The fundamental challenge for serious bettors is to gain an advantage over whoever is laying their bet, whether that is a bookmaker, exchange or casino. In betting parlance this is called ‘getting an edge’ and if you want to be a profitable bettor, you need to understand what this means. This article explains how to get an edge in betting.

Margins Between Success & Failure

There is a well-worn cliché in sports journalism – the margin between success and failure is slim. In betting, the margin between making a profit or losing money is actually variable; it simply depends on which bookmaker you choose to bet with.

And while margins are fundamental to making money, a large percentage of bettors are oblivious to their impact. Margins are discussed at great length at Pinnacle, because it offers the lowest margins and therefore gives bettors a better chance to win.

The house edge is the casino’s average profit on any bet.In craps, the house edge on the Pass Line bet is 1.41%. That means that for every$5 wager on the Pass Line, the casino will keep seven cents as profit on average.($5 x 1.41% = $0.07) This doesn’t mean on a single wager the casino will keep $0.07and pay you back $4.93. Value occurs when you’ve got the upper hand on the bookmakers or the markets. Trademate provides you with what we call an edge percentage, which is an estimate on how much you will profit off that bet. If you place $100 on a 5% edge.

This is obvious by looking at the different margins on long-term break-even rates:

Knowledge is Power

Once you understand margins, you have identified an advantage that a bookmaker holds over you. Now you need to find ways to counteract that edge. One way you can get a jump over a bookie is finding markets where you know more than the oddsmaker.

There is no magic bullet here. Bookmakers are experienced and have vast data at their disposal - but they have their weaknesses. Niche markets are a great example. Bookmakers often offer minor leagues, or novelty markets as a marketing ploy to differentiate from competitors, to boost acquisition or to gain exposure in new target territories. Not because they are experts in those areas.

Bookmakers are experienced and have vast data at their disposal - but they have their weaknesses.

They are not in a position to understand the dynamics of third division Russian women’s volleyball, but there is no reason why you cannot make yourself an expert in those areas where bookmakers’ knowledge is potentially weak.

The Olympics is an excellent example of this, with oddsmakers tackling sports with which they have little experience or useful data. Betting limits will be low, but this in itself should be taken as a potential indicator of the book’s lack of confidence.

Keeping Your Ear to the Ground

Knowledge is critical, but alone it doesn’t guarantee success. If what you’ve learnt is already common knowledge it will already be built into the odds. Real value comes from information as close to the source as possible – or in horse racing, “straight from the horse’s mouth”.

Twitter has opened up new opportunities here, speeding up the dissemination of information. However, it’s equally accelerated the time it takes information to become common knowledge. It has also increased the amount of rumour, speculation and noise.

Good examples of getting an edge through timely information can be identifying reliable Twitter feeds that might be leaking team formations, weather, pitch conditions, injury news or club finances. See below for examples:

Example A: On October 6^th 2012 Kettering was forced to field 10 men in a Southern Premier League home game against Bashley. Players had issued an ultimatum on unpaid wages that ran out prior to the game. The word got out as Bashley’s odds continually contracted. Kettering lost 7-0; their previous four home games had resulted in two draws and two single goal defeats.

Example B:The Mascot Grand National is an annual hurdle race in England between sporting mascots, with odds offered by many bookmakers. The emphasis is certainly on fun, so entry criteria are loose, but big money has been made with numerous big gambles being landed. In 2001, Freddie the Fox won but later disqualified after he was found to be an Olympic hurdler; while in 2005 a huge gamble was landed on the Scoop 6 Squirrel representing the Sun newspaper. The impact of ‘ringers’ on the Mascot Grand National caused the race to be boycott in 2011.

Betting outside the Box

Given the chance, would you rather bet on the outcome of an event that was known – just not to many people – or unknown? The former is clearly more appealing.

Any kind of award falls into this category. So you have to find ways of seeing inside the winner’s envelope before the award is announced. Information leaks, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes non-verbally.

Given the chance, would you rather bet on the outcome of an event that was known – just not to many people – or unknown? The former is clearly more appealing.

Example C:The Church of England’s recent appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury provides an excellent example of how supposedly classified information can prove porous. Even a revered establishment like the C of E wasn’t able to stop word getting out to the extent that market was closed early.

Betting With An Edge Book

Sometimes the result isn’t known, but is entirely predictable because of motivation. Think of reality TV Shows, where talent is not the only consideration. A propensity for controversy is equally important so look beyond the narrow competition parameters and research things like programme ratings and channel competition.

Cross-correlations

Finally, understanding cross-correlations or dependencies is vital for betting. If you correlate poor weather with low scoring in rugby, and study long term forecasting, you may anticipate bad weather and focus on betting totals going under.

You can go further and perm your totals bets for potentially lucrative accumulators. It’s important to remember, however, that when looking at dependencies, correlation doesn’t imply causality.

by Michael Bluejay Special for NextShooter.com

If there’s one thing you learn from this site, the Boneman hopes it’s that you shouldput as much of your craps money on the Free Odds bet as possible. Let’ssee what the Free Odds bet is, and why the Boneman is so insistent that you favorit over most of the other bets.

