How to Calculate the Break Even Point for Spreads and Totals
from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can EditAt first glance, it may seem that your hometown friend is giving you comparable odds to Las Vegas style of sports betting. All this is not as it appears, simply do the math by putting in numbers to compare your local odds vs those in Nevada.
Steps
- Know what your friend is offering you. To win $100 you bet $100, but if you lose you owe your friend $120.
- Know what Nevada offers you. To win $100 you bet $110.
- Examine these two propositions.
- In the first case you win even money, but pay 20% more if you lose. It seems like the 20% is spread over winning and losing and equals just 10%.
- In the second case, you have to pay 10% more to win $100. You might conclude that these two propositions are equal.
- Do the math.
- With your friend, you have to win 54.545 out on 100 bets to break even. 54.545% X $100 = 45.454% X 120. With your friend you have to win more than 54.5% of the time to break even.
- In Nevada, you have to win 52.38 out of 100 bets to break even on their 110/100 proposition. 52.38% X $100 = 47.62% X $110.
- Look at the win percentages of successful professional gamblers. Their number are between 55% - 60%. With work or school demands you cannot achieve their win rates. Do not believe the tipsters with win-rates of 70%. Take the advice of authors with a background in finance, math (especially statistics) or computer programming and an established reputation. There are successful sports bettors without that heavy academic bent but they are doing their research and spend long hours at their craft. Experience is a hard teacher, quantification of thoughts (put a percentage number on Jets should win or Boise State will cover the spread) and doing the math will bring better results for most people.
- Note what they call big sports bettors - whales. They bet enormous sums of money because at the end of the season they will have just a small amount of wins over losses. Conclude that their win percentage is not very high. In blackjack, your average bet is smaller than your football bets because you make more bets in a weekend than you do in a season.
- Compare the win percentage, to break even in Nevada, to your hometown friend - 52.4% to 54.5% respectively. A 2.1 percent win-rate difference is huge. Only a hard working and intelligent sports punter can correctly win 55% consistently.
- Make small bets with your hometown friend offering you 6/5 odds and save your big bets for Nevada where you have a good chance of breaking even or winning. Develop your handicapping to where you can break even (or better) in you hometown and you will demolish the Nevada sports books on your vacations there. It is statistically baseless, but Lady Luck seems to often hook novices into the fast money of gambling, by smiling on them at the beginning of their sports-betting adventure with a streak of wins in the 70% range. However, by working hard, and achieving a high win rate, your bankroll fluctuations will be smaller and you will have more of those long, win streaks.
- Review math (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions), probability and algebra and apply this to the other bets like parlays. Choosing the right bet is your first decision. Study handicapping. Do the math, do not come to conclusions by superficial analysis.
Tips
- The equation for the break even point for 6/5 below also works for 110/100. Where x = the break even percentage: 6x = 5 (1 - x).
- The win-rate, for great gamblers, being in the 55% - 60% range is for the wagers that are strong. Any wager with a win-rate over 52.38%, such as 52.5%, has a positive expectation and should be made but you should expect more variance in your bankroll. If you are a generous tipper, do not put in these marginal bets, or refrain from tipping, because your tips will be greater than the average value of your bet.
Warnings
- A casino in Las Vegas gives out lollipops to parlay bettors because these bets are "sucker bets". The goodness of your fellow man is evident, take heed and achieve your goals with good bets. Develop a deep understanding and do the math.
- Follow money management guidelines. Although spread betting offers the lowest disadvantage, you must have the iron discipline and endurance to weather the inevitable perfect storms of huge ups and downs. Do not martingale and increase your bets when you lose. Bet for the long haul, think in the long term.
Sources and Citations
- John Fergusen aka Sanford Wong has a great website on this subject.
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