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Continuing on with this series of ways to gamble badly, this is perhaps one of the most sophisticated ways to gamble badly…..or at least it can be sophisticated. Human beings are designed to spot patterns. This is whether the “pattern” is true or not.

The problem with “patterns” is that they can arrive and then disappear just as quickly but people get duped by them when all they are seeing is a random event. Being fooled by randomness is common amongst poker players and especially when the variance is in their favour.

Players can run both good and bad for tens of thousands of hands but that fact is totally oblivious to a novice. He plays at a level for 1000 hands and wins money so he moves up. He does the same again at the next level and moves up.

Then a combination of better players and the variance levelling out means he loses all his money back but he was never a winning player to begin with.

With the arrival of the Internet and computer technology then data mining has increased in popularity. To quote one of my favourite characters from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle……Sherlock Holmes….. “you cannot dispute facts but it is the conclusions that are drawn from facts that are frequently in error”.

What a profound statement because it highlights one of the biggest flaws in human beings and that is the ability to assess facts and data in the correct fashion and in a way that leads to clear and logical thought that arrives at the true reality of the situation.

This is a rare commodity and I must confess to frequently arriving at fuzzy conclusions myself at times. But when people analyse past data looking for patterns then it is inevitable that they will find them……INEVITABLE!

Statisticians call these “patterns” spurious correlations but the way to combat this is to know if the pattern makes any sense. If it doesn’t then this does not necessarily mean that the pattern is a mirage.

But it should mean that you have to do further testing with different samples. In fact even if your sports betting system is based on sound principles then you should still test it using different samples.

See you soon

Carl
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I recall some years ago how my uncle used to gamble on horse racing. His overall method of operation entailed him buying his morning newspaper, scanning it and then selecting his horses to bet on. Strangely enough the newspaper in question still has exactly the same layout today twenty years later as what it did then.

It is only now looking back that I can see how trivial this information is in the formulation of assessing the potential winner of a race. For a start the form guide was woefully thin and didn’t take into account many things. The list of past results only stretched back something like six races as I recall.

There was absolutely no indication of what types of fields each horse had run against to get their past results. So this meant that a horse which had a list of results that went 2-3-1-1-5-2 may have been racing against inferior horses than a horse which had a recent form guide of 4-4-F-0-3-6. Taken on the surface, the previous horse looks a stronger mount than the latter but often past results in horse racing can be extremely misleading.

Trying to analyse a race by using insufficient data can only lead to poor analysis, in fact I really should rephrase that because the analysis could be pretty good given the data that is available. It is the available data that is sadly found wanting but this is purely because the newspaper in question simply does not have the scope to be able to print in depth statistics and form guides.

The most comprehensive newspaper out there for this purpose is The Racing Post and I have been a keen and avid reader for years. All their pundits are first rate and their form guides are some of the most in depth around. The Racing Post is a serious and often essential daily expense for the serious horse race bettor.

The lesson is……do not trust tabloid racing guides.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

With gambling and betting tips, there seems to be a tendency to expect the obvious. If Arsenal were at home to Fulham then many people seem to expect that Arsenal will always win this game.

This then tends to lead to punters taking odds that are too short merely because they view an event that is likely to happen as being a certainty to happen. Think about this for a moment, if the event was a certainty to happen then why would the betting firms offer prices on it?

Quite often there is a slowness in reacting to changing events. A few years ago, betting firms were slow to react on the fact that Tiger Woods was obviously not mentally at his best.

This was long before he had his injury prior to winning the US Open. It was exactly the same with the England rugby side after winning the 2003 World Cup down under. Without Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson then they were clearly not the same side.

Almost immediately they went on the slide but yet the fact that they were World Champions was affecting the prices. They still went into the 2004 six nations as strong favourites and probably rightly so but they didn’t justify some of the odds that were being bandied around.

They ended up coming third in a six runner race behind France and Ireland. That is really something when you consider that Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were not in that tournament.

Quite often the odds get artificially squeezed in such situations and the value is in opposing the short priced favourites. I try to look for situations where competitors have peaked or are past their best.

Look for peaks and troughs in sporting performance. I sometimes think that sporting performance can react in similar ways to share prices. There are highs and lows and rallies and when you tap into these then you can often find value.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

It is about time that I mentioned about another way to gamble badly. I think that I should mention that blindly listening to tipsters is a route to the poor house. If you read my posts then I do not tip things although in a way I do if you blindly want to follow what I say which isn’t advisable.

I mention what I do and why but in no way do I act as a tipster. If you are going to accept tips from someone then you had better make sure that they know what they are talking about and that they have a track record. Listening and following tipsters is all so easy to do, most people do not have the necessary expertise so they attempt to short cut the process by following tipsters. They are partly correct to do so as your average Joe simply hasn’t got the time to work through data and formulate opinions that would be superior to that of someone who follows the sport day in and day out.

But this is why tipsters are so popular, the problem is two fold. Firstly unless what a tipster is tipping is connected to a certain price then it really is of little use. Also you have to remember that tipsters are paid to tip in an awful lot of cases and this is especially the case with the newspapers in their horse racing sections.

Quite often they make tips on every single race and end up merely recommending the favourite as the easy way out. So if you are going to follow a tip then you will be faced with several problems. Of course, following a tip as a one off can do little harm but I am talking about someone following tipsters on a regular basis. You need to know their record and also how they arrive at the tips that they give and why. In many cases this is not known. Some of the best tipsters connect prices with their tipping and this is a big step forward.

This means that the tipster understands the probability of the selection and what its theoretical price should roughly be. It also means that they are advising the reader not to place a bet unless it is at the recommended price.

