This thread made me check 2+2 forums because there are some people who are said to be very good on sportsbetting, showing a profit for long years.

I remember that it was fun when Iw as analizing data to see if I could come up with some edges in Baseball. About two months ago I wanted to give it a try with 100 bankroll, which i think it´s minimum but, hey, I started with that in Poker and now it s almost a 3K roll. The point is, it could be a pain in the asss to start analizing a particular game just to find out it´s EV-. In case you find out a good one, you have a bankroll of 100, so I really have to suggest that you stick HARD with the 1% per wager strategy because the swings can be huge in baseball.

So if I find an edge for a particular game for let´s say, 4%, and I bet $1, that wager is making m $0.04! That is not my kind of game!

I´d rather stick to poker where you could double a 20buyin roll in a month with the proper amount of hands and the proper share of "good luck" and solid playing. That is for the lower stakes NL, of course.

Right now, I am into it, and I´m waiting for responses in a post i made n 2+2. From there, I´ll see where I can get.

I´ll keep you posted.

Anyone know where this a guide to sports betting?

I have no clue what you guys talk about with your points this, lay offs that etc. I don't want to gamble but I would like to know what I am talking about.

Rich

I would like to know the same, Rich.

I have been researching for a few hours and it seems most of the strategies are kept secret by the so called experts. They consider spreading their edges very very EV-. I will make some picks for a few days (in baseball) and see how they turn out. I remember i followed and strategy that did worked for a while. Betting the same amount to ALL the dogs. I know a frind of mine showed a very marginal profit doing that in the 2002 and 2003 seasons. He stopped doing it because he is a gambler and he is not looking for small edges.



AlexMR.

I found the answer to most of your questions:

1.- You DO need a BR. It should be any amount you CAN lose, but basically what i´ve found so far is that it should be 100times the amount of each wager.

2.-Not too many for the reason I told you in my previous post.

3.- The say you can find lots of edges but I really cant tell yet what is the expected value. They claim if you are doing this correctly you should win more than 52% of times, picking mostly dogs, I think is the way to go (if you can win 52% of times with the dogs, then you could do good money definetely, with the proper bankroll)

4.- I dont like EV- gambling. I thought most of the times this was.

5.- If you can achieve 52% wins the answer is yes. Is it possible? I am just looking for info because of your post so, WTF do I know?

6.- Dont know about strategy. They seem to keep all in secret. Goto 2+2 and you´ll find a lot of sites from there.

One cardinal rule -- the more bets you place, the more difficult it is for you to win. You might have 100 (just for example) games a year in which your knowledge gives you enough edge so that your +EV covers the vig. If you only bet 100 games, your +EV is significant. If you bet 1000 games in a year (3 a day on average), you will have a very significant -EV. Also, even when you have an edge, it's likely to be a very very thin edge, so you will naturally see huge fluctuations, dwarfing poker fluctuations.

You are right, Nash. You are sooo right specially for baseball. The variance for that is just huge. I dont think I could handle it.

Today I started a olittle experiment. I wont be doing the betting but will keep records of what I would have bet.

Today I picked:

Mets -103 for most people it was too even. I really thought Pedro had to do it now. Besides he has killed the cards bats.

Milwakee. That was a pick from mrbaseball and also another sportsbook. I think Oswalt is not in the best shape to give +165

Boston +168. Obvious reasons. There was too much edge against a tim wakefield who has been silencing the Yankees bats.

Since Both Mets and Milwaukee won, I would have won afew bucks.
In case I had bet 10/each:

Mets collected 19.7
Milwaukee: colected 26.5

26.5+19.7 = 46.2 - 30 = 16.2 profit! Very good.

Of course, I have won 66% of my bets and according to the experts that is unsustainable. What you can sustain is 55-60%, and they say that if you are near 60% you are losing a lot of EV+ games.

I will keep it going for this season to see how I do. Maybe next season I could have another betting edge

I like horse racing, and the betting on horses only makes it that much more fun. There is a station called TVG at my moms that shows races from across the country and sometimes the world, with half way decent commentators (they blow Mike and Vince out of the water) and coupled with a computer you can off track bet via the stations site or the online racebook of your choice from the living room.

One of the first rules, is that you are looking for an animal/rider/trainer to bet on that is laying you good value. You might have a more sure bet elsewhere, that the betting public has driven to 2:1 but there is little value unless you can wrap it in some kind of exotic bet. That means you don't bet every race, much like poker you don't play every hand, I'm sure the same holds true for other sports betting.

The other thing I really like about horse racing is that the bets are all parimutual, with the odds dictated by the ebb and flow of the punters money. This means you can at times find an animal that you think is about 2:1 to win with bets selling at 8:1, this is clearly +EV, especially if you are knowledgeble enough to wrap it inside an exotic.

I don't enjoy basketball or football more with money on it, but horse racing when my trifecta is looking good for first and second on the last furlong, the race for third becomes really exciting. I have yet to have "bad" day at the track win or lose, because the game is so much fun to watch, especially with a monetary interest in the race.