Since time immortal, one of the favorite pastimes of sport freaks has been gambling. Gambling is exciting, taking into consideration the risk involved, the luck factor as well as the chance to make big money in a few of hours. Online gambling is now popular with millions of folks on the other side of the globe, with more visiting betting sites and online casinos popping up over the internet than previously. One great benefit from having this facility online is as always, 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 has been a boom within the online betting industry as well as the kind of profits many sites are enjoying now is unimaginable. Online casinos are not to be left behind, as there is a rapid explosion of these also. The truth is, online poker gives gambling, a glamour quotient by roping in celebrities for high profile tournaments. This implies reaching out to a whole new market in itself.

But bear in mind, the most successful story will be 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 assistance of these sites. A whole new number of sports 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 having to be at the field themselves. Welcome to the world of virtual reality.

There are actually innumerable so-called gambling experts ready to dish out information of their systems to ‘beat the bookie’ or to make a second income from gambling, for a price of course. I will not do that. I will simply give you information about bookmakers, odds and gambling resource for this article you to use (or forget) while you see fit.

The first thing to mention is that the vast majority of people who engage in gambling will be net losers over time. This is the very reason you will find a lot of bookmakers making so much cash through the world.

While bookmakers can sometimes take big hits, for example if a favourite wins the Grand National, they spread their risk so widely and they set up markets that incorporate a margin, so they will always generate a profit over the medium to long term, if not the short term. That is, as long since 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. Keep in mind, if sport was 100% predictable, it might soon lose its appeal, and as the bookies are often spot on with their assessments of the probability of an event, they may be sometimes way off the mark, simply because a match or contest goes against conventional wisdom and statistical likelihood.

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

The big bookmakers spend a great deal of time and expense ensuring they possess the right odds that ensure they consider 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.

On the contrary, a bookie who set these odds would, over-time, break even (assuming their stats are correct). So instead they might set the odds at, say, 6/4. In this way they have built in the margin that ensures, over-time, they will make the most of people betting on this selection. It is the exact same concept as a casino roulette.

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

A proven way is to get great at mathematical modelling and setup a model that takes into account as many of the variables that affect the outcome of an event as it can be. The problem with this tactic is that however complex the model, and however all encompassing 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 is as much down to their concentration as to the weather or day of the week. Furthermore, the maths can start getting pretty darn complicated.

Alternatively you can find yourself a sporting niche. Bookmakers will concentrate their resources on the events that produce 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 with one of the clubs, or are married to among the players or managers, it is very likely the bookmaker setting the odds shall have more information than you.