Settlements

It does seem worthwhile to me to devote a separate chapter to this topic. There are too many people who either ask me if I do it or, when I tell them that I do it occasionally, ask what it is all about. And others perhaps ask whether it might not be a business idea to do it only on settlements.

As usual, however, we first have to explain or define exactly what we mean by settlement.

1) Definition of “settlement

Basically, a settlement can be understood as selling all or part of a bet that is already in progress. The effect that one intends to achieve with this, also in principle, is to reduce the “swing” on a bet. The swing, as explained more precisely elsewhere, is the difference between profit and loss. So if you have a swing of, say, 4000 euros before a settlement, you will have a smaller swing afterwards. It can go down to 2000 euros, or, in theory at least, you can take it out completely, i.e. set the swing to 0 euros. But with other settlements you can also create different, new exits that distribute the swing differently.

A settlement is therefore very often a bet that one makes out of fear or also for reasons of reason, but whose main goal is not to make an advantage bet, but to “get out” of an already running bet partially or also completely. You are out when the swing is 0. Because then nothing distinguishes you as a gambler from the rest of the population. The outcome is indifferent in financial terms.

A settlement does not always have to secure a profit. You can also place a bet with a loss every now and then. You no longer like the bet, you have speculated or it is simply too high. You play a part on the opposite side and thus take out swing. The German term most similar to a settlement is “Versicherung” (insurance). It does not quite fit, but can be used here and there. The difference is that an “insurance” is generally made with a disadvantage. This need by no means be the case with a settlement. As described in the chapter “A streak” — where in a backgammon tournament two players who are not yet in the money but have come a long way want to secure some money — one can also settle together with the opponent in special cases and there it is a matter of negotiation. One can then either profit oneself or the opponent profits or the agreement is simply fair and mutually agreeable. One has settled but not necessarily insured. In that case, the term “secured” would be the better one.

2) Explanation of the term “sure bet

A “sure bet” is a bet in which one wins money on all possible outcomes of an event or is at least at par, i.e. loses nothing. This highly desirable effect can possibly be achieved if two different providers pay such different odds on the same event that one can choose the betting levels in such a way that one is guaranteed to have a money result greater than or equal to 0 on every outcome.

To take a small numerical example, I give here a single game with the corresponding 1-X-2 odds from two different providers. So we have a match from the Bundesliga, which is 1.C Köln – Borussia Dortmund. Here are the odds that two different providers are prepared to pay for it:

			1	X	2
1.FC Köln	Borussia Dortmund	2.60	3.00	2.60	110.26%
			2.00	3.00	3.80	109.65%
Maximum			2.60	3.00	3.80	98.11%

The providers have extremely divergent assessments. You can see that every single provider has calculated a profit for their own odds. The figures of 110.26% and 109.65% are the so-called “odds average”, which represents the profit that the individual provider would ideally win when betting on all three chances. This figure can be calculated as the sum of the reciprocals of these three numbers.

However, things look different if we look at the “Maximum” line. There the maximum values on the 3 chances are given and when adding up the reciprocals a 98.11% appears. This number is less than 100% and that means, from the provider’s point of view, that he will get back less than 100%. This 1.89% at 100% would be your profit. But this is only the case if you choose the amount cleverly.

If you should ever have the favourable opportunity to have such an offer in front of you, I can gladly provide you with the arithmetic operation with which you can then also perfectly and safely “pocket” this 1.89%. And even the thought that such gigantic deviations no longer exist today is not entirely correct. You can use these considerations here and there, at least for live betting. But more about that later. Here are the very simple calculation instructions:

		Reciprocals
	1	X	2
	0.38	0.33	0.26
		Stakes
calculated on	1	X	2	Total Stakes
€1,000.00	€384.62	€333.33	€263.16	€981.11
Payout	€1,000.00	€1,000.00	€1,000.00

So we simply calculate the reciprocals of the maximum odds offered. Then we calculate the stakes based on the desired payout. So here in the example we want to get paid out €100 in all cases. Then we have to multiply the reciprocal of the odds on the home win by 1000. In the end, we bet on each reciprocal the amount calculated on the payout of 1000. So we have to bet 384.62 euros on the home win, 333.33 euros on the draw and 263.16 euros on the away win. Once we have done that, we can go to sleep and read the result later from the daily newspaper. The payout, as calculated in this way, is 1000 euros in all cases, while the total stake was only 981.11 euros, as shown in the sum of the stakes. So we made a net profit of 18.89 euros.

