How to win and make money on bets in the bookmaker
There are only two methods that allow you to consistently make remote money on bets. These are forks and value-betting. Everything in science - only these methods have a positive mathematical expectation. Everything else is either a guessing game leading to a minus in the distance due to the bookmaker's margin, or simply an inadequate system, or has long been covered up by the bookmaker's rules.
Methods that will NOT help you make money
First, let's talk about popular methods that you definitely won't earn. Yes, you can get lucky and you will win for a while. In rare cases. perhaps even a long time - weeks or a couple of months. But in the future, you will inevitably come to bankruptcy if you stick to these methods.
- Predicting the outcomes
If you are trying to make predictions for the most probable outcome or total, without relying on the odds set by the bookmaker, then this will not lead you to a profit in the bookmaker. Determining the most likely outcome works well for broadcasters and commentators, but in regular betting this is not applicable. This does not work in isolation from the offered odds and leads to the gradual consumption of the bankroll by the bookmaker's margin.
For example, football, upcoming EURO 2021 match, Turkey - Italy. Who is more likely to win? The Italians, of course. If we conduct a public opinion poll on the street, most people will give predictions for the victory of the second team. The same majority of opinion leaders, bloggers and journalists are convinced of this. And they are absolutely right! The bookmakers think in the same way, the victory of Italy is offered for the odds of only 1.53.
But in betting, just guessing the result is not enough. The opposite of guessing is value betting, which will be discussed below.
- A haphazard game on a whim
A game without a clearly structured strategy, both game and financial, will also sooner or later empty your account. If a player bets on all matches in a row - football, tennis, table tennis, squash, cricket, e-sports... including sports that are poorly versed in, especially live - he is doomed to a quick drain.
This also includes bets on matches without a clear financial strategy on a whim - here I decided to bet half the pot, lost, got scared, bet 10%, won, again charged 40% on the "sure bet". This is also a path to the inevitable quick drain.
A lot of financial strategies have been invented, some of them are adequate (varieties of flat, Miller's strategy, Kelly criterion), some are not very good (catch-up and other progressive strategies). The next section is about catching up, but it's better to use it than not stick to any plan at all.
- Dogon and other progressions
Dogon and its many varieties is a strategy that involves changing the size of the bet depending on the result of the previous bet. Classic catch-up - playing at odds of about 2.00 and doubling the size of the bet on each loss. When you have won, it is recommended to return to the original bet.
You can often hear that catching up is a win-win model of the game, because you consistently beat off all expenses and gradually increase your bankroll. But in reality this is not at all true. A series of losses on equal chances can very often drag on for 5, 7, 10 and even more looses in a row.
Don't believe me? Flip a coin at least 100 times, you will almost certainly come across long streaks of the same results. If you toss it 1000 times, such streaks are guaranteed. You can not flip a coin, but quickly test this theory in Excel using a random distribution of values.
When the amount of the initial bet is doubled, after five pockets in a row, it becomes necessary to place 63 initial bets. And all in order to add one and only one to the account! The rest is just a repayment of expenses. Is it worth the risk of one denomination considering that it is as easy as shelling pears to catch 5 pockets in a row?
- First bet: 1000 rubles for football;
- Second bet: 2000 rubles for table tennis;
- Third bet: 4000 rubles for total in hockey;
- Fourth: 8000 rubles for tennis;
- Fifth: 16,000 rubles again for football;
- Sixth: 32,000 rubles for e-sports.
Already at the sixth step, you may run out of free money or nerves, or both together. And even if you have an unlimited bankroll, you can run into the maximum bet limits. There are many varieties of progressions, some of them are more aggressive, some less, but it is guaranteed that one day you will find yourself in such a band that you cannot take out financially.
- Multipliers
Multipliers - combining several outcomes into one bet. In this case, the odds are multiplied, and if any of the outcomes are missing, all bets are lost. This is the favorite method of playing most popans, leading them to a sure disadvantage at a distance. Moreover, this is a favorite type of bet even at the bookmaker's office. It is from them that they get a decent chunk of their profits, so they promote in every possible way and encourage players to collect express trains, but more authentic.
