Advantage Gambling: All You Need to Know…

If you’ve tried, you’ll already know how hard it is to make money from casinos and sports betting.

Securing a win out of your online gambling seems quite an impossible challenge – and there is no surprise! The most obvious reason behind this is the predefined system that gambling operators that use. However, we only stated that being profitable while gambling online is somewhat “close to impossible,” and not “completely impossible.” This means that you still have a marginal chance to play smart and turn the tables.

Being profitable comes from an approach commonly known as “advantage gambling” or “advantage play.” It is based on certain positive expected values and mathematical calculations. These values will help you gain control over the online casino or bookie. However, this is not as easy as it sounds but is very much doable.

In this article, I will tell you everything that you need to know about advantage gambling.

Advantage Gambling in Sport:

Gambling in sports requires you to formulate different tactical plans in order to be profitable. Before we get into the detail, it is crucial that we know how the bookies operate.

Bookies and Betting Margins:

While these may vary from bookie to bookie, the core concepts followed are the same in most of the cases.

Bookies work in tandem with traders who work with unimaginable amounts of data. Using this analysed data, they generate mathematical probabilities for every game or match.

The next step is to apply their margin. For them to earn money, they skew the odds, depending on projected probability. Essentially, the bookies offer a lower value price than probability expects. They may not win every time, but they let things play out as they know they will emerge the winner.

The Bookies Betting Margins:

Beating the bookies is still achievable. It’s this last step that people usually fail at.

The bookies usually add an extra margin of anywhere between 3% to 25% that guarantees them the profits (on big events like the grand national this can be significantly more). You have to have combine the probability of the odds, margin and overall cash flow to determine the amount of money these bookies make. One things for sure though – it’s a lot. 

Advantage Play:

Now that we know how the bookies earn their profits, let’s learn some techniques to beat them. To do this, you’ll have to do a similar thing to the bookies, albeit in reverse.

Arbitrage:

The fastest way to be profitable is to find the sure bet opportunity is through arbitrage (although you may get banned).

Effectively, this is exactly what the bookies are doing in reverse. You can find these opportunities fairly regularly when bookies have mistakenly priced something, or been too slow to react.

However, arbitrage does come with its set of disadvantages. The bookies do all that they can to dissuade people from undertaking arbitrage. When they cannot control this, they simply limit or close your account, making this technique extremely tedious (unless you can find large arbs consistently).

Matched Betting:

Matched betting is probably one of the most popular types of advantage gambling. While there are multiple ways to operate matched betting, the most widely used is that of accepting offers from the bookies.

Similar to arbs, you cover all possible outcomes. The difference being, it works in conjunction with a free bet or a welcome bonus.

Advantage Gambling in Online Casino’s:

When it comes to online casinos and gambling games like House Edge, Slot Machines, Blackjack, Roulette, Video Poker and others. You need to know the percentage chance the operator has. Once you have a few numbers in hand, analysing them becomes easier.

Advantage Play In Casino:

These are the strategies that you can use to fatten your wallets while gambling.

The key for the same is to keep your eyes open to all promotions on offer.

Let us take a look at some advantage gambling methods:

Risk-free Bonuses:

This is not a common practice, but sometimes they’re offered by casinos touting for new business. The fact that you do not lose money shows how much of an advantage these offers can give you over the casino. A risk-free bonus can present itself in the form of casinos giving you small sums of money, like £10 for example. You can then gamble with this money and move up from where you began. These offers can also be found in the form of promotions such as bet £10 and receive cash back of up to £10 if you lose. However, we strongly advise going through the terms and conditions of such offers, just to check there are no hidden nasties.

Advance Advantage Play Strategy:

Casino Deposit Bonuses:

The promotional offers mentioned above are really easy to avail and carry no risk, which is also why the profit cap is rather low. You cannot become a millionaire betting risk-free, and therefore we should also look at advanced methods, some of which involve risk. Yet, if you have the brains for it  (and the patience) you may stand to win a large sum of money. This can be done through casino deposit bonuses, schemes designed by a casino to benefit them in the long run. Deposit bonuses are not explored much amongst people, but there are possibilities of high EV returns for low risk.

If you know the main factors to watch out for, they can give you a good boost with your advantage play.

Let us discuss these factors in detail:

Bonus Cash and Wagering Requirements:

Bonus cash is the cash offered by the casino when you make a deposit with them. The offers available might be; deposit £200 with the casino, they will give you a £200 bonus. You should properly understand the terms of the bonus though, as the condition to avail the bonus may be that you need to gamble your initial £200 along with the bonus 20 times in order to avail the extra £200. If you do the math, it means that the total bets worth £4000 need to be made before you avail the bonus.

That’s just not cool, don’t be tempted.

The Best House Edge Possible:

You should then look to see the house edge that the offer includes, as it can limit the number of games you can gamble on. Read the terms and conditions, because often these offers will limit you to games such as slots, keno, or scratch cards.

The Calculation of the Estimated Value (EV):

By calculating this figure, you will have a good idea as to whether you should take up the offer or not. To do this, you can calculate the potential loss you face, after the wagering requirements are met. There are many formulae to calculate this, but deducting the multiple of the total amount of your wager and the house edge, from the bonus is the simplest formula.

Thus, the basic EV formula can be mentioned as:

EV = Bonus – (wagering requirements x the house edge)

Bankroll Management:

You need to monitor your bankroll properly because even this is not free of risk. The expected value can give you an edge over the casino, but that’s only if you avoid a sticky patch which may remove the advantage. Make sure that you have the funds to make the wagering requirements, even if you hit the sticky patch as you do not want to lose out on your advantage. Therefore, it is advisable to begin with placing 2-3% of your bankroll and not much more. The standard deviation cannot be ruled out, and so you can lose your money. However, at the same time, you may also earn more than you had accounted. You will stand to benefit from your advantage in the long run if you take up enough offers with a positive EV, but best not bet too much on them, especially for high stakes. The higher the stake, the smaller should be your bet. So you should look at cutting down your bets from 1% down to 0.5% or even 0.25%.

Evaluating Other Casino Promotions:

Casinos offer umpteen offers on a daily basis.

While these may benefit advantage gambling, there are a bunch of other deals as well, like free spins and refunds. Use the deposited bonuses process to determine whether they have positive expected values. If they do, don’t hesitate to take the offer. Find the expected values by figuring out what amount is up for grabs, what amount needs to be wagered, and what’s the house’s edge.

Sports Betting Advance Techniques:

While arbitrage and matched betting are more widely used techniques, there are a few advanced techniques where the bookie will refund your money even if your bet loses but some of the conditions turned out to be true. Money backs are only one type of technique, but there are plenty in the market. All you have to do is find the expected value. In the end, this is the only way casinos, and bookies all around the world have been minting money for years.

Final words:

After all, we have come to the conclusion that though it is a hard, tedious, and difficult – it is actually possible to beat the online gambling providers. You just have to pick your fights carefully. Advantage gambling approaches allow you to determine and capitalise the expected value of the bets.

Keep in mind that you might not calculate the correct expected value in the first go. You will need to practice over and over again to perfect the skill. However, this does ensure that over the time, your skill will improve and so will your bank balance…

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