Make money with sports betting 1 E-Book

Lorenz Laplace

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 196

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Since 2019 this book exists in German, now finally the English translation of this Buyer exists! Lorenz Laplace succeeded in gaining a fortune of 20,000 EUR quite systematically through sports betting within three years with 1,000 EUR starting capital and many small bets with stakes of 20-50 EUR. Laplace gives tips in easy-to-remember rules: For example, the main betting rule, the tax-favourites rule or the crass-outsider rule. The derivation of these tips is done in an understandable way, and the calculations are very easy to follow. The core of his strategy for betting is based on the following insight: the probabilities for a sporting event cannot be calculated exactly. So, every betting provider errs in setting the odds. Some odds are too low, others are too high for the outcome. It is only necessary to recognise in which direction the betting provider errs, e.g., in favour of the underdog or the favourite. The bettor's error is analysed with the help of a four-point plan, and then the bets are placed, naturally on the events that have received odds that are too high from the bettor.In addition, Lorenz Laplace gives other decisive tips, e.g., how to optimally integrate promotions: Deposit bonuses, free bets, cashback, or combination bet insurance, etc. The book is a must for every betting enthusiast who wants to make long - term profits with betting.

Leseprobe

Content

Introduction: Forword to the international edition

Chapter 1: About me – what this book can and cannot do

Chapter 2: My betting history

Chapter 3: The preparations

Chapter 4: The coin game

Chapter 5: Why do so many bettors lose money?

Chapter 6: Promotions

Chapter 7: The most common mistakes – what not to bet on

Chapter 8: Become a bean counter!

Chapter 9: It can be done: Push the bettor’s margin into the negative – with the help of your own statistics

Chapter 10: Winning with outstanding expertise

Chapter 11: Value bets on penalties and their transfer to tennis (live betting)

Chapter 12: Epilogue and summary

Appendix 0: Conversion of the individual odds formats

Appendix 1: Determining the betting provider’s margin

Appendix 2: Converting probability into odds and vice versa

Appendix 3: Index of rules

INTRODUCTION

Foreword to the international edition

This book has already been available as a German edition since 2019. However, the translation into English as an international version resulted in the following problems, which every reader should know of beforehand in order to be able to take into account even the country-specific peculiarities for his or her betting passion:

This book is primarily aimed at the bettor who still has relatively little betting experience or at someone who has so far been quite unlucky and has therefore lost money in the long run - even though he may even have far above-average knowledge of the sport on which he is betting. In this book, I mainly draw attention to simple facts that have a lasting influence on the success of betting and are almost independent of the sport on which the bet is placed.

In chapter 9, I present an objective procedure that helps bettors to decide whether they are favourites or underdogs and when it makes sense to place combination bets — and when it does not.1

Depending on the country, three quota formats are common: the decimal format common in continental Europe, the British fraction format (“frac”) and the American quota format. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

When I give quotas in this book, I give the decimal format first in this international version. After that, I first mention the fractional format and then the American format. However, if the quotas are mentioned in the body text, I only discuss them from the point of view of the decimal format. So, for example, I often talk about “how much money you have after winning a bet” (decimal format) and less often talk about the “net profit of the bet” (which would be the correct approach from the fractional format point of view).

To convert, you can find free programmes on the internet that will quickly convert the odds formats for you. I have specifically listed the formulas for converting all formats in Appendix 0.

A special feature in Germany is the betting tax, which has been in place since 2011. A 5% betting tax is due on the total amount paid out. This means: If you bet €1 on odds 2 (fract: 1/1, am: 100), 5% betting tax is due on the total payout amount of €2 if you win. So, after taxes, you only get €1.9.

In many countries, there is no betting tax, but in some countries there is. I keep the consideration of the taxation also for the international edition because it serves as an example for many betting enthusiasts on how the country-specific taxation reduces the betting winnings. The betting enthusiasts who live in countries where a betting tax is also due must then transfer my considerations to their circumstances. It is impossible for me to list the tax peculiarities of all countries. However, since taxation, if any, must be taken into account, I have retained German taxation here as an example.

1 I have succeeded in further extending this procedure and making concrete calculations as to whether so-called “value bets” can be found in an upcoming match and, if so, for which result. These refinements are applicable to the bettor who wishes to bet on the sports of football or basketball in normal league play. For bettors of these sports, I recommend my second book “Making Money with Sports Betting 2 Techniques for Advanced Players”, which I will have translated into English in the near future.

CHAPTER 1

About me – and what this book can and cannot do

I studied mathematics. Mathematics was actually always the subject I was most interested in. In 1996, I successfully completed my studies in mathematics. I was particularly enthusiastic about the transfer of real processes from the environment.

