Jason Voorhees
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Is it possible to get good at gambling? The million dollar question evidently yes. Professional poker and blackjack players exist but have you ever seen a professional Liar's Dice player? No. Because finding a consistent mathematical edge isn't possible in games of pure luck.
Years ago there was a super hit movie of brad Pitt Moneyball.
The true story of a poor baseball team that stopped listening to old school scouts who judged players by their gut feeling and baseball knowledge instead they started using cold, hard math and data to find undervalued players everyone else missed. They built a winning team on a tiny budget by spotting mispricings in the player market and shook up the world
Sports betting works exactly the same way in real life. It's not really about gambling on who's going to win the game or a measure of how of your ball knowledge or how well you know the game. It's a market just like the stock market where math and statistics always wins.
It's a market where bookmakers set prices (odds). Your job is to spot mispricings. Example if your math says a team has a 60% chance to win, but the odds only imply a 52% chance, that's a mispricing and a +EV (positive expected value) bet. It is very similar to finding
There's even a strategy called "arbitrage." This happens when different sportsbooks disagree on the price of a game so much that you can bet every side across different apps and lock in a small, 100% risk free profit.
Now coming back to the point why do professional poker players that make living through poker exist but professional sports are so rare.
In poker, you're playing against other people. Casino takes a flat fee. Some are terrible "fish". Skilled pros make money by exploiting the mistakes of weaker players. The edge comes from human error, emotions, bad reads, and poor decisions. That's why professional poker players exist and can make a living
In sports betting, you're not playing against emotional amateurs. You're playing against the house a teams of data scientists, algorithms that move lines in real time as money comes in.
Legends like Billy Walters, Tony Bloom who built the massive betting syndicate StarLizard and Haralabos Voulgaris have made hundreds of millions. But they don't do it by guessing. They operate very similar to hedge funds in the stock market, employing teams of data scientists and algorithms to beat the bookmakers at their own game. These people are called sharps in the industry.
www.businessinsider.com
Now the question If sharps exist, why is it so hard for a normal person to go pro? The problem is even if you somehow find a real edge. Making money is hard. Say you find 5% edge it still means you lose a massive percentage of your bets. It doesn't mean you will always win. It just means that over a period of time you will overall win more than you lose so it's a positive EV but this is assuming you already have a healthy enough bank roll to survive the variance and the losses to make it happen.
And by far the biggest hurdle. I compared sports betting to the stock market, but there is one major difference: The stock market won't ban you for being too good. Sportsbooks are private businesses. If you are a casual bettor, their algorithms will slowly bleed you dry but if you are a mathematical genius who consistently spots mispricings and beats their math, the sportsbook will flag your account. They will refuse to let you bet more than a few pennies or just flag your account.
news.ycombinator.com
finance.biggo.com
That's why 99% of bettors lose money long term. If you are going to do this choose the market carefully moneyline, point spread, total points, player props, etc, the book will offers decimal, fractional, or American odds that imply a probability and after that it is a skill of finding mispricings, after doing some cold hard math and by running some machine learning algorithms. No gut feeling, no I know this will happen because I'm a sports pundit BS. Just math. Because math always wins and if you do not understand or know any of the terms I just said please for your own sake don't bet a single dollar on sportsbooks. You'll end up financially ruined.
Years ago there was a super hit movie of brad Pitt Moneyball.
The true story of a poor baseball team that stopped listening to old school scouts who judged players by their gut feeling and baseball knowledge instead they started using cold, hard math and data to find undervalued players everyone else missed. They built a winning team on a tiny budget by spotting mispricings in the player market and shook up the world
Sports betting works exactly the same way in real life. It's not really about gambling on who's going to win the game or a measure of how of your ball knowledge or how well you know the game. It's a market just like the stock market where math and statistics always wins.
It's a market where bookmakers set prices (odds). Your job is to spot mispricings. Example if your math says a team has a 60% chance to win, but the odds only imply a 52% chance, that's a mispricing and a +EV (positive expected value) bet. It is very similar to finding
There's even a strategy called "arbitrage." This happens when different sportsbooks disagree on the price of a game so much that you can bet every side across different apps and lock in a small, 100% risk free profit.
Now coming back to the point why do professional poker players that make living through poker exist but professional sports are so rare.
In poker, you're playing against other people. Casino takes a flat fee. Some are terrible "fish". Skilled pros make money by exploiting the mistakes of weaker players. The edge comes from human error, emotions, bad reads, and poor decisions. That's why professional poker players exist and can make a living
In sports betting, you're not playing against emotional amateurs. You're playing against the house a teams of data scientists, algorithms that move lines in real time as money comes in.
Legends like Billy Walters, Tony Bloom who built the massive betting syndicate StarLizard and Haralabos Voulgaris have made hundreds of millions. But they don't do it by guessing. They operate very similar to hedge funds in the stock market, employing teams of data scientists and algorithms to beat the bookmakers at their own game. These people are called sharps in the industry.
Inside Starlizard: The story of Britain's most successful gambler and the secretive company that helps him win
Tony "The Lizard" Bloom is the most successful gambler of his generation thanks to the hedge-fund-style betting consultancy that helps him beat the market.
www.businessinsider.com
Now the question If sharps exist, why is it so hard for a normal person to go pro? The problem is even if you somehow find a real edge. Making money is hard. Say you find 5% edge it still means you lose a massive percentage of your bets. It doesn't mean you will always win. It just means that over a period of time you will overall win more than you lose so it's a positive EV but this is assuming you already have a healthy enough bank roll to survive the variance and the losses to make it happen.
And by far the biggest hurdle. I compared sports betting to the stock market, but there is one major difference: The stock market won't ban you for being too good. Sportsbooks are private businesses. If you are a casual bettor, their algorithms will slowly bleed you dry but if you are a mathematical genius who consistently spots mispricings and beats their math, the sportsbook will flag your account. They will refuse to let you bet more than a few pennies or just flag your account.
Economics of sportsbooks and why they ban the best bettors | Hacker News
news.ycombinator.com
Sportsbooks Ban Winners While Advertising Their Success Stories to Lure New Bettors โ BigGo Finance
The sports betting industry faces growing criticism for its practice of restricting successful bettors while using their wins to advertise to new customers. Thi
That's why 99% of bettors lose money long term. If you are going to do this choose the market carefully moneyline, point spread, total points, player props, etc, the book will offers decimal, fractional, or American odds that imply a probability and after that it is a skill of finding mispricings, after doing some cold hard math and by running some machine learning algorithms. No gut feeling, no I know this will happen because I'm a sports pundit BS. Just math. Because math always wins and if you do not understand or know any of the terms I just said please for your own sake don't bet a single dollar on sportsbooks. You'll end up financially ruined.
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