Since time immortal, among the favorite pastimes of sport freaks has been gambling. Gambling is exciting, considering the risk involved, the luck factor as well as the chance to make a lot of money in a couple of hours. Online gambling is now popular with millions of folks world wide, with more visiting betting sites and online casinos popping up online than ever before. One great benefit of having this facility online is simply, that it is accessible from any place which has an active internet connection. This has made gambling a sport in itself, available to millions of new people.

There’s been a boom within the online betting industry and the sort of profits many sites are enjoying now is unimaginable. Online casinos are not to be left behind, as there has been a rapid explosion of these as well. The truth is, online poker gives gambling, a glamour quotient by roping in celebrities for high profile tournaments. This means reaching out to a whole new market in itself.

But as always, the most successful story is the rise of sports betting. Fans that have enjoyed betting on games like soccer, football, polo, baseball, hockey and horse racing, can now do so online with the help of these sites. A whole new selection of sports events are cropping up to encourage the already soaring popularity of online betting. It may be correct to say that audiences are now enjoying the betting experience without being at the field themselves. Welcome to the world of virtual reality.

You will discover innumerable so-called gambling experts prepared to dish out information of their systems to ‘beat the bookie’ or to make a second income from gambling, for a cost of course. I won’t do that. I will simply give you details about bookmakers, odds and gambling that you can use (or forget) while you see fit.

The very first thing to mention is that a large proportion of folks who engage in gambling will be net losers over-time. This really is the very reason there are actually numerous bookmakers making so much cash throughout the world.

While bookmakers can sometimes take big hits, for instance if a favourite wins the Grand National, they spread their risk so widely and they setup markets that incorporate a margin, so they are going to always generate a profit over the medium to long term, if not the short-run. That’s, as long because they got their sums right.

When setting their odds for a particular event, bookmakers must first evaluate the probability of that event occurring. To do this they us various statistical models based on data collated over years, sometime decades, about the sport and team/competitor in question. As always, if sport was 100% predictable, it will soon lose its appeal, and while the bookies will often be spot on with their assessments of the probability of an event, they may be sometimes way off the mark, mainly because a match or contest goes against conventional wisdom and statistical likelihood.

Just look-at any sport and you shall find an occasion in the event the underdog triumphs against all the odds, literally. Wimbledon beating the then mighty Liverpool in the FA Cup Final of 1988, as an example, or perhaps the United States beating the then mighty USSR at ice hockey within the 1980 Olympics are two illustrations of when you could have got handsome odds on the underdog. And could have won a good wedge.

The big bookmakers spend a great deal of time and expense ensuring they possess the right odds that ensure they take under consideration the perceived probability of the event, and then add that extra little bit that gives them the profit margin. So if an event has a probability of, say, 1/3, the odds that reflect that probability would be 2/1. That’s, two to one against that event occurring.

Alternatively, a bookie who set these odds would, over time, break even (assuming their stats are correct). So instead they can set the odds at, say, 6/4. In this way they have built in the margin that guarantees, over time, they are going to cash in on people betting on this selection. It’s the exact same concept as a casino roulette.

Just how can you spot the occasions when bookmakers have got it wrong? Well, it’s easier said than done, but far from the Aula blog impossible.

One of the ways is to get very good at mathematical modelling and set up a model which takes into account as many of the variables that affect the outcome of an event as possible. The problem with this tactic is that however complex the model, and however all inclusive it appears, it can never account for the minutiae of variables relating to individual human states of mind. Whether a golfer manages to hole a major-winning five foot putt on the 18th at St Andrews it’s as much down to their concentration as to the weather or day of the week. On top of that, the maths can start getting pretty darn complicated.

Alternatively you may find yourself a sporting niche. Bookmakers will concentrate their resources on the events that make them the most money, generally found to be football (soccer), American football and horse racing. So trying to beat the bookies while betting on a Manchester United v Chelsea match will be tough. Unless you work for one of the clubs, or are married to one of the players or managers, it is very likely the bookmaker setting the odds shall have further information than you.