So, it was no coincidence that my thesis dealt with the theory of stochastic processes, a branch of statistics.

After my studies, I offered my services as a freelancer in the field of economics and stock exchange for about seven years, three of them full-time. I worked for several brokers, business publishers and banks and got to know the areas of risk management (e.g., for funds), price analyses and publishing. And I have made the experience that well-known experts in this field actually have no mathematical background at all — apart from having passed their German A-levels, and even this is sometimes not the case. Nevertheless, statistics on stock market prices are often discussed in interviews with media attention, and stock market prices are estimated for the future. Surprisingly, stock market prices have two things in common with sports betting: Firstly, they can be represented mathematically. Either as a share price or known quantities such as the P/E ratio or similar, or as a sports result with the quantities’ table position, player statistics or similar. And secondly: they are predicted for the future by people whom outsiders expect to have a certain level of expertise — usually with rather miserable success. After the failure, explanations are then sought as to why the course or the result did not correspond to the prediction.

In 1999, I decided to become a teacher and took my second state examination in 2001. Since then, I have been a teacher of mathematics at a school in the Cologne area. I enjoy teaching the gymnasiale Oberstufe, i.e., students preparing for the Abitur, which is the German A-levels.

I am writing this book in 2019, three years after I made my first sports bet.

My circle of acquaintances also includes people who are not fond of mathematics. I am thinking of spontaneous acquaintances with other guests in the pub where I watch some sporting events live, or the members in the old men’s group where I play football once a week. Many of these acquaintances, like me, have placed sports bets on the current event.

When I speak out about my experience with sports betting, mentioning in passing that I have won about €20,000 with sports betting, I receive only incredulous amazement. Some ask me about my strategy or the betting provider I use. I have tried very hard to explain the most important points to many of them, but I have always failed because a single evening is not enough time to teach even the most important elements of successful sports betting. Even among fellow teachers who studied mathematics, I never found the time that would have been necessary to fully explain my strategy.

Meanwhile, there are acquaintances who implement my advice 1:1, in that I literally dictate to them the sports bets that are particularly attractive. All of these acquaintances have made profits. Those who have been at it for several years, in the four-digit range.

But there is no one who understands why exactly I have chosen my tips.

This is exactly what I want to change now with this book.

This book is for the sports betting fan, not for mathematicians.

From my professional experience in publishing, I still know the rule of thumb for publishers: every mathematical formula reduces readership by 50%. So, I have tried very hard to avoid formulas or at least to make them so simple that even a sports betting fan who does not attend my mathematics class can understand them.

However, this raises a problem that some people will notice when reading the book: I have simplified some things so much that even a good student can notice inaccuracies.

I can assure you here that the simplification is done expressly because I want to make the book accessible to a wide readership, and not because I am not aware of these mathematical errors. Some things I will correct in the course of this book, as the book has an increasing complexity up to chapter 9 and I have to keep referring to the previous chapters. Each subsequent chapter becomes more and more laden with considerations of statistics.

Nevertheless, I cannot fully explain my successes without basic knowledge of mathematics. In particular, I expect the reader to master percentages to the extent that he or she can at least look up tasks such as “what is 5% of €270?” and calculate them correctly with a pocket calculator. Without the concept of percentages, you will not be able to understand this book, as this is an indispensable prerequisite. My aim, though, is that you don’t need more than this mathematical knowledge.

You will notice that the book is written by a teacher. Because at the points where mathematical problems arise for the reader, which you need for successful sports betting, I have included exercises for you — with solutions provided, of course.

I hope that this will make the book more popular.

My aim is for the reader to be able to place bets on future sporting events with an increased chance of winning after reading this book in its entirety.

Unfortunately, though, it is impossible for me to guarantee you a profit!

I cannot predict a sporting event that will be particularly topical in the near future.

But I can teach you some mathematically sound behaviours in this book that will help you achieve a higher probability of winning money rather than losing money when betting on sports.

I have resolved not to name a single betting provider — neither in a positive nor in a negative way. There are several reasons for this:

Firstly, in my three years as an active sports bettor, I have seen several betting providers come and go — some have gone bankrupt, others have merged and now have different names. Still others have been founded completely from scratch. So, the recommendation of a provider might no longer be current at the time of reading.

Secondly, for understandable reasons, I would like to avoid lawsuits against me by individual betting providers. A negative mention of a betting provider could lead to such a thing.

