When sports bettors make a moneyline wager, they are betting on the outright winner of the event, without taking the point spread into consideration. Moneyline wagering odds are posted on Major League Baseball, NFL and from the rest of the 5 popular betting sports at most Las Vegas and online sportsbooks. There are still favorites and underdogs, but instead of being handicapped or assisted by head starts or what is called point spreads, the competitors are given odds to win the game or event.

Let’s look at an NFL game where the New Orleans Saints are favorites against the Atlanta Falcons. The odds might look like this:

Saints -150
Falcons +130

If you bet on the Saints, you’ll have to risk $150 to win $100 (or any other variation like $75 to win $50 or $300 to win $200). If you bet on the Falcons, however, you stand to win $130 for every $100 you wager. If the final score of the game is tied, the wager will be graded “Push” and your money will be refunded.

Commission varies from 5 dollars for every $100 wagered up to 20 dollars on every $100 wagered on moneyline bets. It can even be higher if there is a wide price range between the betting favorite and underdog. Bettors should always check the terms and conditions posted at sportsbooks to look for the cutoff points on a 10 or 20 cents line before extra commission is added. A Las Vegas sports bettor may see a heavy favorite priced on the money line at -450 with the return varying between +375 and +350 on the heavy betting underdog. The best practice followed by professional sports bettors is to shop for the best odds and payouts for their betting side at the online or Las Vegas sportsbooks. Las Vegas and online sportsbooks all use very clever terms to describe their commission rate. To describe their commission sportsbooks often describe it as 10 cent or a 20-cent line. Cents sound cheap and its done to keep the commission rate irrelevant in the mind of a novice bettor. In reality 10 or 20 cents is the commission rate on a $1 single bet. A bettor who makes a $100 bet on a game at a 10 cents line is playing into a $10 line or if they are at an establishment that charges a 20-cent line is betting into a $20 line. Sports bettors can calculate the sportsbooks commission by viewing both the favorite and underdogs current prices. Here is an example of betting on a 10 cents line from Major League Baseball:

LA Dodgers +120
NY Mets -130

Had this been a 20 cents line the difference it would look like the following:

LA Dodgers +115
NY Mets -135

As you can see in the 20 cents model the underdog bettor is getting a smaller return for his $100 bet while the favorite bettor must put up 5 dollars more for every $100 returned on a winning bet. Over time this can add up for the professional bettor and that’s why a listener to sports betting radio shows will often hear the professional harp over and over how important it is to shop for the best number and to bet at Las Vegas or online sportsbooks that offers the sports bettor the best odds and charge the least amount of commission. A best practice followed by professionals is to track current odds for online or Las Vegas sportsbooks on the internet and not to get trapped into playing into a bad number at a bad price. Technology has impacted the industry as handheld internet devices have entered the professional bettors hands. The popular Apple IPhone and Verizon Storm allows users to browse the internet at fast speeds throughout their journey’s to Las Vegas sportsbooks to make bets. Since Las Vegas casinos are spread throughout the city professional will track live odds and place his or her bets at the location giving the professional gambler the best value.

Value and fair pricing

The are many factors which have to be taken into consideration when placing a bet on a football event, no matter if fixed odds, Asian handicap, over/under or any other bet.

The general question you should ask yourself before placing a bet should be: What about the odds?

Odds are without any doubt the most important and deciding factor about your football betting results, no matter if you are betting on pro football picks, basketball, horseracing or anything else. It’s a proven fact of life that every event to happen has a certain chance of occurring.

Getting value on a simple coin flip

As an easy example we can start with a traditional coin-throw:
Throwing a coin, the chance for one side to drop on top is exactly 50% as there are only two sides of the coin. Given a huge number of throws, the result will get closer to a 50/50 situation.

Going on about this example, we start with the following: What’s the fair price for a coin-throw? Exactly, odds 2.00.

By dividing 1 / 0.5 (for 50%), we get a fair price of 2.00 for this situation. As a matter of fact, we should not bet in a coin-throw for a lower price than 2.00, as this would create negative value for our side. We would lose on long-term for sure. If you find somebody who offers a coin throw to you providing a price of 2.10 for example, the bet get valuable for you. The price offered in comparison to the real probability for a win (still 50%) is too high by 5% (2.10 / 2.00) - that’s what we call value. By staking on this valued price, you will end up achieving a return of investment of 5% in long-term.

Finding value on a football game

What has a coin throw to do about football betting? Probably much more than you initially thought. The situation given in a football game is actually pretty similar to this coin throw. Every team has a certain chance to win / not to lose / to lose (1 X 2) and you will find odds for every of this events.

Your job should be from now to estimate the probability for a team to win and compare it to the prices offered. By creating your own fair odds (1 / % to win), you will be able to determine whether to take a bet or to pass.

