13 ms·

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-bettors-sharps-kicked-out-spanky-william-hill-new-jersey https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/

by vgeek 5y ago

https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-bettors-sharps-kicked-out-spanky-william-hill-new-jersey https://www.theringer.com/2019/6/5/18644504/sports-betting-b... This is a long read, but is really insightful on how the industry really works. If you're a consistently winning bettor, you're going to get blocked pretty quickly when you're betting against the house. Why would a casino want to play a game where they don't have odds in their favor when they can just ban the sharps and feast on the casuals? With parimutuel wagering (horse racing, exchanges like BetFair-- there aren't major exchanges in the US, not enough margin for gambling lobby to go for yet) where you're wagering against other players, you won't get banned, since you're not consistently taking money from the house.

chrismcb 5y ago
Sports betting isn't exactly being against the house. In sports betting the house takes bets on both sides and then charges a percentage. Oh wait, you seem to understand this. The op was talking about making sports bets but being against the house.
- ktc1 5y ago
  I worked as a trader for a UK based bookmaker and in reality it wasn't like that. You were betting against the house and it was very rare for us to make money on any outcome.
babypuncher 5y ago
I think that should be illegal. If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game. If that means their business model is no longer viable, then that is their problem.
- analog31 5y ago
  A casino is entirely a creature of government. It's regulated into existence, like a bank. Why would any government entitle an entity to exist, that allows you to siphon an unlimited amount of money out of their locality?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > A casino is entirely a creature of government. It's regulated into existence, Gambling establishments have existed in some of the places with the weakest governments around. They are not regulated into existence, and are often regulated out of existence. It's true large casinos are often a consequence of both regulating them out of existence in neighboring areas and creating a high regulatory bar to opening one in the area in question, which minimizes competition. But that's not regulating casinos into existence, it's upregulating size by downregulating number.
- slap_shot 5y ago
  This is exactly my point. I'm not against outlawing casinos (i think you should be able to do pretty much whatever the eff you want with your body and money). BUT if we are going to allow them, should we allow them to only let people play when they lose? The decision to let them exist is as arbitrary as the decision to allow them to only play when they when.
  - Pet_Ant 5y ago
    >([I] think you should be able to do pretty much whatever the eff you want with your body and money). ... The decision to let the exist is as arbitrary as the decision to allow them to only play when they [win]. How do you square that with giving people autonomy? You can do what you want with your money, but you can't play if you don't feel like you are gonna win... there is an inherent contradiction there.
    - hillbillydilly 5y ago
      its the classic hn libertarian take. empowered teens with freedom technology, saying one thing (body autonomy, no regs!) but, actually with regulations they're just smarter regulations cause I'm smart
    - handoflixue 5y ago
      > How do you square that with giving people autonomy? The Libertarian Free Market answer is that both parties need to be fully informed. Casinos would be required to post maximum win rates and otherwise fully detail their "we throw out anyone that wins" policy up-front, in a clear and easily understood format. If the casino writes a bad, exploitable policy, they go bankrupt being exploited and this encourages future casinos to do better.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        I'm not familiar with libertarians who are uncomfortable with hidden information. In fact, the ones I know would consider requiring casinos to post such information to be government intrusion.
- mistrial9 5y ago
  I believe this is a naive comment, and I have a reason to point it out. That is, what is "illegal" and not is not as bright a line as many people are taught. A deep examination of gambling systems, all of the parts, will show that this legal-vs-illegal belief on the part of the gambler, is core to maintaining order over time. Yet, game operators and their allies, know very well, and in real life can, manipulate the odds of the outcomes of the process. (edit clarify) Once a neutral observer, say people here, actually learn that part, further inquiry can show that the predation of others for profit, the physical control of common spaces, and control of life-and-death level inputs, such as weapons and their use, are also known to, and are used, by the operators. There are dozens of corollaries to this game analysis. I hope that the reader of these words, will understand them.
- vgeek 5y ago
  This type of thing isn't exclusive to sports betting, either. Card counting isn't cheating, but is typically prohibited (when executed successfully) in most casinos due to the edge it gives players (which has been practically eliminated with shift to 7 decks, autoshufflers, etc.). When players figure out other edges, such as imperfections in the playing card printing process that gives them an edge in games like baccarat, they'll either get banned or not paid their winnings. It is very much a heads I win, tails you lose situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team https://www.betstrat.com/betstrat-articles/the-phil-ivey-edge-sorting-scandal https://www.betstrat.com/betstrat-articles/the-phil-ivey-edg...
  - User23 5y ago
    Most strip casinos don't care at all about individual counters. They will cool you though if they see you wonging or other evidence of team play. But an individual? They really don't care. I've counted playing two hands and swinging my bets by a factor of 8 at the Bellagio. I might has well have been wearing a hat that said "Make Counting Great Again" I was so obvious. And the pit boss only asked if I'd like something nicer to drink than the well stuff and my host took very good care of me on the back end. Incidentally I didn't really win much, but that's not why I play. I like the dopamine hit from the risk, I like the sociality of table games, and I like having my host pay for the entire trip thanks to my play. It would make a terrible career, but for a weekend's entertainment it nets out to being a pretty good deal. Interestingly, if the player doesn't maintain a proper betting strategy, he will have a considerable risk of ruin even in a player advantaged game. In a game with a 10% player edge, 28% of players managed to go bust[1]. Given the large number of rounds of betting for blackjack, without a good betting strategy, even players that count their way to a 2-3% edge are probably still going to make the casino money. The downtown Casinos are much more uptight about advantage play, but I think that's because a lot of the pit bosses are old school and they just hate the idea of a player supposedly putting one over on them. [1] https://neilhacker.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/kelly-criterion-biased-coin-copy.pdf https://neilhacker.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/kelly-criteri...