Thirdly, betting providers sometimes change their business strategies. In three years, I have had both positive and negative experiences in that individual betting providers have developed positively or negatively over time. Referencing individual promotions would quickly make the book outdated. I prefer to refer to the (relatively) current pages on the internet, or I hereby invite you to browse the pages of the betting providers in this regard at your own discretion.

Fourthly, I do not want to be suspected of receiving any commissions from betting providers because I mention them here. Unfortunately, you have to reckon with the fact that the websites I mentioned in point 3 receive precisely these commissions through advertising links. So, an internet site is not necessarily objective. This book is written for the betting enthusiast, not for betting providers who want to attract new customers.

If you study this book, you will notice that I also avoid mentioning individual sportsmen or teams. This is for similar reasons to those for bettors:

Firstly, teams or athletes that are current in 2019 may be forgotten a few years later.

Secondly, I am not at all in a position to make informed judgements about individual sporting events. I have mentioned the lack of factual competence of some people who are interviewed as stock market experts. I know that I cannot compete with experts who have spent years studying a particular sport. I leave the assessment of individual sporting events to other people. I am a mathematician, not a sports expert. The only sport I play myself is football. Here I have been active in an old men’s team since I was 40. So even in football my expertise is limited, but at least here I know the rules completely. The other sports on which people like to bet, such as tennis, basketball, etc., I only know the basics or not at all, and I learn about current events in these sports almost exclusively through the bets I place — and quickly forget them.

Thirdly, I want to accommodate the different inclinations of betting fans: A tennis fan may have little interest in football and vice versa. A sporting event that is long remembered by a tennis fan may have attracted little attention in the world of football, and vice versa.

All sports fans can be assured: The mathematics used to treat the odds of sporting events are identical. It is completely irrelevant whether you are inclined towards the sports of tennis, football, basketball or American football. This book is written for all of them. Only chapter 10 is an exception.

If you read on in this book, you will not only realise from the mathematical considerations that a mathematician has written this book, but you will also be reminded of your former mathematics lessons by the rules I formulate: I formulate rules and give them a name for better reference, just as you will certainly still remember the rules “Pythagorean theorem” or “Thales theorem”.

Even if you have forgotten such mnemonic sentences, they can be easily found again through the catchy naming.

I have used a pseudonym for this book because I assume that no betting company will still let me bet if they know the author of this book.

CHAPTER 2

My Betting History

During the summer holidays in 2016, there was a major football tournament, the European Championship, in which I was sufficiently interested. On the internet, I sometimes read the comments on the sports pages related to an upcoming or past match. On these pages, advertisements of various betting companies often flicker, luring new customers with so-called welcome offers by holding out the prospect of a bonus, usually €100.

I was never actually interested in betting at that time — it goes without saying for a statistician, that betting providers ALWAYS win — and I never bothered to give these ads even a moment of my time. Betting providers were, in my mind at the time anyway, organisations with a criminal background.

Apparently, I must have been very bored during these holidays because I did click on an advertising banner of a well-known betting provider. At the time, I only wanted to read through the offer to prove to myself once again my above-average knowledge of statistics. After reading the bonus conditions carefully, I wanted to have proof that the betting provider was not giving me €100, but was making a profit — if everything went “normally”, of course!

So, I sat down, studied the rather hidden conditions of participation and began to calculate: Turnover conditions, margins, expected value, etc….

After I had studied the conditions for about two hours and noted down a few sample calculations, I knew that the betting provider would not give a new customer €100, but at least €40.

A competitor of this betting provider was also put through its paces by me with an almost identical offer: Here, too, the so-called “expected value for the player” was €40.

Well, I thought, that can’t be true, I’ll just do that now. Registered with both providers, deposited €100 and was pleased with the betting account of “€100 real money” plus “€100 bonus money” in each case.

I placed my bets — and lost all my capital pretty quickly with the first betting provider! With the other betting provider, however, I was pleased to have a capital of over €350 in real money after going through €600 worth of bets! I still believed that betting providers were actually criminals and could hardly imagine that the betting provider would pay me the €350 without any problems.

I was really pleasantly surprised: without any fees, I had my entire betting balance in my current account two days later.

I had made a profit of more than €150 because I had deposited €100 twice and now had €350.

I then played this game — just play the bonus and then cash out — with a good dozen betting companies — I lost my capital with some, but the winnings with the other betting companies exceeded the losses of the other accounts. I then realised during this game that you have to meticulously read and understand the bonus conditions of each betting provider. Because these differ from each other, and there are bonus conditions that are significantly worse than the bonus conditions I had read through at first.

Moreover, soon after I cleared my account, I received new offers -— such as betting offers where you would receive free bets or similar.

I always read through the terms and conditions, kept meticulous records, especially at the beginning, and made a profit of €800 by around October 2019.

