General Principles of the Betting Industry: The Impact of the Edge

As a rule, all the gamblers can be subdivided into two groups according to their approach to the betting industry. The first group embraces gamblers who only hope to win, while the second one is represented by those bettors who plan and know how to win. In other words, the second group sees professional punters who make their living from gambling. These punters prove that achieving positive results can be possible only if you understand perfectly how the betting industry works, and the given article is going to offer the necessary information.

The Nature of Odds

It should be mentioned at once that understanding how bookmakers work solely can make it possible for gamblers to benefit. It was a very popular mistake among beginner bettors who do not completely understand the general principles of the betting industry but start placing wagers.

Then, it is extremely important to realize from the very beginning that odds do not represent the statistical probability of an event. Instead, the odds are changed by bookmakers in order to obtain guaranteed profits. For you to better understand this phenomenon, let us consider an actual example with a coin toss. As it is clear, heads and tails have equal chances to land, which is represented by the decimal odds of 2.00. If we place $10, we will win $10. This is also called as a 100% market. However, it is impossible to find such a market in the betting industry, because bookmakers make the total probability that goes above 100%. Everything that is above 100 is known as an edge or margin.

As for the example with the coin toss above, an average bookmaker would fix the odds of about 1.90, which results in a necessity for you to stake more in order to win $10. To be more exact, these odds mean that you have to stake $11 in order to obtain the desired winnings.

Fortunately, the Internet can provide usual gamblers with a lot of relevant articles on how to calculate the edge. So, it is no serious challenge for bettors.

The Best Bookmakers’ Edge

Considering the fact that the betting industry contains an extremely great number of different bookmakers, it is not a surprise that they fix different odds and different margins, respectively. With this, the lowest margin is about 102%, while ordinary gamblers fix that of about 110%.

As for the same example, the given edge means that wins will happen in 51% times instead of 50% for the evenly priced market. This low figure is even more beneficial from the long-term perspective. If you are constantly dealing with the low edge, you have better possibilities to obtain betting benefits.