One of the easiest ways to lose money is to do something you don’t understand. Classic examples are the stock market, FOREX, and sports betting. Today, we’ll focus on sports betting.
If you’re a punter, you probably belong to the majority who lose in the long run. Why does this happen? The answer is simple: “You have little to no knowledge about what you’re doing.” Sure, you may win occasionally, but your balance will likely be negative over time.
At 22Bet, smart bettors understand the importance of research, strategy, and value betting. Knowing how odds work and making wise bets can increase your chances of winning in the long run. Ready to bet smarter? Join 22Bet today and take your betting strategy to the next level.
Where to Start?
Let’s prove the science behind sports betting with a simple example. Take a coin and flip it. Now flip it 10,000 times and write down each result. By the end of this experiment, you will see almost the same number of tails and heads. This is because each has a 50% chance of occurring. This is the basic rule of chance and probability in real life. Let’s say you want to make money by letting people bet on the outcome. What do you do? Follow the bookmaker’s strategy—adjust the odds in your favor.
For a coin flip, the fair decimal odds would be 2.00 (since a 50% chance equals 0.5, and 1 ÷ 0.5 = 2.00). Yet, you reduce the odds by 10% to secure a profit, offering bettors only 1.8 for either heads or tails. This is the most elegant way to make money. There is no escape from earning money in the long run. Some bets may fail, but you win in the long run when the odds are in your favor.
Looks Like a Fraud. Is There Any Way to Escape it?
It is a dodgy business, but like it or not, it is legal in most countries worldwide. You can not escape the merciless laws of probability, but here is the thing.
How can you predict the odds? This is not a coin flip. How can you confidently determine that the true odds for a match are 3.08 for a home win, 3.85 for a draw, and 2.40 for an away win. The quick answer to the question is:
Even the best football predictions are an opinion, no matter how sophisticated. And this gives you the opportunity. In a coin flip, a punter has no chance to win. But with the gray area of mostly wrong predictions, success is possible.
All you have to do is…. Do it better! Now scroll up to this article’s first and second sentences and then come back here.
Most readers of this article might not know how to predict probabilities or set odds. Before you call me a jerk, here is the thing: I used to work for a bookmaker for five years and had no idea about it. It was my duty to know.
Where 2 Completely Different Worlds Connect
I love sports and football, but that is not enough to be good at sports betting. Most bookies’ “funders” (those who lose their bets) understand the sport well. They suck at math and keep on betting on the flip coin with odds lower than 2.00 (figuratively speaking).
You don’t need to be a mathematician to calculate probabilities. When I worked at the bookmakers, we had a project. We asked 5 postgraduates to calculate the odds for some matches. They had all the data they asked for. Guess what? Each source provided results that varied significantly from one another. Their predictions were simply useless or a straight way to bankruptcy.
You have to understand both. Football and math, and thus the odds, are being done by teams that connect these two worlds. Your way to succeed in sports betting is to find free football predictions that are better than a bookie’s. Not impossible, hard. Try to use Google for that one.