Actually not too bad for doing nothing. But to feed ourselves? If you now assume that you simply bet 10 times the amount on all the chances and then earn 189.90 euros, then this usually fails because of the amounts available on the betting accounts or because at least one of the two does not accept such a high amount. However, this is only the theory here…

3) Explanation of the term “arbitrage betting

Arbitrage betting” is only slightly different from a “sure bet”. Someone who engages in arbitrage betting tries to earn a living by making a large number of small sure bets. Arbitrage betting is the repeated use of sure bets as a basic business idea. However, you should at least have heard the term, as many who think they know something about it will soon rub it in your face and immediately want to be identified as experts. The terms have been explained, now a few more concrete considerations of their meaning in practice.

Let me summarise once more: Settling serves to reduce the swing from a bet. Ideally, it leads to a situation where you no longer have any swing at all, but a secured profit in all cases. This is the special case of the “sure bet”. “Arbitrage betting” describes the attempt to feed on sure bets in the long term.

4) A few basic considerations

The whole principle of betting with “favourable settles” or “sure bets”, i.e. the whole “arbitrage betting” has the following mental basis:

I try to find out whether different providers make such big mistakes that in the end I can live off one of them or possibly both. In doing so, the effort required is quickly described: Open a few betting accounts and then add up a few reciprocals. Then I have to talk to people in a friendly way so that they accept my bets over as long a period as possible. Although I also know that at least one of the two providers is making a big mistake, I don’t care. I don’t need to know that to make money anyway.

You may notice yourself with this formulation that this is a bit pathetic. Apart from the fact that the providers, even in earlier times, already knew that there were the then so-called “three-way players”, those who proceed exactly according to this principle and play all three sides. They are and were extremely unpopular. The supplier always said to himself: “What can he do? Nothing really. Adding up reciprocals. My son can do it in grade 5, but this guy wants to get rich off me? No thanks.”

So in principle, it’s a ridiculous and even more so, easily transparent one. On top of that, you definitely make yourself unpopular. After all, you have to ask the question “How much do you take on the game?” often enough. If the provider hears(s) something like that, then he knew who he was dealing with. Because players become “brave” when they have a “sure bet”. “Can’t I possibly play 1000 DM after all?”. That’s where the rabbit’s heart shows. As a provider, I would like to answer: “Yes, you can. But only if you don’t play the other side”. Because then the rabbit’s heart would slip down its own trousers very quickly.

So I never followed that. It’s obvious that there are mistakes. Especially when the odds differ so much that one could make a “sure bet”. I then manfully searched for the error (but not only in this case) and then boldly played the side with the error. Neither rabbit’s heart nor pants.

In fact, it is also the case that my method is mathematically more effective(even if only in the long run). Because: it remains the case that in the long run you can only win with advantage bets. If you play both sides (or, as above, all three sides), you reduce your own equity by probably playing one side at a disadvantage. This happens often enough. Because the cases where both sides make a small mistake are rather rare. Of course, you are happy to accept a bet with a disadvantage if you are going to win anyway. However, mathematically the equity is smaller (certainly this effect is partly compensated by the fact that with the certainty of playing both sides and always winning, one is naturally a little more courageous and possibly plays even higher).

