Can betting be profitable? Where's the catch if you constantly

Assuming there's no bet upper limit, you can possibly always come out winning using the Martingale theory on betting

was looking at etheroll stats eariler today and tell me honestly why I should not quit my job and just do what this guy is dong?

http://www.cryptocurrencychart.com/etheroll-player/4096/USD

>>3418621
The catch is that you have no idea what will happen or won't happen
You could win 10, lose 5, win 20, lose 7, then lose 30 in a row and lose everything.
And at that point, it's over, you've lost it all on 1 single streak.

>>3418621
yes it can, but the betting agencies will limit your stakes really fast and eventually even ban you when you make profit of them. and they communicate with each other so if one limits you the others will follow swiftly.

at least it was like that when i was into betting a few years ago.

>>3418759
To be honest wherever you play a numbers game (which is literally all entrepreneurship) you can only rely on statistics and historical data, and in this case both are provided by bookies. If 50+ bookies will agree on that some side is much more likely to win, then statistically it's rather unlikely that the outcome will be different.

I know that some bookmakers tend to limit players which are usually playing safe bets, but is there anything else that might stand in your way?

>>3418621
>Where's the catch if you constantly bet on the most likely (let's say 1.2x) outcomes?
Assuming you're talking about sports betting: he catch is that for any bet a bookie lists as 1.2, the bookie actually thinks the probability of that particular outcome to happen is a certain percentage above that. Assuming the bookie is better at determining the probability of an outcome than you, which would be the case with like 99.9% of people, you will lose in the long run.

That said, if you're extremely knowledgeable about certain sports, you can sometimes find gems to bet on here and there. Back when /bet/ was still a thing on /sp/, some of the people there really knew their shit and I'm pretty sure were profitable in the long run.

>>3418916
>Assuming you're talking about sports betting: he catch is that for any bet a bookie lists as 1.2, the bookie actually thinks the probability of that particular outcome to happen is a certain percentage above that. Assuming the bookie is better at determining the probability of an outcome than you, which would be the case with like 99.9% of people, you will lose in the long run.
Some of the bookies supposedly reveal how people are actually betting. Could that be more reliable, or will those numbers also be fudged?

You can look into arbitrage and matched betting. Personally I made about 500 bongs last month scooping up sign up offers.

>>3418740
Maybe you shouldn't have quit school before they taught you how basic probability works :)

>>3419029
Long time ago I've researched arbitage but in most cases in the end it was proven that best bets were actually mistakes which were cancelled so nothing good came out of them.

Matched betting sounds like an interesting idea though, thank you.

>>3418621
How do people on a business board have such a poor understanding of fundamental concepts like expected value

There is no betting strategy that changes your expected value (provided you are not managing to hurt yourself through fees or something). There are betting strategies that change your variance and potential ROI, but NEVER your expected value


Let me be clear. You can make money by betting on anything ONLY when you exploit a mispricing in the instrument. If something has a 60% chance of happening and someone gives you 1:1 odds, then you have a positive expected value. This is the ONLY way that you can make money trading stocks, betting on sports, whatever--finding inefficiencies in the system.

>>3418740
>Average chance 72.58
>Won 73.62 %

the data is right there, you can see RIGHT THERE that he is running more than 1% above EV.

In the long run, the second number will converge asymptotically to the first, meaning that he will have lost exactly 1% over time to the etheroll house edge.

But be my guest and try it, I own a healthy amount of dice, I'll enjoy rolling in your money when the next dividend period comes around

Yes you can i have made large quantities also lost large quantities

Etheroll is good because its provably fair

>>3418621
It's not about betting on the most likely outcomes, because everyone knows that they're the most likely outcomes and the payouts are adjusted accordingly.

To make money betting you have to be better calibrated than the field, and bet on things which has odds that have skewed odds relative to what you think the odds are. You have to be a whole bunch better than the field after taking into account the bookie's margin. Lots of people think they're pretty good, most aren't.

>>3418740
>quitting your job to gamble against a 1% house edge
hahahahaaha

>>3419303
>To make money betting you have to be better calibrated than the field, and bet on things which has odds that have skewed odds relative to what you think the odds are. You have to be a whole bunch better than the field after taking into account the bookie's margin. Lots of people think they're pretty good, most aren't.
Wouldn't simply averaging the bets from multiple bookmakers + including a slight margin (5%?) already give you a more accurate guess on what are the bets in most cases? Then you could just go with a bookie which is the closest to the "real" payout value.

>>3418738
"""""""""always""""""""""""""""