Of course, there are different express trains, two outcomes and ten are not the same. Basically, we mean exactly steam locomotives of 5-15 cars, which have scanty chances of getting there, and even an incredibly high margin, which multiplies with the number of outcomes. Even if one day the player catches one such wild odds, he is guaranteed not to recoup all the costs of such bets that were before (and will still be after).
Methods you can earn
As mentioned in the introduction, there are only two such methods - value betting and surebets. This is due to mathematics, because only these two methods have a positive mathematical expectation. Strictly scientific approach based on probability theory and mathematical statistics.
- Forbets
Forks are obviously a win-win mathematically, it's very easy to calculate even in your head. The essence of the method is to cover all outcomes of an event with a guaranteed profit for any outcome.
It's like playing against two different people for the same toss of a coin, but somehow convinced them to pay you not x2, but x2.20 if successful. This is the essence of the fork. With one you bet 100 rubles on "heads", with the other - the same amount on "tails". Regardless of the end of the tossing procedure, you will receive a payment of 220 rubles and earn 20 rubles on top (+ 10%) to your two hundred.
In sporting events, everything is the same - you can bet on the victories of different tennis players in the party for the odds above two and enjoy the result. Any sport is suitable (football, tennis, hockey, basketball, table tennis, whatever), any matches and markets (total, handicap, victory, exact score, both will score, etc.), you can play three or four-way events, if only there was a confirmed profitability of the surebet. How to calculate surebets, read in our other material.
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Modern high-tech arb scanners will help you to find matches that contain surebets (they are also called arbitrage situations). Not all scanners are equally good, read how to choose the best surebet scanner here.
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In fact, there are certain risks in this model. They are laid by the bookmakers themselves, who actively oppose the players who bet on surebets. They block the account, cut limits, calculate winning bets in refunds, or simply cancel the bet. Nevertheless, there is a certain circle of people for whom bets on surebets bring a stable income.
P.S. There is one more "strategy" of playing with a positive mathematical expectation - bets on the outcomes that have already happened or the so-called "postballs", which are also looked for by a special scanner. But this is outright fraud and unfair play, so we will not even consider this option.
- Value betting (overweight bets)
Let's go back to our Turks and Italians.
As we have already said, the victory of Italy for forecasters is "obvious". Why, after all, they have not had a single defeat in the last three years, and they even drew only three times in the last 22 matches. They also have Immobile, Insigne, Pellegrini, Verratti and, in general, the team for half a billion euros. Will they be right? With a high probability - yes.
But sport is unpredictable and any outcome, including not losing and even winning the Turkish national team, has a positive probability. And it can happen at any time. And the main task of the bettor is to calculate all these probabilities as accurately as possible and compare them with the odds of the bookmaker.
How it works:
The odds contain information about how the bookmaker sees the likelihood of an outcome. To calculate it, you need to divide a hundred by the size of the coefficient. Thus, the victory of Italy by the bookmakers is estimated at about 65% (100 / 1.53).
If your calculated probability is higher - it makes sense to bet on such a coefficient, it has a value. If your probability is decently lower, you should look for value on the opposite shoulder - the outcomes in favor of the Turks. If your opinion roughly coincides with the bookmaker's, then nothing needs to be done, just skip this match, there are no values in it.
In general, the point is to systematically select matches and put options, having an increased probability of the outcome compared to what the bookmakers see. The more such outcomes you find, and the greater the discrepancy in the probabilities in your favor, the more profit in money you will replenish your account after passing a solid distance of 1000 bets or more.
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Odds play an important role in value betting. It is very important to monitor the bookmaker's lines and find the best odds for your value bets. The BetMAX browser extension will help you find the best deals among dozens of bookmakers for free.
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Conclusion
We hope that we have clarified for you the ways of making money in the bookmaker's office and separated the working methods from the non-working ones. If you are interested in this topic, read our other free materials about surebets and value betting, there you will receive comprehensive information and answers to all your questions.