But the one effect has not yet been considered. And that is that you have to play with two different providers. And you have to start with one of them. So if you have happily placed your bet with the first one and then you also want to bet with the other one, on exactly the opposite event, then it may be that the price has long since changed. You are simply left with one side, the high and not at all deliberately high bet. Unless, of course, one subsequently settles at a loss…

5) In the past – today

a. Theory in the past

First of all, a clear distinction must be made between the “good old days” and “today”. Today”, especially in a book, is always a somewhat questionable term. The betting market continues to develop and who knows what it will look like in 2020? You, holding the book in your hands right now, this year? The desire of every author must of course be to create his works in such a way that they are as timeless as possible, or at least can be read at any time. So in all places where I talk about “today’s” or “common” practice, I must always give the current date or at least the year. Besides, you can also follow how the work came into being and in which order I wrote my texts. That’s something too, isn’t it?

So today is 8 July 2009. “Earlier” is always valid and was (long) before. The Asian market finally “spilled over” with its tsunami wave from around 2000 and fundamentally changed the betting market. For me, “before” basically means the time before 2000. However, the networking of the world took place anyway through the “world wide web”, so that it was only a question of time when and how the betting market would finally change. That’s just what happened. The traditional betting offers were fundamentally overtaken by the Asian market simply through the ingenious invention of the “Asian handicap” (see also chapter “The Betting Market”). Live betting still made its entrance, just as ingeniously as was almost inevitably to be expected, also contributed decisively to the fact that nothing is as it used to be. Nevertheless, I will briefly examine settling from the earlier years. And the best way to do that is with an example.

Very early on, in 1990 to be precise, at the time of the World Cup, I had my first encounter with a really fascinating “sure bet”. It was the early days of betting in Germany and, above all, the providers themselves still made quite a few mistakes at that time. The bigger mistakes were mostly made when it came to long-term betting offers. The problem is that many providers simply didn’t have any real experience with this, because it wasn’t their daily bread. I also never learned anything about how an oddsmaker really created such betting offers (I only once had a kind of number juggler as a guest here, who more or less just “shook the numbers out of his sleeve”. When he was done with his work, we compared my computer numbers with his. The discrepancies were quite big. Was that my fault?). In any case, there were often hair-raising errors there, as one occasionally only noticed on closer inspection, however.

b. Theory today

The very mobile rates of today make it easier to apply the principle of abritrage betting. It is not the case, however, that at one point in time you would get very inconsistent prices from two different providers, so that you would have a sure profit. It is rather the case that the mobility of the prices ensures that one can buy a price at one point in time and sell it again at another point in time.

So here is a brief example: On Monday after the market opens, you bet on the Bundesliga games of a team with -0.5 goals, i.e. on a win, for odds of 2.0. In the course of the week, the price develops. It may even go up and down again, but on Saturday it changes towards the match in such a way that you can play the other side with +0.5 goals for 2.05. You can then “play back” the amount bet, for example, bet the 1000 euros from Monday on “Cologne wins” on Saturday on “Dortmund does not lose”. In one case, you would receive a payout of 2000 euros if Cologne wins, in the other case, if Cologne does not win, you would receive a payout of 2050 euros, all this for a 2000 euro bet. In other words, a “sure bet”.

In theory, this sounds quite simple. The problem is that it is difficult to foresee how the price will develop. Or to rephrase that: The art of this business would be to predict the price developments. So on Monday you already have your own assessment of the games. You have some team news that you hope to have “exclusively”. At least you can try to deduce something from the injured and suspended players. Or if you foresee any other positive or negative developments. It’s an art, but it can be a thoroughly rewarding art. A small problem remains that the amounts placed on both sides are blocked. Although the provider could already see that one is sure of a payout in both cases. But the rule here is: everything that is wagered is off the betting account.

