My moneyspinner?

Tiesto

Hi all.
I just had a brainwave there.
Seen its pay day today, I was thinking of using a couple of hundred quid and putting it on bets with even odds or something close to..
For the next week or so make a bet everyday and see how it goes..
Id prefer to bet on footie games.
But open to anything really..
Anyone got any recommendations for me?

Cheers

zuutroy

Bit of a strange request. Do you just want to throw some money on 50/50 bets for fun? Are you asking for tips? I think most people here will tell you that in the long run you're wasting your time taking stabs in the dark on football matches. Use all of the stats you can find before picking your bets and then decide if you think the odds are good value if you want to give yourself an edge.

hotspur

Tiesto wrote:

Anyone got any recommendations for me?

Don't sell your cow for magic beans.

Bateman

hotspur wrote:

Don't sell your cow for magic beans.

Specialise; stick to something you know, and study study study. If only I had the discipline.

5starpool

If you want to do that, then go to a casino once a day and place your bet on red/black on roulette. This isn't a 50/50, but then again neither is an even money shot at the bookies. The house always have an edge.

imeatingchips

Tiesto wrote:

Hi all.
I just had a brainwave there.

I want in!!

haha only kidding gamblor!!

This time next week you'll be posting a tale of woe entitled:

Seemed like a good idea at the time

zuutroy

5starpool wrote:

This isn't a 50/50, but then again neither is an even money shot at the bookies.

Another interesting point is that even if you do find a genuine 50/50 bet, staking a fixed % of your bank will actually guarantee you a loss of 2% in the long run.

Aedh Baclamh

Was surprised to see that for the penalty shoot out tonight Liverpool were 2.06 and Chelsea were 1.93 on Betfair.

hotspur

Cech would have been expected to outperform Reina.

bohsman

zuutroy wrote:

Another interesting point is that even if you do find a genuine 50/50 bet, staking a fixed % of your bank will actually guarantee you a loss of 2% in the long run.

Explain, say we toss a coin 1million times at 1$ a pop starting with $1m each, we will both lose 2%?

zuutroy

bohsman wrote:

Explain, say we toss a coin 1million times at 1$ a pop starting with $1m each, we will both lose 2%?

Sorry, I didn't give the full story. Its explained well here:

http://www.cormactech.com/neunet/mars1.html

link originally posted by Robin1982 in another thread

hotspur

Zuutroy I think you are slightly misunderstanding that material. My reading of it does not lead to your conclusion even if I accept the material to be accurate, which I do not (though not because I see flaws, merely because it is not referenced, found, or regarded anywhere else).

zuutroy

I think the part below is fairly straightforward though my stats knowledge isn't great. Dont see how I could misunderstand it. Surely if there's no basic flaws in a simple logical argument you have no reason to discount it?

MARS wrote:

Now let us consider a more realistic game. Suppose we flip a coin, and we get R of 1.2 for heads and R of 0.8 for tails. After a million flips, we can be quite certain that we have obtained ½ heads and ½ tails.
Overall return for a million flips:
[1.2 * 1.2 * 1.2 * ...(½ million times)] * [.8 * .8 * .8 * ...(½ million times)]
= [1.2^500,000] * [.8^500,000]
Notice that the actual order of the wins and losses has no has no effect on the overall return. The average return per flip is the one millionth root of the above overall return.
Average return per flip:
[1.2^500,000 * .8^500,000](1/1,000,000)
= [1.2^.5] * [.8^.5]
Which comes to 0.98.

imeatingchips

If you get a return of 1.2 for heads and 0.8 for tails then it's 60/40 and not a "genuine 50/50 bet".

Even so, I can't fugure out why they multiply 1.2 * 1.2 * 1.2 ... etc growing the result exponentially and then get the aquare root of it again? I sthat not over complicating it? I mean, if I flipped a coin and got 1.2 for heads and 0.8 for tails (assuming, like in their example, that after a million flips I've got 50% heads 50% tails) by my remedial sums I'd still have one million:

0.8 X 500,000 = 400,000
1.2 X 500,000 = 600,000

---

= a cool million

Am I being a complete dunce and missed something here? If I was a betting man (and I am) I would bet on these professors of math getting it right and me ballsing it up.

If you were a laying man (and you are) what odds would you give me that I'm right for this example and they're wrong?

zuutroy

imeatingchips wrote:

If you get a return of 1.2 for heads and 0.8 for tails then it's 60/40 and not a "genuine 50/50 bet".

It's still a 50/50 bet of course, but you get a 20% return for a win, and lose 20% for a loss thats all. As for the rest....bah, now I'm confused...luckily, I've got a statistician sitting 50 from me...time to get the answer.

Crumbs

In that MARS equation example, all winnings are accumulated to the next bet - that's why all the 1.2s and 0.8s are multiplied. But as imeatingchips said, it's over complicated. You get the same result from just doing sqrt(1.2 * 0.8).

The example is nothing to do with a 50/50 bet. The numbers 1.2 and 0.8 were picked to show a decaying return.

Eg. €100 plus 20% = €120.
€120 less 20% = €96.

If you use the numbers 1 and 1 instead, you'll get an answer of 1.

imeatingchips

zuutroy wrote:

It's still a 50/50 bet of course, but you get a 20% return for a win, and lose 20% for a loss

aye, I know what you mean.

I reckon to most people though, a 50/50 bet would mean a price of evens (2.0 on betfair) and when you win you double up (i.e. your stake plus your stake again) and when you lose you get lose your stake.

The real world chance of the outcome may or may not be 50% though ... but even it it was, like with the hypothethical coin flip (which'd have to be completely symmetrical coin too I spose?) - you'd expect that you'd get nothin when you hit tails and double up when you hit heads.

so maybe that's why it's not working out properly

edit: fixed typo

zuutroy

imeatingchips wrote:

you'd expect that you'd get nothin when you hit tails and double up when you hit heads.

so maybe that's why it's not working out properly

Yep, crumbs pretty much solved is above. If you have any number between 1 and 2 as you return, and that number -1 as your loss, you'll always decay on a 50/50 bet.

imeatingchips

aha Crumbs stikes again. You never fail to impress with your genius.

Have you managed to tweak the Crumbs System 3000 TM yet???? Let me know if you do!

Best thread ever to anyone who hasn't seen it: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054949095