    - rdw 5y ago
- sjtindell 5y ago
  Predatory tactics, facilitating addiction, not good. But what you’re saying feels to me like a rule that says you aren’t allowed to play betting games unless you take every single bet. What? Consider that for yourself. Every person on the street who walks up to you and says “I bet you that…”, you are required to take that bet? Or you’re never allowed to make a bet again? We as people pick and choose what bets we take.
  - recursive 5y ago
    The house already provides a list of which bets players can make, and what the odds are.
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      the reader of those rules believes they are true. You are teaching others right now, that they are some kind of true, specifically in a statistical way. This thread is overflowing with examples that counter those game rules.
      - recursive 5y ago
        No. They're a list of bets you can make, and at what odds. If you think they're wrong, you can bet against the house. But you can't make up your own bets or odds, like the guy in the street from the example.
    - sjtindell 5y ago
      True, but aren’t you allowed some discretion. Let’s say one person who walks up to you is well dressed and well respected, and the next person is an obvious crackhead with a history of defaulting on friendly bets. I’m not allowed discretion to take one of these bets and not the other? Who is making the bet matters to me, as it would to a casino. Legally I think we should be able to have discretion there. But I hate defending something like a casino. It’s shady behavior in some way.
  - dandanua 5y ago
    People who run casinos or gambling businesses always have predatory nature. This is the rule everyone should be aware of.
- lnxg33k1 5y ago
  Well, I think I mostly agree with you in theory. But I was just thinking about something else, let's say that algorithms giving secure wins and counting cards at blackjack are allowed, people starts winning and casino start losing, they have loss and let's say that it's not convenient anymore to have a casino, and they go out of business, country loses a revenue stream for taxes, people loses their jobs, and an industry doesn't exist anymore, or it goes black and doesn't pay taxes anymore, you need to invest money in police and investigations in order to catch unregulated games houses, betting people might be or not be paid, criminality gets its way, and everything can happen.. I am not sure but I think I agree with you in theory, in practice I think we would end up fighting another unfightable underground market at even a bigger cost to human life, it's just another human dependency that you can't fight starting from casinos or dealers, you need to start it at schools
  - blacksqr 5y ago
    Then why not cut out the middleman and just have the poor write checks directly to the rich?
    - lnxg33k1 5y ago
      Because I think giving money to the rich is a side effect of the gambling process, not the main activity, no?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game Casinos aren't common carriers. The rules should be fair, disclosed in advance and not ad hoc. But why one would force a casino to e.g. take the other side of a billionaire's bet is beyond me.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I believe the proposed rule is that you can not choose between players. That's different from allowing a maximum bet amount for all players. That is, the casino has to take the billionaires bet, but not more than the 10k limit they enforce on everyone.
- anonu 5y ago
  Why would a legislator make that illegal if their constituents benefit from the taxes it raises? Making it illegal would represent an errosion of their revenues...
phillc73 5y ago
There was a period, maybe 15 years ago now, where I had my online accounts at pretty much every major UK bookmaker either closed or highly restricted. One new account had a profit of something like £350 in the first first week, and then it was heavily restricted. It wasn’t like I’d taken them for thousands! In the end, I was fortunate enough to have one contact in one bookmaker who flagged my account, allowing me to bet a decent amount for a good while (Thanks Corals!). Eventually I just shifted everything to Betfair. In Australia bookmakers are obliged by law to stand a minimum bet size, based on the event and location (country vs metro horse racing for example). [1] [1] https://www.championbets.com.au/bookmakers/minimum-bet-limits-state/ https://www.championbets.com.au/bookmakers/minimum-bet-limit...
SilasX 5y ago
Why can’t they switch to a user driven system where they don’t place bets at all but just receive bid/asks from users, like the prediction markets do? Then they don’t have to worry about bettors being better predictors than they are and can just take a cut of the flow.
- imrankhan17 5y ago
  That's exactly what the exchanges are e.g. Betfair. More popular in UK/Europe though.
  - SilasX 5y ago
    Oh, then I’m not sure how the parents points (about “betting against the house”) are relevant, because sports betting (unlike casino games) doesn’t do that.
    - phillc73 5y ago
      When sports betting, unless using a betting exchange such as Betfair mentioned above, or a totaliser agency, you'll likely use a bookmaker. The bookmaker is effectively the house. The bookmaker will set a market (make book) of prices on a certain event. You can choose to take the price offered and make a bet, or not. Essentially the bookmaker is pitting their skills and knowledge against yours. The bookmaker will want all prices offered on the event to be in excess of 100%. The over round is where the bookmaker makes their profit. As an example, in a horse race, the percentage probabilities of all odds offered might add up to a total of 115%. That 15% is the bookmaker's margin. Now, of course, the bookmaker doesn't necessarily profit in every race, but they should be trying to balance their book before the off, to insure that whatever the result they profit. They can do this by laying off liabilities with another bookmaker, shortening the odds on some runners, or just closing the book. As a bettor, one should be trying to not just find the winner of races, but also prices which are wrong. If you assess the true odds of an event happening (let's say a horse winning) are better than the prices offered by the bookmaker, then it should be profitable to bet those prices in the long term. For example, if you think a horse has a 25% chance of winning the race, but the bookmaker is offering a price of 6/1 (7.0 or roughly 14%), then you have the odds in your favour and should make decent margin over time.
User23 5y ago
My totally inexpert understanding is that the bookie sets the line to attract bets such that he has equal exposure for both outcomes of the event and books guaranteed profits off the vig. Also there's the occasional jackpot (for the bookie) like, for example, the Canelo vs. GGG fight that ended in a split decision. In that case they got to keep the money from all the Canelo and GGG fans and only had to pay the curmudgeons who bet the coin would come up edge. For which, if I recall correctly, the odds were about 14 to 1.

