How to Find a Black Cat in a Coal Cellar: The Truth About Sports Tipsters
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How to Find a Black Cat in a Coal Cellar: The Truth About Sports Tipsters
432Paperback
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781843440673 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | High Stakes |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2012 |
| Pages: | 432 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
How to Find a Black Cat in a Coal Cellar
The Truth About Sports Tipsters
By Joseph Buchdahl
Oldcastle Books
Copyright © 2012 Joe BuchdahlAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84344-067-3
CHAPTER 1
Some Principles of Sports Betting
Sports Betting Markets
Horse racing has been a magnet to punters for at least three hundred years, since its professionalisation during the reign of Queen Anne at the start of the 18th century. In more recent times the football fixed odds long lists in UK high street betting shops have been a favourite pastime with many bettors every weekend during the football season. Punters, however, were restricted to betting on a minimum of 5 games in one bet, with 5 times the disadvantage, such was the stranglehold the bookmaker had over his customers. However, since the Internet explosion of the late 1990s, and the rapid development of online sports betting, the strong competition between perhaps 100 recognised online sports bookmakers has revolutionised the way that we can place a bet. Not only can a punter now speculate on just one event at a time, thereby reducing the bookmaker's advantage to sometimes just a few percent, but he is also able to do so even whilst the event is taking place, by betting in-running. What is more, bets need no longer be on just horse racing or football, but can be placed on a whole variety of sports including tennis, rugby, cricket, golf, boxing, bowls, curling, snooker, darts, greyhound racing, athletics, basketball, baseball, handball, ice hockey, field hockey, motor racing, American football, Australian Rules football, skiing, snowboarding, surfing, biathlon, ski jumping, lacrosse ... and so on. In fact, there is now very little that one can't speculate on in the world of sports.
Every sport has its own set of betting markets. In football, for example, one can place a simple match bet, backing either the home or away side to win, or both teams to draw. One can bet on how many goals a game will have, either in the form of the exact number of goals, or in the form of an over/under total goals bet, frequently 2.5 goals, to ensure that there can be no betting tie (since a match can't have half a goal). Alternatively one can bet on the exact score, or perhaps a scorecast prediction of the final score and first or last goal scorer. If a simple match bet on the final result is not exciting enough, one can choose instead to bet on the half-time result, or the double result combination of half-time and full-time results. Or one can choose to bet on the handicap result where one side is awarded a goal advantage, either full goals or fractions of goals. In live matches one can even bet on how many corners there will be. In fact, so long as the bookmaker has thought of it and believes there's enough interest in it, the punter should pretty much be able to bet on any aspect of a football match. The list below describes many of the available betting markets available for a typical Premiership football match.
Some markets are obviously more popular with bookmakers than others, and that, of course, is dependent on how popular they are with punters. All bookmakers will cover standard full-time match betting odds. Less popular markets like 'win to nil' and 'score a penalty' will be available with fewer bookmakers.
Football, being the most popular sport, at least in the UK and most of Europe, offers the largest number of betting markets. Nevertheless, other sports have several interesting betting markets available to the punter. Some examples include:
• Tennis: match result, set betting, win 1st set, lose 1st set and win match, total games over/under, correct set score.
• Cricket: match result, total runs, session runs, 1 innings lead, top run scorer, top bowler, head to head run scorer, day match ends.
• Rugby: match result, handicap result, half-time result, half-time/full-time result, half-time handicap, total points, total points over/under, total tries over/under.
• Golf: tournament winner, top 5/10/20 place, top nationality, 72-hole match bets, 18-hole match bets.
• Snooker: match result, handicap result, frame betting, first to n frames, first frame, total frames, highest break, 1st century break.
• Darts: match bets, total 180s over/under, most 180s, 1st double colour, 9-dart finish
• Ice hockey: match result, puck line, money line, double chance, first team to score, highest scoring period, odd or even total, total goals.
• Baseball: money line, run line, total score over/under, double result, first half total points, first team to score, last team to score, odd or even total.
• Basketball: match result, money line, point spread, total points over/under, half-time money line, point spread, handicap, total points, 1st/2nd/3rd/4th quarter money line, point spread, handicap, total points.
• Volleyball: match result, 1 set winner, total sets over/under, total points over/under, correct set score.
Some readers may be unfamiliar with the terms money line, run line, puck line and point spread. These types of betting markets are commonly found in sports popular in the US, including basketball, baseball, ice hockey and American football. Although distinct from European fixed odds and handicap betting markets their rules differ only subtly, and their apparent lack of similarity is more to do with the presentation of their prices than any real difference. Money line is to all intents and purposes the American version of the fixed odds match result market. Run line, puck line and point spread are essentially handicap bets.
