Today\u2019s article involves sports betting rather than video poker. It\u2019s still \u201cadvantage gambling,\u201d so I believe it\u2019s 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\u2019s article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A friend of mine, \u201cPete,\u201d recently attained Diamond status in the Caesars Rewards system. He now qualifies for a monthly $75 \u201cfree bet\u201d (after betting $100 with \u201creal money.\u201d) Since I have Seven Stars status in the same system, I get a monthly $150 in free bets. I\u2019ve mentioned this several times in my writings. Since Pete generally reads my articles, he was aware of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pete wrote to me and asked if I was interested in \u201copposition betting\u201d with him so as to minimize the risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I told him I wasn\u2019t interested — for a lot of reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn\u2019t define \u201copposition betting,\u201d but generally it means betting both sides of a proposition so as to reduce variance. And there are two bets we\u2019re talking about here. The \u201cqualifying\u201d bet of $100 that must be made to qualify for the free bet, and the free bet itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Insofar as the free bet goes, you do not get your original bet back, so it\u2019s most profitable to bet underdogs. Betting favorites on free bets is NEVER a good idea, so I\u2019m going to assume he wasn\u2019t talking about these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So for the qualifying bet, $100 per month, let\u2019s assume he\u2019s interested in betting one side of a game and me betting the other. Let\u2019s say we\u2019re doing it in football. On a given week, say the Kansas City Chiefs were favored by three points over the San Diego Chargers. He\u2019d bet KC, giving up three points, at 11\/10 odds against him I\u2019d 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\u2019re 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\u2019ll ignore the case where the game ends with KC winning by exactly three points. It doesn\u2019t affect the point I\u2019m trying to make today.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s getting is the certainty<\/em> of the loss of $5.50 on this $100 bet versus the expectation<\/em> of the loss of $5.50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s making these bets monthly — indefinitely. Over time, the expectation will be pretty close to reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I generally do not make -110 bets. I\u2019m not a sports betting expert and have become convinced that betting when I\u2019m a 2-to-1 favorite (odds -200 in sports-book-speak) is a smarter way to go on these qualifying bets. Opposition betting wouldn\u2019t work so well on these bets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019t) than it would be with Pete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019d need to do it at the same time. And when he\u2019s 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 \u201cright now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this rigamarole, to my mind, would be for no gain. I\u2019m 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, to me, it appears that the reason Pete wants to bet in opposition is that he really<\/em> hates to lose. A $100 loss to him is much<\/em> more painful to him than it is to me. While he still bets as an AP, he\u2019ll sometimes give up a bit of EV if it will increase his chances for a positive score. I\u2019m looking for the highest EV I can get and I know that means I\u2019ll have some losing sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pete is one of those APs who is relatively risk adverse. Seems strange for a successful gambler to be this way, but that\u2019s the way he is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today\u2019s article involves sports betting rather than video poker. It\u2019s still \u201cadvantage gambling,\u201d so I believe it\u2019s 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\u2019s article. A friend of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15763,"featured_media":843442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[601,558,557],"tags":[561,585],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/spinach-2.png?fit=500%2C300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15763"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":917176,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917175\/revisions\/917176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}