by vgeek 5y ago

chrismcb 5y ago

Sports betting isn't exactly being against the house. In sports betting the house takes bets on both sides and then charges a percentage. Oh wait, you seem to understand this. The op was talking about making sports bets but being against the house.

ktc1 5y ago
I worked as a trader for a UK based bookmaker and in reality it wasn't like that. You were betting against the house and it was very rare for us to make money on any outcome.

babypuncher 5y ago

I think that should be illegal. If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game. If that means their business model is no longer viable, then that is their problem.

analog31 5y ago
A casino is entirely a creature of government. It's regulated into existence, like a bank. Why would any government entitle an entity to exist, that allows you to siphon an unlimited amount of money out of their locality?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > A casino is entirely a creature of government. It's regulated into existence, Gambling establishments have existed in some of the places with the weakest governments around. They are not regulated into existence, and are often regulated out of existence. It's true large casinos are often a consequence of both regulating them out of existence in neighboring areas and creating a high regulatory bar to opening one in the area in question, which minimizes competition. But that's not regulating casinos into existence, it's upregulating size by downregulating number.
slap_shot 5y ago
This is exactly my point. I'm not against outlawing casinos (i think you should be able to do pretty much whatever the eff you want with your body and money). BUT if we are going to allow them, should we allow them to only let people play when they lose? The decision to let them exist is as arbitrary as the decision to allow them to only play when they when.
- Pet_Ant 5y ago
  >([I] think you should be able to do pretty much whatever the eff you want with your body and money). ... The decision to let the exist is as arbitrary as the decision to allow them to only play when they [win]. How do you square that with giving people autonomy? You can do what you want with your money, but you can't play if you don't feel like you are gonna win... there is an inherent contradiction there.
  - hillbillydilly 5y ago
    its the classic hn libertarian take. empowered teens with freedom technology, saying one thing (body autonomy, no regs!) but, actually with regulations they're just smarter regulations cause I'm smart
  - handoflixue 5y ago
    > How do you square that with giving people autonomy? The Libertarian Free Market answer is that both parties need to be fully informed. Casinos would be required to post maximum win rates and otherwise fully detail their "we throw out anyone that wins" policy up-front, in a clear and easily understood format. If the casino writes a bad, exploitable policy, they go bankrupt being exploited and this encourages future casinos to do better.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I'm not familiar with libertarians who are uncomfortable with hidden information. In fact, the ones I know would consider requiring casinos to post such information to be government intrusion.
mistrial9 5y ago
I believe this is a naive comment, and I have a reason to point it out. That is, what is "illegal" and not is not as bright a line as many people are taught. A deep examination of gambling systems, all of the parts, will show that this legal-vs-illegal belief on the part of the gambler, is core to maintaining order over time. Yet, game operators and their allies, know very well, and in real life can, manipulate the odds of the outcomes of the process. (edit clarify) Once a neutral observer, say people here, actually learn that part, further inquiry can show that the predation of others for profit, the physical control of common spaces, and control of life-and-death level inputs, such as weapons and their use, are also known to, and are used, by the operators. There are dozens of corollaries to this game analysis. I hope that the reader of these words, will understand them.
vgeek 5y ago
This type of thing isn't exclusive to sports betting, either. Card counting isn't cheating, but is typically prohibited (when executed successfully) in most casinos due to the edge it gives players (which has been practically eliminated with shift to 7 decks, autoshufflers, etc.). When players figure out other edges, such as imperfections in the playing card printing process that gives them an edge in games like baccarat, they'll either get banned or not paid their winnings. It is very much a heads I win, tails you lose situation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team https://www.betstrat.com/betstrat-articles/the-phil-ivey-edge-sorting-scandal https://www.betstrat.com/betstrat-articles/the-phil-ivey-edg...
- User23 5y ago