So beware and use a little forethought before using tipsters.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

In our third episode of 101 ways to gamble badly, I want to discuss underestimating your enemy. So just who is your enemy? Is it the bookies, is it the professional odds compilers or is it your own lethargy and lack of really deep and underlying gambling concepts? To be honest it is a combination of all of those things but your real enemy are the odds compilers closely followed by the betting firms.

Treating these people lightly will lead to one result and one result only and that is almost certain long term loss. You must get to grips with just how much work the odds compilers do and also the knowledge that is pumped into the prices that they make.

Now I am not saying that you always need to fear the worst here but that is never a bad starting point in any field of operation. Fearing the worst serves one very important objective in gambling, it stops you from doing rash and reckless things and things that end up costing you money.

It is always a wise thing to presume that the odds compilers not only know more than you but to also know when and where they are at their strongest as well. Do not assume that betting odds are merely thrown together with only slight forethought and planning. Just like in online poker, take advantage of every little free bonus that comes your way. This means sign up bonuses and free bets and all the rest of it.

If you want to get an edge against the betting firms then take every last dollar that they throw at you…..and then be ruthlessly disciplined. If you can do this and not underestimate your opponents who unlike poker, will all be professionals then you stand a good chance of being successful.

take care and see you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

I remember a few years ago, myself and a colleague called “Big Dave” embarked on a “career” as professional gamblers. He was an absolute whiz at paddock watching and had extensive experience at watching and classing horses. He could tell when horses were not physically up to the race or up to beating the field and he even knew if a certain horse was mentally balanced or not…….dont ask me how.

He had been a paddock watcher for a good few years but he wasnt technical so I operated the betting side of things and we attempted to lay poor favourites or any horse at the front end of the market. We had numerous trips out including one disaster at Doncaster where nothing went right.

It took us a while to find our feet but Dave eventually got into the groove but only after a spell in which I had been placing bets for him but not following with my own money. So I ended up missing out on a few winners that cost me a lot of money. It took me a while to get my confidence back and when that happened , I clawed back all of the losses and then some.

The problem was the constant travelling and I was playing alot of online poker at the time and I knew that I could earn money at home even easier. It wasnt so bad going to local courses but distances of say 150 miles had me getting a little fed up. I hated the prospect of travelling 200 miles to then have to travel another 300 the following day.

We eventually decided on only going 2-3 times per week which suited me fine. But this was perhaps my second venture into professional gambling although looking back, we didnt seem like professionals although we ended up making money. For odds comparison, we advised oddso.com. I would go as far as to say that I have made money out of every venture that I have undertaken to do, either by a process of solid preparation and planning or getting knowledge from people who were far better or far more knowledgable than me.

If you havent got the info then in this day and age, it doesnt take rocket science to be able to get it.

see you soon

Carl

PS: Check Gamblers Anonymous if you need to learn more on Gambling as Addiction

To succeed at any form of gambling you need to be aware of probability, this applies whether or not you are playing poker or sports betting. Probability can then be converted into odds. This is where most people come unstuck because they dont really know what a good price is from a bad one.

NUMBER 2 IN OUR LIST IS :      ALWAYS KNOW YOUR PRICE

What exactly do I mean by this? Well it isnt really of much use to bet on anything if you have no idea as to the probability of certain things happening. If I gave you odds of 10/11 on the flip of a coin then you simply wouldnt take those odds and no sane person would.

The reason why you wouldnt take them is because the odds on the outcome of a fair coin flip are Evens and not 10/11 and that is well documented and cannot be argued under normal conditions. But when the actual odds of an encounter become hazy then it is a little more difficult. If Manchester United are playing Stoke City at Old Trafford then it is obvious to anyone that United will be big favoruites to win…….but how big?

It is little use just blindly backing United, you must have a firm opinion as to how big a favoruite they are……should they be 1.15…..1.20….1.25 etc. Which players are injured, who is suspended, what is the current league position and will that affect the game, what will the tactics be, do either of the teams have players away on international duty and how will that affect the price, do they have midweek games coming up?

The variables are almost endless but they are also endless for the odds compilers as well so dont get too down about it. But this rule number two is perhaps one of the most important of all, you simply cannot make money in sports betting if the odds that you are taking are less than the actual probability of the event actually happening.

see you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

There are lots of ways to gamble badly, trust me…..I have tried most of them down the years

But in this section of my blog I want to look at some ways that people can gamble badly without even realising it and today I want to start with,

1. DON’T USE GUT FEELINGS……USE FACTS

This is what successful gambling is all about, getting the facts and then using them in such a way as to make them work for you. I want to quote an analogy with poker if I may. A player once came to me to ask if I would analyse a poker session for him…..I agreed. But he made a certain play in a certain situation and lost money. He attacked the blinds and was re-reraised by the big blind……he raised again……to cut a long story short he ended up getting all-in pre-flop with J-9 against the K-K of his opponent.

Now before you start asking me what a poker story is doing on a sports blog, the reason why is because this guy was trying to think on too many different levels. He was thinking that his opponent was thinking that he was thinking that he was stealing and that his opponent must know this to.

This is all well and good but it all breaks down if your opponent is thinking on a much lower level. This use of “gut feelings” to make bets is something that may apply more to poker in some situations than it does to sports betting as intuition and gut feelings can serve you well at times.

But in sports betting, there is little room for gut feelings…..this is a FACTS industry and the old saying applies….”get the facts before the facts get you”. So in future, do not commit the cardinal sin of going by the seat of your pants or using gut feelings or intuition or whatever else you want to call it because that simply will not cut it……GET THE FACTS otherwise you have no chance. This means hard work but hey……whoever said betting was easy

See you soon

Carl