Today’s article involves sports betting rather than video poker. It’s still “advantage gambling,” so I believe it’s a worthy topic for me to discuss, but I know some of my readers are not interested in any gambling other than video poker. If that describes you, perhaps you should skip this week’s article.
A friend of mine, “Pete,” recently attained Diamond status in the Caesars Rewards system. He now qualifies for a monthly $75 “free bet” (after betting $100 with “real money.”) Since I have Seven Stars status in the same system, I get a monthly $150 in free bets. I’ve mentioned this several times in my writings. Since Pete generally reads my articles, he was aware of this.
Pete wrote to me and asked if I was interested in “opposition betting” with him so as to minimize the risk.
I told him I wasn’t interested — for a lot of reasons.
He didn’t define “opposition betting,” but generally it means betting both sides of a proposition so as to reduce variance. And there are two bets we’re talking about here. The “qualifying” bet of $100 that must be made to qualify for the free bet, and the free bet itself.
Insofar as the free bet goes, you do not get your original bet back, so it’s most profitable to bet underdogs. Betting favorites on free bets is NEVER a good idea, so I’m going to assume he wasn’t talking about these.
So for the qualifying bet, $100 per month, let’s assume he’s interested in betting one side of a game and me betting the other. Let’s say we’re doing it in football. On a given week, say the Kansas City Chiefs were favored by three points over the San Diego Chargers. He’d bet KC, giving up three points, at 11/10 odds against him I’d bet SD, receiving three points, also at 11/10 against me. (Paying eleven to win ten is written as -110 in sports books.) Since we’re each betting $100, usually one of us would lose and the other would win $191 (round numbers) and would pay the other guy $45.50. This reduces variance. (We’ll ignore the case where the game ends with KC winning by exactly three points. It doesn’t affect the point I’m trying to make today.)
This bet costs him $5.50 to get a $75 (or in my case $150) free bet. The thing is, a bet chosen at random, without me on the other side, is also going to cost him about $5.50. What he’s getting is the certainty of the loss of $5.50 on this $100 bet versus the expectation of the loss of $5.50.
He’s making these bets monthly — indefinitely. Over time, the expectation will be pretty close to reality.
I generally do not make -110 bets. I’m not a sports betting expert and have become convinced that betting when I’m a 2-to-1 favorite (odds -200 in sports-book-speak) is a smarter way to go on these qualifying bets. Opposition betting wouldn’t work so well on these bets.
Another reason I would not want to bet in opposition with Pete is Bonnie and I both have accounts at Caesars Sports Book. Since Bonnie and I are often in the same room with each other, and Pete lives 2,000 miles away, it would be far easier to opposition bet with Bonnie (if I wanted to, which I don’t) than it would be with Pete.
The odds of KC minus three points might very well last all week — but it could also shift around quite a bit. If we wanted to guarantee our bets were in opposition, we’d need to do it at the same time. And when he’s ready, I might not be, and vice versa. One or both of us might not even be in a state where we have a Caesars Sportsbook account. Or we might be gambling at a casino with poor Internet connection. Or we might be in the middle of something else and not want to drop that “right now.”
And this rigamarole, to my mind, would be for no gain. I’m betting millions of dollars a month in video poker and slots where my decisions are based on expectation. Locking up a guaranteed loss of $5.50 over an expected loss of the same size strikes me as really pointless.
Finally, to me, it appears that the reason Pete wants to bet in opposition is that he really hates to lose. A $100 loss to him is much more painful to him than it is to me. While he still bets as an AP, he’ll sometimes give up a bit of EV if it will increase his chances for a positive score. I’m looking for the highest EV I can get and I know that means I’ll have some losing sessions.
Pete is one of those APs who is relatively risk adverse. Seems strange for a successful gambler to be this way, but that’s the way he is.