can't remember all the details (I worked on a different part), but something like this: Most big betting companies were customers. They all continuously sent their updated odds to us, and we would broadcast to the other companies. They would react to the change based on certain rules and send new updated odds back to us. This…

Haha, this exactly describes arbitrage. My old company was "sent ... updated odds" (well, we scraped their sites often...) and "we would broadcast to the other companies" by betting on those other companies' sites when the lines crossed, and "This would then converge" because one of the bookies in the arb would move the odds after we hit them (or after we hit them a second or third time...)

Yeah, but with the difference that they pay a flat fee for the arbitrage through a third party, not leaving money on the table for others.

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

#99

Post by andr3w321 »

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 bets at a sharp friendly book like pinnacle.

If anyone would like to collaborate with some model building get in touch. I already have a large db of most of the stats you’d ever need and some okay but not amazing models for most major sports.

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

#100

Post by LittlePeter »

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?
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