  Most strip casinos don't care at all about individual counters. They will cool you though if they see you wonging or other evidence of team play. But an individual? They really don't care. I've counted playing two hands and swinging my bets by a factor of 8 at the Bellagio. I might has well have been wearing a hat that said "Make Counting Great Again" I was so obvious. And the pit boss only asked if I'd like something nicer to drink than the well stuff and my host took very good care of me on the back end. Incidentally I didn't really win much, but that's not why I play. I like the dopamine hit from the risk, I like the sociality of table games, and I like having my host pay for the entire trip thanks to my play. It would make a terrible career, but for a weekend's entertainment it nets out to being a pretty good deal. Interestingly, if the player doesn't maintain a proper betting strategy, he will have a considerable risk of ruin even in a player advantaged game. In a game with a 10% player edge, 28% of players managed to go bust[1]. Given the large number of rounds of betting for blackjack, without a good betting strategy, even players that count their way to a 2-3% edge are probably still going to make the casino money. The downtown Casinos are much more uptight about advantage play, but I think that's because a lot of the pit bosses are old school and they just hate the idea of a player supposedly putting one over on them. [1] https://neilhacker.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/kelly-criterion-biased-coin-copy.pdf https://neilhacker.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/kelly-criteri...
  - rdw 5y ago
sjtindell 5y ago
Predatory tactics, facilitating addiction, not good. But what you’re saying feels to me like a rule that says you aren’t allowed to play betting games unless you take every single bet. What? Consider that for yourself. Every person on the street who walks up to you and says “I bet you that…”, you are required to take that bet? Or you’re never allowed to make a bet again? We as people pick and choose what bets we take.
- recursive 5y ago
  The house already provides a list of which bets players can make, and what the odds are.
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    the reader of those rules believes they are true. You are teaching others right now, that they are some kind of true, specifically in a statistical way. This thread is overflowing with examples that counter those game rules.
    - recursive 5y ago
      No. They're a list of bets you can make, and at what odds. If you think they're wrong, you can bet against the house. But you can't make up your own bets or odds, like the guy in the street from the example.
  - sjtindell 5y ago
    True, but aren’t you allowed some discretion. Let’s say one person who walks up to you is well dressed and well respected, and the next person is an obvious crackhead with a history of defaulting on friendly bets. I’m not allowed discretion to take one of these bets and not the other? Who is making the bet matters to me, as it would to a casino. Legally I think we should be able to have discretion there. But I hate defending something like a casino. It’s shady behavior in some way.
- dandanua 5y ago
  People who run casinos or gambling businesses always have predatory nature. This is the rule everyone should be aware of.
lnxg33k1 5y ago
Well, I think I mostly agree with you in theory. But I was just thinking about something else, let's say that algorithms giving secure wins and counting cards at blackjack are allowed, people starts winning and casino start losing, they have loss and let's say that it's not convenient anymore to have a casino, and they go out of business, country loses a revenue stream for taxes, people loses their jobs, and an industry doesn't exist anymore, or it goes black and doesn't pay taxes anymore, you need to invest money in police and investigations in order to catch unregulated games houses, betting people might be or not be paid, criminality gets its way, and everything can happen.. I am not sure but I think I agree with you in theory, in practice I think we would end up fighting another unfightable underground market at even a bigger cost to human life, it's just another human dependency that you can't fight starting from casinos or dealers, you need to start it at schools
- blacksqr 5y ago
  Then why not cut out the middleman and just have the poor write checks directly to the rich?
  - lnxg33k1 5y ago
    Because I think giving money to the rich is a side effect of the gambling process, not the main activity, no?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> If we are going to allow casinos to operate at all, then we shouldn't allow them to discriminate against potential customers on the basis that said customers are better at the game Casinos aren't common carriers. The rules should be fair, disclosed in advance and not ad hoc. But why one would force a casino to e.g. take the other side of a billionaire's bet is beyond me.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I believe the proposed rule is that you can not choose between players. That's different from allowing a maximum bet amount for all players. That is, the casino has to take the billionaires bet, but not more than the 10k limit they enforce on everyone.
anonu 5y ago
Why would a legislator make that illegal if their constituents benefit from the taxes it raises? Making it illegal would represent an errosion of their revenues...

