Reporting from an over-priced coffee mega-chain (not that one) (or that one), Northern Ireland…
Hi,
“You do know the earth is flat, don’t you?”
“Umm, I’m not sure I do, but go on”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Mount Rushmore”
“Mount Rushmore?”
“Yeah, Mount Rushmore. It’s proof. It was built to hide the evidence”
“Righto. I’m going to grab a kebab and head home now anyway. Nice chatting to you.”
The above was a conversation I had outside a north London pub of questionable repute. For clarity, I was the kebab getter.
This madness is costing you money
Conspiracy theories can be fun. They can also – on rare occasions – contain some small element of truth. However, by and large, they are both ridiculous and costly.
Vaccines have side effects, sometimes fatal, I get it. But, if you refuse to have your kids vaccinated against measles, for example, you are a selfish fool. The benefits of vaccines undoubtedly outweigh the negatives.
This email is not a rally against people like Robert F. Kennedy however, but rather a wakeup call when it comes to bookie offers…
Because one of the current conspiracy theories I see regularly repeated, is the common refrain whenever a bookie ‘super boost’ is downed.
“Denise* knew”
“They must have had word from the yard”
“Bookies make the rules up as they go along**”
*Denise Coates is the owner of bet365
**Usually said when the bet is stats related, and a perceived shot or foul is not awarded as such
These comments are both daft and massively unhelpful.
Do we really think that jockeys/owners are deliberately throwing races (usually top-level Saturday or festival races) so that bet365 can make a few bob?
And do we really think that Opta*** (who have been around before player stats betting markets were even a thing) fiddle their recording of statistics to benefit SkyBet?
***Bookies do not make up player stat rules as they go along. They settle markets based on Opta stats.
The truth
The truth of the matter is much more boring…
‘Super boosted’ bets (and to be clear, I’m referring to bets where the boosted price is bigger than the exchange lay price) ARE good betting value and you WILL make money betting them blindly long-term.
They exist as ‘loss leaders’ – bookies think they’ll make more money on repeat business than they’ll give away by throwing us some boosted bones.
That said, lots of these great value bets will still lose.
This is because bets that have a true chance of winning of 50, 60, 70% will still lose 50, 40 or 30% of the time.
Get. Over. It.
It’s no grand conspiracy. The elites are not out to get you.
Fact is that right now, if you have a few of the major bookie accounts (bet365 SkyBet, Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook to name a few), it’s really bloody easy to make a profit by blindly backing the boosts that seem to be all the rage at present.
Do it. Make money. Spend money on nice things.
You could even treat yourself to a night at the pub, a shish kebab and a side of red-hot flat earth gossip.