The House Edge

To understand why the Free Odds bet is so important you first have to understandthe house edge. The house edge is the casino’s average profit on any bet.In craps, the house edge on the Pass Line bet is 1.41%. That means that for every$5 wager on the Pass Line, the casino will keep seven cents as profit on average.($5 x 1.41% = $0.07) This doesn’t mean on a single wager the casino will keep $0.07and pay you back $4.93. The house edge is the mathematical average for thelong run. If you made $1,000,000 in Pass Line wagers, $5 at a time, by the end you’dprobably have lost around $14,100, or 1.41% of what you wagered.

Different bets carry a different house edge. The 1.41% for the Pass Line bet ispretty low for a casino game, and is one of the best bets in the casino. The houseedge on roulette is around 5% and slots are often 7-8% or more. Even in craps thereare sucker bets with a high house edge, such as Hardways (9-11%) and the Propositionbets (up to 17%). When you gamble it’s important to seek out the bets with the lowesthouse edge, because you’ll lose less money that way and have a greater chance ofwinning.

The Free Odds Bet

The Free Odds bet carries no house edge. The casino makes no profit on thisbet. This is the only bet you can make on a table game where the odds aren’t againstyou. How can the casino make this bet available when they don’t make any money onit? Simple: Most players aren’t smart enough to make this bet. If all craps players made Free Odds bets and avoided the other bets, the casinowouldn’t be able to offer craps!

How it works

Of course the Free Odds bet isn’t totally free. You have to make a flat bet(Pass, Don’t Pass, Come, or Don’t Come) before you can make the Free Odds bet. Let’ssee how it works with a Pass Line bet. You make a Pass Line bet, and the shooterrolls a number to establish a point (4,5,6,8,9, or 10). Now you can make a FreeOdds bet, by putting your chip(s) below (due South) of your Pass Line bet. It’skind of like doubling down in blackjack. Now if the shooter rolls the point again,you not only win your Pass Line bet, you also win the Odds bet.

The reason there’s no house edge on the Free Odds bet is that winning bets are paidat true odds. If there’s a 2-to-1 chance of your winningthe bet, then a winning bet is also paid 2-to-1. The way the casino makes its profiton all other bets in the casino is by paying less than true odds.

The true odds varies according to the point, and so the payoff varies as well. Here’show much a winning Free Odds bet is paid depending on the point.

Multiple Odds

The amount you can bet on the Free Odds varies from casino to casino, and is postedon a sign on the table. It’s always some multiple of the Pass Line bet. On a tablewith Double Odds you can bet twice as much on the Odds as on your Pass Line bet.(If you made a $5 bet on the Pass, you could bet $10 on the Odds.) Since the Oddsbet carries no house edge, it pays to seek out casinos that offer the maximum oddspossible. In Vegas you can get better odds downtown vs the strip; many downtowncasinos offer 10x Odds, or even better. The exception on the strip is the Casino Royale, which offers an amazing 100x Odds on craps. The Free Odds bethas the effect of diluting the edge of the flat bet you have to make before youcan make the Odds bet. Here’s the overall house edge for the flat bet plus the maximumOdds bet.

With Full Double Odds means the player can take 2.5x odds on a point of 6 or 8,and 2x on the other points. 3-4-5X Odds means the player can take 3X on the 4 and10, 4X on the 5 and 9, and 5X on the 6 and 8. If the player takes the maximum oddsthen the payoff will conveniently be seven times the pass or come bet. (See ourseparate article about 3-4-5 odds

Laying Odds

The Free Odds bet works differently if you’re betting the Don’t Pass or Don’t Comeinstead of the Pass or Come. With the Pass or Come you bet a smaller amount to wina bigger amount. On the Don’t side it’s the opposite: you lay a larger betin order to win a smaller bet. For example, on a point of 4, instead of betting$5 to win $10, you lay $10 to win $5. The bet is still paid at true odds and carriesno house edge, it’s just made and paid in reverse. That’s because once a point hasbeen made you’re the favorite to win, since a 7 is more likely to be rolled thanthe point, so when you do win you’re paid less.

When the Free Odds bet doesn’t help

There’s a subtlety of the Odds bet that’s important to understand. Let’s say youmade a $10 Pass Line bet, and a point has been made. Now you have the opportunityto make a Free Odds bet. However, if you make the Odds bet it won’t increase yourchances of winning, and your expected loss will be the same whether you make theOdds bet or not: 1.41% of your $10 Pass Line bet. So if making the Free Odds betdoesn’t increase your chances of winning, and doesn’t decrease your expected loss,why would you make it?

Betting With An Edge Pdf

To answer this question we have to back up a bit. The Free Odds bet is a good dealwhen you put money on it that you were going to bet anyway. If you wantedto bet about $10 per round, then you’ll get a better deal by betting $2 on the PassLine and $10 on the Odds (on a 5x table), vs. betting the $10 on the Pass Line andtaking no odds. With no odds your expected loss is $10 x 1.41% = $0.14 per roll.But by putting $2 on the Pass Line and $10 on the Odds, your expected loss is only$12 x 0.326% = $0.04. Your expected loss is smaller, and you have a greater chanceof walking away a winner. So, for whatever amount you want to bet per round,get as much of it on the Free Odds as possible! This is the single most importantthing to know about playing craps.