I then decided to open a betting account, i.e., a current account into which I deposit play money once and from which — and only from which — I make my deposits and withdrawals to betting providers. I transferred €1,000 “play money” to my betting account, which I was prepared to lose, and from then on, I became increasingly interested in sports betting, especially in football.

I studied the promotions pages of the betting providers intensely, had lengthy chats with the hotlines if the conditions were not clear to me, and started to become a real betting enthusiast. Via the promotions, I then also tried my hand at sports I didn’t really know at all: tennis, American football, basketball, etc….

It was in the already advanced 2016/17 football season that I first came across a promotion that is particularly interesting when betting on favourites. Calculating the value of this promotion was not so easy, I used a spreadsheet programme and calculated different betting variants of the promotion. I calculated that with this promotion you can expect a long-term profit of about 10%, ideally even 15%, of your stake.

I started placing bets with this promotion and kept a record of it. I was very interested to see if my expected value would actually be the mentioned 10 to 15% in reality. I was disappointed because the theoretical calculation of my expected value was way off the results of my bets.

No, the average profit in the long term was not 10 to 15% as I had calculated in theory, but it was a positive value of about 40% of the bets on average. Yes, you read correctly: For every €100 I had bet on my favourite combinations day after day with this promotion, I made a profit of about €40 on average — in the long term, of course.

How could I explain this? Was it pure coincidence that I won so much — contrary to all theory? No, I had placed too many bets for that. I could rule that out.

Had my expertise played a role in predicting the sports bets? No, the teams that appeared on my betting slips were partly clubs from the Italian and English leagues, which I had only known by name before.

Had I made a mistake in my calculations? I checked all the calculations I had made with a spreadsheet programme once again. Everything was correct here as well, and I found no errors in the rather complicated formulas I had programmed.

This is, when I concluded in the style of Sherlock Holmes2: If you excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Inspired by the promotion and my previously made calculations for combination bets, I bet on favourites only and won more than a promotion would theoretically allow me to expect. So, the favourites are apparently given odds by the betting providers, that result in a positive probable value for the bettor, i.e., “odds that are too high”. I was in a real celebratory mood at this realisation and relentlessly expanded my strategy: I looked for more betting providers who offered this promotion and had resounding success.

By Easter 2017, my accounts were growing pretty consistently by €300-500 per week. I had over €9,000 at Easter 2017 when I added up the accounts of the various betting providers, the value of bets that had not yet been placed and my play money in my current account.

And then came a downright horrific weekend!

I had — which had become quite normal for me — more than 40 bets of about €50 each with favourite combinations that had not yet expired. I lost ALL my bets in one weekend! It was more than €2,000 that I lost during a single weekend. My capital plummeted from over €9,000 to about €7,000.

“It was bound to happen,” I thought to myself, and fell back into my old way of thinking: “These betting providers are all criminals!”

But after I had slept on it for a night and researched the results the next morning, I came to the following conclusion: No, there was not a single mistake on behalf of the betting providers. All the bets had been settled correctly.

The loss was all on me.

But what had I done wrong? Nothing at all! It was a normal “rare event” that can happen! Things can just go completely wrong when you bet. I simply had “bad luck” that weekend, and that’s just the way it is with gambling, no matter how good the strategy.

With this realisation, I continued to bet. And won again with my old system. By the end of the season in summer 2017, I had over €10,000 in my account.

I had increased my capital tenfold within about 7 months. I never managed to do that on the stock market.

The first betting providers contacted me and blocked me.

Either my account was closed completely — at least for sports betting, the casino was still accessible to me — the bets that had not yet been placed were still settled and the amount in my betting account was transferred to my checking account without any problems. With other betting providers, I was completely excluded from promotions.

At another betting provider, I was only allowed to place bets with a maximum stake of €1.

Yet another betting provider forbade me to place combination bets in general. As soon as I tried to place a combination bet, there was an error message in the system, and I was asked to place only single bets.

I asked the betting providers for the reason why I was being blocked. Each betting provider referred me to their general terms and conditions and said that they could exclude players without giving a reason!

So, I looked for new betting providers with this promotion and found them: Some betting providers granted the same bonus system not for football bets, but for American events such as ice hockey (NHL) or American football (NFL). In doing so, I transferred my findings about the excessive odds on the favourites from the 2016/17 football season to the NFL and the NHL and bet on the favourites with the same promotion. And suffered a terrible setback! Once again, I lost a four-figure amount.

With this experience, I reversed my system and no longer bet on the favourites in the NFL, but on the underdogs — and won back my loss.