https://oddsjam.com/

Alex is here to share his thoughts on why 99.9% of bets are NOT profitable. Sportsbooks are here to make money and people do not know how to bet.

When looking at a roulette table, there are 38 total outcomes on the board. If you are playing roulette and betting on red, you are winning 18/38 times. When betting on red vs black, you are getting +100 odds. Your win probability for winning on red in roulette is 47.4%. You are losing 52.6% of the time when betting red. The expected value of this bet is negative. You should never play roulette because it is not profitable. You are not getting a fair price in this game.

For sports betting, you can bet on total points, point spreads, player props, etc. Most of these bets on the sportsbooks are not good either. These books are trying to make money off of bettors as well. The standard “juice” or “vig” is -110. When books are giving you -110 on both sides, both outcomes have a 50% chance of hitting. If you take the “vig” out, the fair odds should be +100. When betting on -110, you have to bet $110 to win $100. Sportsbooks make money by charging “vig”.

Sportsbooks are unique because they want to offer different odds than other books. If you want to bet with books with better odds, you would need to create an account with that book. With different books, there can be line discrepancies and this creates some arbitrage betting opportunities. As a sports bettor, you can still make money.