To enhance your winning chances and only end up in a Win / Lose situation (excluding the draw), I would advice you to focus on the Asian handicap market.

Asian handicaps

Football betting on Asian handicaps is (as the name indicates) very popular in the Asian areas, although getting more and more popular in the European market as well. In the world of Asian handicap, every team gets an advantage / disadvantage over the opponent. Due to this handicap, the price range is usually between 1.75 and 2.25.
Bookmaker odds on Barcalona vs. Real Madrid

An example of Asian handicap price offered: Barcelona hosts Real Madrid in La Liga and you are able to find a half-ball handicap. Pricing looks like the following:

Barcelona 2.00 | 0: ½ | 2.00 Real Madrid (Asian handicap -0.50 on Barcalona and +0.50 on Real Madrid)

(This example excludes the bookmakers’ margin; therefore both prices are 2.00, just to make this example easier to understand.)

According to the bookmaker, Barcelona has 50% to win this game (1 / 2.00 = 0.5). For getting the probability reflected by the odds, just divide 1 through the odds offered and you will get your percentage in a decimal number.

At the same time, this means Real Madrid has 50% not to lose (or to win / draw) in this fixture.
Set your estimations and calculate the value

After checking all news and stats about this bet, you have to create your own estimations now. By short, this means, how probable is the home win, a draw, or an away win. At the beginning, this is for sure quite a hard task, but it will get easier after a couple of months / years of experience.

For our example, we now take the following numbers:

Home win: 45%
Draw: 30%
Away win: 25%

Now the odds check:
Barcelona to win priced at 2.00 - our probability and our price: 45% & 2.22
Real Madrid not to lose priced at 2.00 - our probability and our price: 55% & 1.82

Assuming your estimation is correct or at least close to reality, the price you can get on Real Madrid not to lose is definitely too high. This bet’s fair price according to your own estimation is 1.82 but you can find 2.00 on the market. This creates a value of 10% (2.00 / 1.82) and it’s a valuable bet for you.

By creating estimations and numbers for games, you will get an edge over the market and find valuable bets. Usually, underdogs are quite underrated by the market, as the majority of people will tend to back the so-called big guns without thinking about their winning chances compared to the odds offered.

Important factors for football betting
This should be your first step to football betting on a professional level. Still of course there are many other factors which have to be taken into consideration generally before deciding to place a bet or not. Here is a short list of some of the most important facts about deciding to place a bet:

1. How much value does the price offered by the bookmaker include?

2. How big is your chance not to lose a bet?

3. Will the price rise before kick-off / how probable is it that the majority of the people will continue to bet on the big favourite?

1. How much value: Generally spoken, I would advice you not to take bets including lower than 7% value. 7% value means you have only a couple of points in your estimation left for being wrong. By taking bets lower than 7% value included, you risk quite a lot as you assume your estimation is a 100% correct - which will never be the case.

2. Chance not to lose: I would advice you not to take bets with a lower chance of not losing than 60% or not winning of 50%. This value theory may still work, but your risk increase while your hit rate will decrease by taking for example 10.00 priced value bets.

3. Rising prices: A rule I quite often follow is to wait just before kick-off when placing a bet on a big outsider. Usually the market moves towards the big favourite and you might be able to grab 5-10% higher odds than to the early market.

In the old days, how does one play blackjack and earn huge money? They do this by going to a casino, where the stakes are high and you can win huge amounts to last you a few days if you are lucky. However, there is now a new way of playing blackjack and is now more convenient than ever. This third method is to play live blackjack online or through the Internet.

But the question still remains: Is playing live blackjack online truly worth your time more than it is playing in a casino? To answer that question, let us look at the possible advantages that you can enjoy when playing a game of blackjack online.

The Advantages of Playing Blackjack Online

You enjoy anonymity. The main advantage of doing anything online is anonymity. To the online blackjack website, you are just an IP address and a betting value. There is no need to reveal your true identity perhaps except you make an investment using your credit card, yet that goes through a secure channel as well.

It is generally safer. There is a risk connected with paying online because of the danger that you might be hacked. However, it is generally safer to do so because you don’t need to carry around a lot of cash like you do when playing blackjack in a casino. You can enjoy the safety of paying with your credit card and without leaving the security of your own home when playing live blackjack online.

It works the same as a game of blackjack in the real world. There is no change in the rules of blackjack whether you play live blackjack offline or play live blackjack online. In both cases, a live dealer hands out cards to you and other players. This live dealer can be viewed through a live feed, but they don’t have to see you.

Some websites let you play for free. It is true that you can play a game of blackjack online for free. This is particularly useful if you’re trying to test your luck before you make a considerable deposit and bet. The websites let you play by issuing you chips that are without value, but are still usable in the table. If you run out of chips, you can simply log out and play again with a replenished supply of void chips. You could say that you can mitigate the risks before making an investment in a game of live blackjack online.