phillc73 5y ago

There was a period, maybe 15 years ago now, where I had my online accounts at pretty much every major UK bookmaker either closed or highly restricted. One new account had a profit of something like £350 in the first first week, and then it was heavily restricted. It wasn’t like I’d taken them for thousands! In the end, I was fortunate enough to have one contact in one bookmaker who flagged my account, allowing me to bet a decent amount for a good while (Thanks Corals!). Eventually I just shifted everything to Betfair. In Australia bookmakers are obliged by law to stand a minimum bet size, based on the event and location (country vs metro horse racing for example). [1] [1] https://www.championbets.com.au/bookmakers/minimum-bet-limits-state/ https://www.championbets.com.au/bookmakers/minimum-bet-limit...

SilasX 5y ago

Why can’t they switch to a user driven system where they don’t place bets at all but just receive bid/asks from users, like the prediction markets do? Then they don’t have to worry about bettors being better predictors than they are and can just take a cut of the flow.

imrankhan17 5y ago
That's exactly what the exchanges are e.g. Betfair. More popular in UK/Europe though.
- SilasX 5y ago
  Oh, then I’m not sure how the parents points (about “betting against the house”) are relevant, because sports betting (unlike casino games) doesn’t do that.
  - phillc73 5y ago
    When sports betting, unless using a betting exchange such as Betfair mentioned above, or a totaliser agency, you'll likely use a bookmaker. The bookmaker is effectively the house. The bookmaker will set a market (make book) of prices on a certain event. You can choose to take the price offered and make a bet, or not. Essentially the bookmaker is pitting their skills and knowledge against yours. The bookmaker will want all prices offered on the event to be in excess of 100%. The over round is where the bookmaker makes their profit. As an example, in a horse race, the percentage probabilities of all odds offered might add up to a total of 115%. That 15% is the bookmaker's margin. Now, of course, the bookmaker doesn't necessarily profit in every race, but they should be trying to balance their book before the off, to insure that whatever the result they profit. They can do this by laying off liabilities with another bookmaker, shortening the odds on some runners, or just closing the book. As a bettor, one should be trying to not just find the winner of races, but also prices which are wrong. If you assess the true odds of an event happening (let's say a horse winning) are better than the prices offered by the bookmaker, then it should be profitable to bet those prices in the long term. For example, if you think a horse has a 25% chance of winning the race, but the bookmaker is offering a price of 6/1 (7.0 or roughly 14%), then you have the odds in your favour and should make decent margin over time.

User23 5y ago

My totally inexpert understanding is that the bookie sets the line to attract bets such that he has equal exposure for both outcomes of the event and books guaranteed profits off the vig. Also there's the occasional jackpot (for the bookie) like, for example, the Canelo vs. GGG fight that ended in a split decision. In that case they got to keep the money from all the Canelo and GGG fans and only had to pay the curmudgeons who bet the coin would come up edge. For which, if I recall correctly, the odds were about 14 to 1.