So making that the only business principle doesn’t seem feasible to me either. It requires a lot of effort to foresee price developments well and to always react in time. You even have to accept that you might have to sell a side you bought in the hope of playing a falling price for an even worse price later on. That is, if the team news develops unfavourably overall. You then drop out of the bet and have taken a loss. These lost amounts must first be made up for with a number of good bets. If one now also takes into account that by blocking account credit one has to forego other, perhaps much more attractive bets, then the whole thing hardly seems feasible to me, i.e. in such a way that it earns one enough money to live on.

c. Practice 1 earlier

Anyway, at that time I had the opportunity with my partner Michael to place a bet of the following type: With one provider you could bet “Austria is eliminated in the preliminary round” and with the other “Austria reaches the quarter finals”. The odds we were offered at the time were like this: Elimination in the preliminary round for odds of 1.40 and on the other side the offer “Austria reaches the quarter finals” with odds of 4.50. If you apply our principle learned above for calculating the profit advantage and the stakes to this, you get the following figures:
The sum of the reciprocals of 1.40 and 4.50 is 0.7143 + 0.2222 = 0.9365. So we would have won 6.35% anyway if we had chosen the right amount. That sounds quite reasonable. But the clou of the matter: The event “Austria reaches the round of sixteen and is eliminated” was free. If that were to happen, you would have won both bets completely. That’s what I call “arbitrage”. That’s a whopping 100%!

By the way, even more interesting about the story is the solution, which had a special feature in this case: Since we were already aware at that time that you can only win with advantage bets, but this offer looked so tempting that you just had to bite into it regardless of such considerations, I asked Micha before the tournament started who he thought had made the mistake. And my computer had already given me the answer. Micha calculated for himself a little longer (only a few minutes) and answered: “In my opinion, both made a mistake.

And my result was exactly the same. For such bets, the following clearly applies: you have to bet both sides to maximise equity. The side effect that you then also win something in all cases and even everything in one case can only be regarded as “pleasing”. By the way, Austria was eliminated in the preliminary round. The smallest odds were won…
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d. Practice 2 earlier: Long-term bet settlement

Of course, this principle applies in the past as it does today. It’s just that not as many long-term bets are placed. In the very early days, before I really got into the betting business, I had already made such a favourable bet and then thought about settling it. The 1988 European Championship was over. I had won quite well, about DM 2000. Of course, I imagined that I had won it because of my expertise and my understanding of football. But it was probably more luck. Anyway, afterwards I left money in the SSP account to make a bet here or there.

And one of the first bets I thought of was an outsider’s tip. It was the bet “Steaua Bucharest will win the European Cup of Champions”. The competition was the predecessor of the Champions League. I got odds of 80.0 for Steaua. Today, I can hardly explain to myself how I came up with that. But I was certainly of the opinion that the teams from the Eastern Bloc were generally underestimated. And Steaua had even managed it once before, beating FC Barcelona on penalties in the final.

And indeed Steaua prevailed, round after round. And they actually reached the final. The opponents and overwhelming favourites: AC Milan. I had bet only 10 DM, so I was facing a possible win of 800 DM. And I still had a few weeks to think about a settlement. But I was relatively undaunted, especially since these 800 DM were still quite a small amount compared to my turnovers in Backgammon or Black Jack. Nevertheless, since it is a new business that you are running or intend to run, there are good reasons to place such a bet. One simply secures a profit, I still didn’t do it and AC Milan won the final 4-0.

e. Theory 2: Long-term bet settlement

Nevertheless, I will briefly show you how you could settle such a bet. The difference here is that you have placed a favourable long-term bet, and you have done so well in advance. Above, we have calculated quite short-term settlements with sometimes very small profits. Here things look different. Unfortunately, Steaua was not really accepted until the final. This meant, of course, that one also got only a rather small rate on Milan. The rate before the match on the event “Milan wins the cup” was 1.30. Nevertheless, a very good settlement would have been possible. It would have been enough to play 40 DM on Milan winning the cup. In case of a win I would be paid 52 DM, so I would have 12 DM net profit on this bet (52 – 40) and would have to deduct the 10 DM on Steaua winning the cup, as this would then be lost. The profit would only be DM 2, but still. One could not lose. That can also be psychologically important.