Fixed Odds & Handicaps
Largely speaking bets or wagers fall into two main categories: straight odds betting and handicap betting. With the former a straight odds or price is offered for each side (or player) in the contest to win outright, which is a direct reflection of the estimated chances of that side winning. If the side fails to win, the bet loses. Handicap bets, by contrast, attempt to make the contest more even by adding goals, points, runs, frames, games or whatever score term is appropriate for that sport, to one or the other side.
In the UK and Europe odds betting is frequently called 'fixed odds' betting. The origin of this term dates back to the late 19th century, when newspapers started offering fixed prizes for correctly predicting the outcome of games. These prizes became known as 'fixed odds'. Since the 1960s high street bookmakers in the UK have been offering printed fixture lists with all the weekend's football matches and their prices. Once printed, the prices were 'fixed' since the cost of changing them was too great. Football fixed odds are sometimes presented as 1X2, with 1 denoting the side playing at home, 2 the side playing away from home and X the draw. Again, this representation comes from the bookmaker's printed coupons. Other sports that feature 1X2 betting include test match cricket and European ice hockey. Contests where there is no possibility of a draw, as in tennis, snooker and darts (with the exception of Premier League snooker and darts) feature just 12 betting (with the X omitted). 12 fixed odds are also popular for events where the likelihood of the draw is very low, for example in rugby and one day cricket, although some bookmakers may still prefer to offer a tie.
The way fixed odds bets are presented varies between either fractional or decimal notation. Fractional odds are still popular with UK punters schooled in the traditions of the UK high street bookmaker. A price of 9 to 4 (written 9/4 or 9-4) requires a £4 stake to win a £9 profit. 100/30 requires a £30 stake to win £100. 2 to 1 on (written ½) means that the price is odds-on, and requires a £2 stake for a £1 profit. Fractional notation allows one to easily calculate the amount of profit one can win from a fixed stake size, particularly since UK bookmakers have commonly restricted fractional odds to only a handful of prices. Unfortunately fractional odds do not easily lend themselves to a quick calculation of the implied probabilities associated with them, something that more sophisticated punters will want to do.
Decimal odds, used commonly in continental Europe and now increasingly in the UK, show explicitly what the punter will get back for a 1 unit stake, including that stake. A price of 2.50, for example, means that a £1 stake will stand to win a £1.50 profit making a total return of £2.50. This is equivalent to a price of 1.5 to 1, although one would never see such fractional notation used (but instead 6/4). Since the size of profit is standardised in decimal notation to that from a 1 unit stake, it is then a straightforward procedure of calculating the implied probability of the result by taking the inverse of the price. Thus, 2.5 has an implied probability of 0.4, or 40%; a price of 3, 33.33%; and a price of 1.25, 80%.
In America, by contrast, straight prices for sides or players in a contest, without handicaps, are called money line wagers. In fact, money line prices are really just the same as fractional or decimal odds, in that they present information about how much money is risked (or laid) and how much money can be won. Money lines can be positive or negative. A positive money line represents how many dollars you would win if you bet $100. For example, if the money line was +200, you would win $200 for a $100 wager. This is basically the same as 2/1 in fractional notation or 3.0 in decimal notation, and as such any positive money line will be odds-against. A negative money line represents how many dollars you would need to bet to win $100. So, a money line of -300 means that you need to bet $300 to win $100. This is the same as 1/3 (fractional) or 1.33 (decimal). All negative money lines will be odds-on. The table below shows a few examples of how fractional, decimal and money line odds compare. For those wanting more, BetCalc.com offers an excellent odds converter.
Money lines are common where there is little possibility of a tied result. Where there is a draw a money line wager will be lost unless a price is specifically offered for a draw as in soccer, in which case it would probably be called 1X2 anyway. The money line, then, is simply a straight either/or bet. Americans dislike draws and will just play overtime in most of their sports until they find a winner. Money line odds are common for all the major US sports, although for NBA basketball and NFL football, punters usually prefer betting with a handicap – the point spread.
Like fixed odds and money line, handicap bets also have a quoted price on each participant of a contest. However, the odds are such that they are similar for each participant, and this is achieved by giving one of them an artificial head start, known as the handicap. The favourite is indicated by a negative handicap and the underdog by a positive one. One advantage of a handicap bet is that one does not actually have to correctly forecast the winning player or side. If Mark Selby is given a +4.5 frame handicap against John Higgins in a best of 19 frame snooker match, then so long as Mark does not lose the match by more than 4 frames, anyone betting this handicap would win their bet. Another advantage, for those who like to take on more risk, is that one can back fixed odds or money line favourites with a handicap at a better price. Manchester United to beat Wigan at Old Trafford might be 10 to 1 on (1/10, 1.10 or -1000), but with a negative 2.25 goal handicap, one might get a price of evens (1/1, 2.00 or +100). That is to say, so long as Manchester United wins by at least 3 clear goals, such a handicap bet would win. Interestingly, if Manchester United were to win by 2 goals, then this handicap bet would be half lost, with half the stake lost and half refunded. Football handicaps with quarter balls of this nature are known as Asian handicaps.
