Safe Betting on sports?

[ale_k300]

[Felonius_Monk]

Most bookies won't run a book or give odds on genuinely "can't lose"-type bets. For example, say the New Zealand rugby team are playing some team from Africa, let's say Uganda.... That match could be played 10,000 times and New Zealand would win every one, so yeah if they offered 1.01 odds on that it'd be a smart idea to put 10 grand on it or whatever (as long as there's a stipulation that the bet is voided and your stake returned if the match is cancelled or abandonned for some reason). But basically if New Zealand play a match like that no bookmaker will give you odds on it as they just won't take a bet (or unless they quote something ludicrously prohibitive like 10,000-1 on).

Something like Federer winning a tennis match is fine if it's a situation whereby (say) you have a free bet as a sign up for the site that you have to play before you can withdraw (that is, as long as they include the STAKE as part of the bet and don't have rules about it being worse than evens odds, which most gambling sites now do), but if you're simply trying to make money off this bet it's a no-no. Maybe more than 1 game in 100 a tennis player is going to pull a muscle, fall awkwardly etc and end up forfeiting (which I'm 99.9% sure will count as a loss in this case, the line is likely to be "progressing to the next round" rather than winning), and certainly against a guy who's top 50 (as I believe Tursanov is), well, Federer will lose at least once or twice in his career in a match like this, probably more. All it takes is him to be a bit off-colour, unwell, or just have some sort of total nightmare, or Tursanov to have the game of his life. Sure, it won't happen very often but maybe if you play the game through 100 times, Tursanov gets a lucky or incredible win maybe 2 or 3 of those times, maybe Federer injures himself or forfeits for some reason at least 1 time. So it's a sucker bet really.

[Felonius_Monk]

Incidentally one of the better ways to make money online betting (it can be done) is simply to chase the special offers at different sites (boringly enough) when the odds are somehow turned in your favour. It also helps if you know a bit about the form of the teams/players involved and perhaps a bit about the sport.

Example - betinternet.com were offering lines on the first goalscorers in each match in the football world cup, but refunding your stake if the player scored at all in the match. So you could simply go through each match betting on the favourites (who would be strikers most likely to score) and although you'd need a lot of luck to turn a profit purely on the bets (i.e. an above average number of first goals to be scored by the star strikers), you'd pick up quite a few stakes on the side from returns when a striker scored later on in the match. Also, if you want to do sports betting, most sites offer quite generous free bets on your first stake (usually giving you the winnings, but not the nominal bonus stake) so you can make good gravy on those if you keep shifting your money around. I bet if you had $1k you could double it on sports betting in a few weeks of shifting it about and taking advantage of different offers (a bit of knowledge would help too, obviously).

[k3nt]

[ale_k300]

[emmasdad]

[Juskimo]

[Kuso]

[ale_k300]

[Juskimo]

It was the Gasquet match last year.

-Jus

[piersmajestyk]

Yeah I took one for the team on a damn Federer bet last November or December. He lost in the finals to Nadal I think in one of the big finals after having reeled off like 33 straight wins in final events or something absurd like that. I thought there was no way he would lose that match as he was also tied with Sampras for the most wins in a row and needed that one to hold the record on his own. I have been guilty of making a couple of those can't lose bets in my sports betting history I once had a very sizable wager on a horse that was just a monster in the field he was running against. Coming down the stretch he was about 20 lengths in front of the nearest horse and about 50 yards from the finish line he tripped and broke his leg with nothing in his path. I have had success overall making some pretty big bets on college football and college basketball taking some monster teams versus Podunk U. I have yet to lose one of those bets but if I did it would definately take away alot of those small gains that I have made over time doing this. I think you could probably build up a pretty long list of wins before taking a hit but I wouldn't want to count on alot of wagers involving individual opponents that if they injure themselves you are phucked.