But now you can do a little arithmetic operation to set the bet in such a way that you no longer have a swing. The problem with that is that you actually want to watch the game and feel excitement. And, maybe one day you will realise that, that is really an important argument. Nevertheless, you can “set optimally”, so to speak. And you can at least acquire the tools for it.

At the moment we are exposed to a swing of 800 DM. If Steaua wins, we have +790 DM, if Milan wins -10 DM. We want to minimise this swing, i.e. set it to 0. The calculation is relatively simple. We want to bet so much on Milan’s victory that we have the same amount left as profit in both cases. We achieve this exactly if we bet so much on Milan that the payout is also 800 DM. So, simple calculation:

x * 1.3 = 800

Then we divide both sides by x.

x = 800 / 1.3 = 615.38

So we have to put on Milan wins the cup 615.38 DM. Obviously we now have a swing of DM 800 on both sides, because that is how we calculated the amount. But since we have the same swing on both sides, the swing is accordingly 0. We get back DM 800 in both cases. To calculate our profit, we only have to determine the total stake. And that is obviously DM 615.38 + DM 10, because the DM 10 on Steaua of course counts as a stake. So we have 625.38 DM stake and 800 DM payout, no matter what the outcome. That makes a net profit of 800 – 625.38 = 174.62 DM.

I have not done it, but such a settlement can be quite advisable. After all, one has made quite a profit for one’s original stake of only 10 DM, 17 times the money received.

f. Practice 3 today

I encountered something like this again, and it was only a few years ago today (2009). There was a new betting exchange that was planning a big entry into the betting business. We immediately had an account there with plenty of credit lines. But there were only a few other players, so the market there was by no means “solidified” yet. There were just a few abstruse betting offers. And if none of the (few) participants noticed this in time, we could buy up the bet. Something like that only works in an early period with few participants, because with many participants there would simply be someone in front of you.

Well, it was live Everton – Blackburn, English Premier League. We were watching the game live on Sky TV when suddenly Christian discovered this betting offer. A huge mistake with the new betting exchange, at least a gigantic deviation from the other providers. Christian immediately asked me what he should do. The course of the game so far was such that the right side, in my humble estimation, was Blackburn anyway. So I called out to him straight away: “Play the mistake first. And it’s on Blackburn.” Everton had not had a single scoring chance so far, it was already around the 40th minute. So Christian placed a bet on Blackburn not to lose. The bet was for 8,000 euros. We certainly wouldn’t have played that much if we hadn’t wanted to play the other side as well. The bets are always on “Waiting” for a few seconds on the betting exchanges before you get the confirmation.

This bet was on “waiting” exactly until Everton gained possession and launched an attack. Christian was now desperately trying to play the other side, i.e. Everton win. So Christian clicked Everton win. This bet was on “waiting.” Everton carried their attack and our bet was given the status “rejected”.

By the way, the game ended 1-0 to Everton. I always knew that “arbitrage betting” was not my business….

6) Live betting

When it comes to live betting, which has been on the rise in recent years, everything looks completely different. Basically, it remains the case that you can only win in the long term if the majority of your own bets are placed with an advantage. A settlement, which can also be a good insurance policy, can nevertheless bring certain advantages. To do this, however, one must once again distinguish between bets placed before the event and all bets placed live. I will examine this separately.

a. Bets placed before the event

It is very easy to place a bet on a match before it takes place, which you then watch live on television and which you then want to settle live in this or that way. The question that you often have to ask yourself is whether you have only placed the bet with the intention of settling it or whether you are simply watching the match live and would like to reduce the swing, be it with a positive or negative tendency.

Again, the cases can be further subdivided. There are the cases where you have an underdog or where you have a favourite. If you have an underdog, there is again the case where the team is leading, the game is tied or the underdog is trailing. The same is true for the favourite. You play him, he leads, he doesn’t lead or he’s even behind.

