Since time immortal, one of the favorite pastimes of sport freaks has been gambling. Gambling is exciting, considering the risk involved, the luck factor and the chance to make a lot of cash in a few of hours. Online gambling is becoming popular with millions of individuals across the globe, with more visiting betting sites and online casinos popping up on the net than in the past. One great advantage of having this facility online is bear in mind, 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 in 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’s been a rapid explosion of these also. Actually, online poker gives gambling, a glamour quotient by roping in celebrities for high profile tournaments. What this means is reaching out to a whole new market in itself.

But of course, the most successful story will be the rise of sports betting. Fans who have enjoyed betting on games like soccer, football, polo, baseball, hockey and horse racing, can now do so online with the aid of these sites. A whole new number of sporting events are cropping up to encourage the already soaring popularity of online betting. It may be correct to claim that audiences are now enjoying the betting experience without being 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 won’t do that. I will simply give you information regarding 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 men and women who engage in gambling will be net losers over time. This is the very reason there are numerous bookmakers making so much money 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 study the probability of that event occurring. To do this they us various statistical models according to data collated over years, sometime decades, about the sport and team/competitor in question. Bear in mind, if sport was 100% predictable, it will soon lose its appeal, and while the bookies are often spot on with their assessments of the probability of an event, they can 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 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, as an example, or perhaps the United States of America beating the then mighty USSR at ice hockey in the 1980 Olympics are two instances of whenever you would have got handsome odds on the underdog. And could have won a good online gambling wedge.

The big bookmakers spend a great deal of time and expense ensuring they have the right odds that ensure they keep in mind 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 flip side, a bookie who set these odds would, over-time, break even (assuming their stats are correct). So instead they would set the odds at, say, 6/4. In the way they have built in the margin that guarantees, over time, they’re going to make the most of people betting on this selection. It really is the exact same concept as a casino roulette.

So 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 very good at mathematical modelling and setup a model which takes under consideration 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 seems, 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 really is as much down to their concentration as to the weather or day of the week. Also, the maths can start getting pretty darn complicated.

Alternatively you can find yourself a sporting niche. Bookmakers will concentrate their resources on the events which 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’s very likely the bookmaker setting the odds shall have further information than you.