Favourite Betting Misconceptions (Among Relatively Experienced Punters)

[snyena]

Just starting a small list, I am curious to see what people have to add. I am more interested in various cryptic errors rather than blatant newbie mistakes like Martingale, but any input is welcome. Who knows, I might even discover what a mug I am myself. :) 1. Combos are for mugs. While this is true under 'normal' circumstances, I can think of a staking plan and a specific type of high strikerate bets where doubles would yield more in the long run than singles. Of course, the basic prerequisite of profitable betting (value) has to be met. 2. Low Odds are bad. 1.4 shots (71.43% chance of winning if the odds were fair) aren't bad if they have an 80% or bigger chance of winning. They are excellent, because high strikerate combined with excellent value allows for higher stakes than value 'only' at higher odds. 3. The Bookmaker's Overround is the bookmakers yield. I was surprised to find this somewhere. Surely overround is just a sum of fictious 'probabilities' for all the possible outcomes, whereas yield tells you more about how much the bookie makes per one unit invested. An example would be a coin toss priced at 1.9 for both outcomes. The long term yield is exactly 5%, whereas the overround above 100% is 5.26316% (1/1.9 + 1/1.9). Similar, but not the same.

[spreadman]

Re: Favourite Betting Misconceptions (Among Relatively Experienced Punters) Snyena, 3 good points there, - off the top of my (fast balding) head, one of the biggest betting fallacies usually assumed by amateur bettors is that a previous random event can directly effect or influence the next outcome or 'event result'. I'm thinking, in particular, of lotteries, ('hot' numbers etc.), coin tossing etc. Backing high odds in football bets will also lose you money, over the long term, and because an event hasn't happened for a long time - such as a lottery number unselected for 38 draws - it will happen very soon. That's a load of b*ll*cks. Loads more, but I can't think of them at the moment. Spreadman.:ok