I’m only talking about the Asian market now. So the situation there is always that when you play a favourite, you have to make up goals, whereas when you play an underdog, you have to defend a goal lead. That is, as long as the underdog is not behind, the result is always favourable. With the favourite, you need the lead, as usual. Sometimes, however, you may only win if you win by more (the Asian handicap is explained in detail in the chapter “The Betting Market”). Nevertheless, a lead is of course favourable.

Obvious favourable betting situations are those in which your own team has achieved a favourable intermediate result. In other words, if you have an outsider and he is even leading or at least not trailing, or if you have the favourite and he is leading. So in these cases a settlement might be a good idea.

The best way to explain these things, as usual, is by example. So let’s assume we have played an underdog. And the underdog surprisingly takes the lead after 35 minutes, but the team also plays well. We had a very simple bet. So the underdog with +0.5 goals. This means that you always win when this team does not lose. Well, losing is a long way off after the opening goal. But you still think about a small settlement. You’re leading, you’ve made a good bet, but you don’t want to go away empty-handed. Then, in practice, there are a few strategies to secure the win.

One possibility, for example, is to simply play the favourite now. The handicap will probably still be -0.5. But this only means that the team would still have to win from this point and score. Furthermore, it would mean that if the final score was 1-1 or 2-2, i.e. a draw, both sides would win. The first bet on the underdog was survived as they saved the 0.5 goal lead over the finish line. The live bet on the favourite, however, was also won, as they still won from 0:1 onwards. That would be a so-called jackpot.

The only question is how high you should play live. You want to secure a win, but how much do you play? Surely there is the possibility of playing the entire amount, after 0:1, on the favourite. Since the rates are always in the order of 2.0, this means that one can virtually no longer lose. You can then come out at par, so to speak, or hit the jackpot. But the further question: is that desirable? And the subsequent one: Is there no better strategy?

I don’t find the effect desirable. Especially not because the swing has not been taken out at all. On the contrary, it has been increased. You can’t lose any more, and that’s why it seems attractive. But as a professional player, you always have a lot of bets to make anyway. It’s not about not having a loss on a bet. And the swing on the draw is even higher, because then you win both sides. That would be dreamlike, but it doesn’t achieve the effect of reducing the swing.

Therefore, I suggest as a possible strategy: You play half the bet on the favourite, live, at the pleasing intermediate score of 1:0 for the underdog, for your own team. First of all, this obviously reduces the swing. If the favourite still wins, you have at least won one of the two bets and not lost so much. If the favourite loses, you have also won one of the two bets. This time, however, you have won the higher of the two, so you win something, but not as much as you would have won if you had not bet. But you have a third outcome. And that is: The game ends in a draw. Both bets are completely won.

In any case, the swing is reduced because you can only lose half of the original amount. And there is a jackpot result where you win everything. And now comes the highlight of this type of settling: if you “play back” the favourite with half the stake live after your team has taken the lead, i.e. simply bet, then you can settle even more favourably if the favourite actually scores the equaliser. After the equalising goal, one stands on the jackpot result, so to speak. If the game stays like this, you would win everything. This also means that all the money you would win now is “free”. You can now use any part of it again. And there are the following possibilities: You play the favourite again. You play the second half of the original stake. Since the time has advanced, you will probably get a handicap of -0.25 now. This means that if the game remains a draw, you would only lose half of this second bet.

Let’s go back to the current situation: The game is 1-1, you have a bet on the underdog, which you would still win at this score. And you have a bet with half the amount on the favourite, which you would also win at the moment. One stands on the jackpot result. You think about what to do. One option, to play the favourite again now, is explained above. The alternative suggestion is:
You play a live over. You bet, for example, even with half the original stake on the underdog, now the over. You claim that another goal will be scored. If it is scored, the insured amount is paid out. If the goal is scored by the favourite, you are still at par for the entire game. That doesn’t sound great, but consider this: you had played an underdog and they lost. Without insurance, without settling, you would have lost everything. But if the underdog then scores, you would have won the over and the original bet, but lost the live bet on the favourite. But if the favourite then scores the equaliser, you would have a full jackpot again. All bets won.

