Why Football Bets Are More Profitable To Bookmakers Than Gambling Machines
A 2017 review administered by the British government turned its focus onto the gambling sector with the intention of proving that football bets (fixed odds betting) are a more profitable industry than slot machines. The UK government hoped to use this review in a clampdown in sports betting with officials dubbing it is the “crack cocaine” of gambling.
The gambling industry is, of course, was on tenterhooks, especially with officials suggesting that maximum stakes be reduced from a common amount of £100 to a mere £2. In the proposals, a mention of restricting the number of betting terminals was also made.
Raising its defences, the gambling sector and bookies argued in terms of fixed odd, then there’s a gross margin of 2% – 3%. This means that between 97% – 98% of stakes end up being given back to bettors with their winnings.
Why Are Football Bets More Profitable?
Sports betting (with football being Britain’s most favoured sport to bet on) appeals to smart punters because there is no fixed house edge where the casinos take off a bulky fixed percentage. Football betting also requires more skill than the luck that lies in machine games. This simply means that bettors have a better chance of winning when studying the odds when placing some footy accumulators.
Of course, with sports betting you still won’t win every time, but an informed You won’t win handicapper still has a big advantage over the casual bettor. To emphasise our claim, we will draw a picture of how sports betting works – and where the bookmakers make their money.
The Picture:
Suppose there’s an international football match between France and England. A bookmaker offered odds of 31 on France to win. This bookie is determining the probability that if the game were played 4 times, France would win once.
The probability of France taking the lead can be summarised using the following figures:
- 1/(3+1)
- 0.25
- 25%.
The above example depicts a situation where a bookmaker put forth figures that he thought were probable. BUT. Bookmakers always ensure to build in a profit margin by placing odds with an equation of probabilities greater than 1. Essentially, this means that they say every result will occur just slightly more than it is actually possible. This (very cleverly) allows them to make a risk-free profit off of the wagers placed by punters. The higher the sum of probabilities, the higher a bookmaker’s profit margin.
Bookmakers have been practicing their techniques for centuries and you can trust that they know their industry well. But they don’t do what they do just because they are passionate about sport – they know that there are hundreds of thousands to be made in this sector and if they put their focus in the right areas (such as football), then a good bookie could even become an instant millionaire overnight.