Anyone can play a game, at anytime. Since you don’t have to physically go to a casino and hope there is a space in the blackjack tables, you can play blackjack anytime you want. You can play blackjack while having a break at your own home, or when you simply feel bored.

As you could see, there are several advantages that you can enjoy when playing live blackjack online compared to having to physically go to a casino and play. If you are someone who values convenience together with the safety of your money, then a game of blackjack through the Internet might turn out to be your cup of tea.

When people first hear about trading Contracts for Difference it is not uncommon for gambling to be associated in the same conversation. Today we going to have a look at the opportunities that trading Contracts for Difference presents and remove the idea of gambling from your vocabulary altogether.

Do you trade CFDs like a gambler?

The reality is you could trade CFDs like a gambler by trading at excessive levels of leverage. If you trade your account at more than 7 to 10 times your account size then I would suggest you are gambling. This means if you had a $10,000 account and you took total positions of $70,000-$100,000 then you are leveraged way too high.

You see the product of CFDs is only as risky as the person who was trading the account. For example, you could trade your $10,000 CFD account and have total positions that do not exceed 2 to 3 times your account size and this for many would-be trading well within their means. The trick with CFDs is to start very small and build your way up.

Make sure you are trading a positive expectancy trading system

A positive expectancy trading system simply means that for every dollar you risk you expect to make that dollar back and earn a little bit more. You see the casino is very smart and they have a number of positive expectancy games that are in favour of the casino and not the person playing. This means that the longer you play at the casino the more you should expect to lose.

When it comes to trading the way to remove the gambling like nature is to ensure you have a positive expectancy trading system. This is the one element that differentiates trading from gambling at the casino or the racetrack.

Can you afford not to become the casino owner?

Over time, your goal as a trader is to develop several positive expectancy trading systems enabling you to trade different market types over different time frames enabling you to in effect be the casino owner with several casino games. This will ensure your long-term profitability and enable you to reduce your drawdown’s considerably.

Tips from taxi drivers will not suffice

Another way to identify whether your CFD trading business is gambling or not is to work out if your trading tips are coming from taxi drivers, gym instructors or next-door neighbours. If the majority of your entry signals are generated from hot tips then it’s probably a fair indication that you don’t have a trading plan.

Spend quality time developing a robust trading plan

When you first starting out it is important in any business to have a well laid out and clearly defined business plan and trading is no different. When building your CFD trading plan you need to take into account your entry, exit, risk management strategies and run through several possible contingencies that could happen.

As you can see creating success with CFDs is a result of building a sensible trading plan and ensuring you have a positive expectancy trading system.

The following is a short list of rules or etiquette, that should be observed whenever playing poker, whether it be in a live scenario or online:

• Always be Polite - Never disparage other players by calling them names or by ridiculing their play. Always try to be a gentleman (or gentle lady).
  
• Discard Hands Respectfully - When you muck your hand, always do it in a professional manner. Never toss your cards at the dealer in an overly-aggressive manner, and never toss your cards towards your opponents. Obviously, this rule does not apply when playing online.
  
• Burning Cigarettes/Food are Bad News - Never place burning cigarettes or cigars on the poker table, as you do not want the ashes to get on the table or the cards. Moreover, never blow smoke in another player’s direction. Similarly, avoid placing food and drink on the poker table.
  
• Never Expose Hole Cards - When discarding your hand, never expose your 2 Hole Cards - this is poor sportsmanship. If you are playing online, refrain from divulging them through the interactive chat facility.
  
• Tip Dealer during Tournament Wins - For live tournaments, make sure to tip the dealer, if you wind up winning money. Usually, they are low-paid personnel.
  
• Do Not Use Profanity - Refrain from using foul language at the table, and if playing online, refrain from using such language in the game’s chat mode.
  
• Time Bathroom Visits - If you need to take a restroom break, try not to do it when you are in the small or large blind, because the dealer will take the appropriate amount of chips out of your stack, should you do so. This will result in a loss of chips, without you even being able to be in the hand.
  
• Never Reveal Opponents’ Discarded Hands - Do not ever turn over a player’s discarded hand. This is extremely taboo, and should never be considered. Similarly, while playing online, never ask an opponent to reveal his hand after a game.
  
• Treat Dealer with Dignity - In a live game, never abuse a dealer by cursing at them or blaming them for your horrid hands. They strictly deal cards, and are never to blame for the cards you get, or how you play your hands.
  
• Never use Underhanded Mechanisms to Win - Always be honorable; never stoop to underhanded behavior. Always be ethical.
  
• Never Educate During a Game - While playing, do not offer education or critique of play, to any of your opponents. If you feel a need to do so, always take care of this after the match is over, assuming that they are amenable to receiving such information.