Odds analytics in sports betting
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Keywords
Τζόγος ; Τυχερά παιχνίδια ; ΑποδόσειςAbstract
Gambling is one of humanity’s oldest pastimes as evidenced by various manuscripts and artefacts discovered at historical sites across the world. These include dice games, card games, lottery tickets, and event betting, with the former dating back to 3000BC. In more recent times, online gambling has become one of the largest markets globally, reaching 57.54 billion dollars. This in turn has resulted in a substantial shift in legislation, logistics, and business strategies in order to reach even more clients. However, it is important to realize that gambling – whether physical or online – can also bring about undesirable outcomes in the form of addiction and monetary loss. Here, we demonstrate a method – through programming applications – for maximizing profits when betting online by calculating the odds and minimizing rake across various websites. Our results show that – largely – rake has been decreasing while profits remain stable across recent years; we also show that arbitrage can occur more reliably than generally believed, with a probability of 1/7 of total betting events. We hope that by providing these findings, future users can make more informed decisions regarding their gambling activity and prevent undesirable consequences stemming from online games.