An Asian handicap bet is a special type of handicap bet popular in the Far East which allows not only full and half-ball handicaps but also quarter-ball handicaps as well. On first appearance they may appear a little complicated, but can be easily understood by exploring any descriptive text on their use through a Google search. If instead Manchester United won by 2 goals with a -1.75 handicap the bet would be said to be half won, with half the stake returned and half winning the bet at the quoted odds. Where the handicap beats the full-time goals make-up by at least 0.5 goals, the bet is won; where it fails to beat the goals make-up by at least 0.5 goals, the bet is lost. For full-ball Asian handicaps where the participants competing exactly match the handicap in the final result, bets will be settled as ties (sometimes called void) and full stakes are returned. This is not the case for traditional (or European) handicaps. Common in sports like football and rugby, and where a handicap draw option is also offered, such bets will be lost. No ties are possible with European handicaps. Essentially, then, a -1 goal European handicap is the same as a - 1.5 goal Asian handicap.
A total goals bet in a football match is also, technically speaking, a type of handicap bet. Unlike a bet on the exact number of goals, a total goals bet will set an arbitrary goal number, above which the game would be considered to be over, and below which it would be considered to be under. Usually 2.5 is chosen as the divider, with betting opportunities for either over 2.5 goals or under 2.5 goals, although in games with strong favourites capable of scoring heavily, one might find goal lines of 3.5 or even 4.5. Quarter-ball handicaps exist for this betting market too. Similar bets can be found in other sports. In 3-set tennis matches, for example, typical over/under bets are for 21.5 or 22.5 games. In a best of 19 frame snooker match the make-up might be over/under 16.5 frames. In each case, the value of the goals, games, points, frames etc. chosen for the over/under bet is such as to ensure that both over and under are fairly closely matched, as is the point of a handicap bet.
In American sports, handicap bets are found in baseball (the run line), ice hockey (the puck line), basketball and American Football (the point spread). As for all handicap bets, the chances for either side to win the bet are made more even than for a straight fixed odds or money line bet, although some puck lines and run lines may actually be constructed from a combination of the money line and point spread just to complicate things. Like Asian handicaps, when scores are level after accounting for the handicap the stake is refunded, which American punters know as a 'push'. Clearly pushes will only occur when handicaps are integer values. No push result is possible for half point handicaps. Push results can also occur for a total line. A total line wager is basically the same as an over/under bet described above. Prices are offered for the actual score to be over or under a particular quote, be it runs in baseball, points in basketball and American Football, or goals in ice hockey. When the combined scores of both teams equal the totals line exactly, a push arises and stakes are refunded.
Although handicaps are frequently observed to be offering better value for money with a narrower advantage for the bookmaker, the removal of the favourite and underdog essentially eliminates the availability of price inefficiency found in many fixed odds markets, more commonly known as the favourite–longshot bias. To understand what this is, how it might arise and what impact it can have on someone's betting, we must first review the character of the bookmaker's advantage. Europeans know this as the overround; Americans call it 'vig' or 'juice'.
The Bookmaker's Advantage and Value Betting
Many people, and certainly the majority of gamblers, are familiar with the concept of per cent and the % sign. When we say that something has a 45% chance we mean that in 45 times out of 100 we would expect that something to occur. What is less commonly appreciated is that we can express the chance of something occurring as a (decimal) fraction of 1. In this instance 1 is equivalent to 100% or absolute certainty that something will occur, whilst 0 is equivalent to 0% or absolute certainty that something will not occur. Consequently, 45% can be expressed as 0.45; 67%, 0.67; 21.5%, 0.215 and so on.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from How to Find a Black Cat in a Coal Cellar by Joseph Buchdahl. Copyright © 2012 Joe Buchdahl. Excerpted by permission of Oldcastle Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction,Chapter 1: Some Principles of Sports Betting,
Chapter 2: Analysing a Record of Tips,
Chapter 3: Getting Value for Money,
Chapter 4: Sports Tipsters & their Records,
Chapter 5: The Truth about Sports Tipsters,
Chapter 6: How to find a Black Cat,
Some Final Thoughts,
Appendix A,
Appendix B,
Appendix C,
Copyright,