zlacker

>>jimbob+(OP)
Sports gambling, like all gambling, ruins lives. It's certainly worth having the discussion about whether people should be able to run a train through their life and the lives of their families via app.

But a much easier argument against sports betting is that it ruins the sports. Players throw. They get good at subtly cheating. The gambling apparatus latches itself to the sport, to the teams and players, the umpires and judges, the sporting organizations. With this much money on the line, it's not a matter of if but when games are thrown, cheated -- the bigger the game, the bigger the incentive. It's even easier now because of the amount of side/parlay betting that is available. It exhausts the spirit of competition.

Sports gambling is diametrically opposed to sport itself.

>>mlsu+wN1
I've made solid side income gambling over a number of different games and sports, and I say it should definitely be banned.

It ruins lives, funnels money to terrible people, makes sports worse for everyone, and has no positive impact on society. The benefits of the "freedom" to let manipulation of your lizard brain drain you of your past and future earnings is not worth it.

>>llmthr+Y22
Over the years I did get to know a couple of people that were winning players in poker and sports betting. I was never patient enough for poker, so I just played it for fun every now and then (probably break-even, maybe a bit minus) and just watched the discussions about it interested. As poker got harder, a lot of them switched over to sports betting, which I was never interested in, but I found it amazing how they analyzed the games.

But if you really think about it, yes there might be a tiny portion that wins overall, but they only win because there are a lot of people emotionally invested that ruin their lives. So yes, please ban.

Edit: While yes, it can be fun and I personally can have a lot of fun when I put 50 bucks into a slot machine once or twice a year, no matter the outcome, it doesn't really justify to keep that business alive

>>dailyk+Z72
> yes there might be a tiny portion that wins overall

Probably explained by chance.

Gambling "systems" don't work unless there's a flaw in the game.

>>jackco+9J2
There are inefficiencies that make certain bets positive EV if you are smart enough. It's usually a combination of playing in a weird way and having some insight that the maker of the game (the oddsmaker) didn't see. Gambling establishments don't mind because there are few enough of these and they will ban you if you take too much money from them.

Winning sports betting players often go on to set odds.

>>pclmul+UM2
Sportsbooks make money by taking bets on both sides of a game and offering odds that work in their favor. For example, even on an "even money" bet, you might have to bet $105 to win $100. The more one-sided a game seems, the bigger the gap between the odds on either side because the sportsbook is trying to manage its risk. As people place bets, they adjust the odds to balance the action. The sportsbook isn't banking on you being wrong—they want enough bets on both sides so they win no matter what. The difference between the odds is basically their "fee."

As a professional bettor, you're not really outsmarting the sportsbook—you’re trying to outsmart the public. The key is finding moments where the crowd is wrong enough that betting the other side makes sense, even with the sportsbook’s fees. That means you’ll often skip betting when the odds are pretty accurate.

Most sportsbooks will limit how much you can bet if you're too successful, but they usually won’t ban you outright.

>>placid+R14
Many sportsbooks actually do not run that way. The name "sportsbook" implies that they do, but that is an older style of betting that has fallen out of favor. Modern sports books usually use fixed odds set by an oddsmaker (in modern times, algorithms set by the oddsmaker), but those odds are allowed to float with the probability of the outcome changing. I believe they take supply and demand into account, but you actually are betting against the house. That prevents the kind of trading against the crowd that would be normally viable.

The Hong Kong horse race track was a famous example of market-priced bets where the book was run the way you said and the crowd was exploitable in the way you are suggesting. It was one of the last books to work that way.

>>pclmul+5d4
I can see the misunderstanding, but I was not actually describing parimutuel betting (horseracing). In parimutuel betting the odds continue to change up until the race even once you've placed your bet ensuring that the payout is always the total amount wagered less a fee kept by the house.

Sportsbooks will open lines intelligently, but they absolutely do move the line in response to market forces in an attempt to balance money on both sides, because when the money is balanced, they are guaranteed profit.

It's true that when you make a sports wager, the house is paying you out of their wallet. It's also true that they employ a lot of energy and expertise in order to open the betting at accurate odds. However, no corporate, end user facing sportsbook is themselves fading action on one side of the match intentionally. They aggressively try to balance money on both sides so they can guarantee a profit.