I have a little secret to share with you and it’ll probably surprise you, but then again probably not considering the circumstances. So naturally if you hone your skills to the level that you could be considered to be a professional at what you do, even if it’s playing poker full-time, playing online slots or whatever, there would be some other activities which you could branch out into. In my case I think it’s clear by now that my claim to fame is as a poker player, but recently I’ve taken to sports betting as well, rather successfully too..
So what’s my secret to [relative] success? I haven’t been in this sports betting racket for that long though, so for all we know it could just be a bit of luck that I’m riding, but I really don’t think so. The argument that it’s not luck that I’m riding is perhaps attested to by the approach I take, which is less of a sentimental one and more of a statistical one. In fact, I focus purely on a statistical approach, so I’m not influenced by any allegiances to any specific teams, so my approach can be a purely statistical one, which is how it should be if you really want any success in any betting sphere that is not really based on any form of skill.
Is it purely based on odds though?
If ever there was an incentive to take the study of the subject of statistics seriously then this is it – learning through sports betting as your project. You will come to learn that as much as the mathematics behind the formulae used to set the odds are indeed purely based on odds, the bookmakers do indeed try to manipulate things when they see the need to do so. Be that as it may – these concepts are also covered in the most complete of statistics textbooks, so I for one know what to do whenever I come across a scenario where I can tell that the bookmakers are selecting the games which are the hardest to predict to make up the wager.
Consistency is key
I can’t say I’m becoming partial to any of the teams I put money on, because for me the approach is really just about looking at the odds. I put my robot face on and take all sentiment out.
To give you an example, even when the matchups which are the hardest to predict are included in the wager, there is an average number of results which consistently shows up in favour of the un-fancied team winning, but a draw counts as an un-fancied result as well. This example works best with football I guess, because then it becomes clear that over time, you would get around half of the results taking an unexpected turn in a wager of around 10-12 matchups.
So I simply bet 5/10 or 6/12 fancied teams to draw or lose, regardless of whether or not you would have what is called a “banker” club like Barcelona, Real Madrid, or Juventus, etc.