Nevertheless, I suggest another strategy that can be played just as well.
Given the favourable case that you have played an underdog who is leading at half-time, you can still settle perfectly in another way: You play an over, live. The line is safe at (still) 1.25, 1.5 or 1.75 goals. This means that even in the worst case scenario where the favourite scores two more goals and wins the game, you would save some money. However, all results where the underdog scores one more goal and then drops at least one more are all jackpot results. You win all the bets, and that doesn’t even seem that difficult, does it?

However, if you originally played a favourite and they take the lead, then of course you can settle. You then simply play the underdog in the Asian handicap. And since the favourite was the favourite, the line live on the underdog, even if it is behind, will still be plus goals. Assuming, as above, that the favourite had a line of -0.5 goals before the match and takes the lead, the line live on the underdog should still be +0.25 goals. You then shift the jackpot result to the win by one goal. The original bet would be won and the live bet would be half won. And it is not at all unlikely that a favourite takes the lead and then wins by exactly one goal. Accordingly, you can of course play the over from a certain minute of the game. But this settlement, this insurance, is much more difficult, because time has to advance sufficiently for this to happen. If you were to play the over at half-time, for example, you would run the risk that the underdog would equalise and the result would remain the same, i.e. the game would end 1-1. Then you would have a wonderful “anti-jackpot”, of which I could sing you a song.

In addition, I had made the distinction whether one had the intention to settle. This is important in the sense that you may place a bet with too high a stake, but do so consciously because you want to sell some of it live anyway. It can even be the case that you had originally hoped for a favourable price development, i.e. you played on the “early market”, but the price did not develop as desired. Then you have to act even more prudently live, because you have exposed yourself to undesirably high swings. Of course, in all cases it remains the case that you can also take a loss live. That is, settlements that are not favourable, do not make a profit, but still take out the swing.

Nevertheless, I would ask you to bear in mind here that in all these cases only strategies were discussed on how to deal with your money. You have a favourable interim result and are thinking about how you can now secure or force the profit at a favourable price. There is no mention of the quality of the bets. Every single bet has its quality, its equity. And this has not been considered at all. One has reached a favourable intermediate position, one secures profit by….

That is a question of money management. The other question is: Which bet is really favourable? And I repeat again: in the long run, you can only feed on advantage bets.

But it may very well be that you have played a favourite, but the favourite does not play well and then takes the lead anyway. In that case, the settlement would be much more suitable. Or you play an underdog who keeps tight at the back for a long time, but you still have the feeling that the defence will collapse sooner or later. Then you play the favourite live, have taken a profit, and are convinced of making a good bet. Of course, these are also “nice” settlements.

b. Bets made during an event

Nevertheless, we were generally talking about bets made before the game. Certainly, a basic requirement was that these bets were made with an advantage if possible. For me personally, the numbers provide information about that. But everyone who bets will of course have something in mind. And hopefully, apart from the possibility of deliberately playing with a disadvantage for the sake of entertainment, calculate with an advantage. If you then watch the game live on which you already have a running bet, the considerations are nevertheless a little different than if you decide on something live.

A live bet on either side can be made on the belief that one side is clearly “in a good mood” today. If that is the case and you play that side, then of course you have options to act as explained above. However, you did not place this live bet on the basis of the numbers displayed, but on the basis of an optical impression. This really changes the perspective. In principle, this does not change the possibilities, but the perspective makes you feel differently. You have “adopted” the team being played live, so to speak.

You simply have to accept that live betting is a business in itself. The original assessment can be completely overwritten by live pictures. The whole market is “anarchic”, so to speak. There are hardly any fixed rules to which one can orientate oneself. The price developments are also partly dependent only on the visual impression. However, there are also complex entanglements of other players who pursue one of the settlement strategies suggested above. They make turnovers for other reasons than a visual impression. This in turn has an unpredictable influence on the price development, also and especially during the game. The whole market is comparable to the stock exchange in its complexity.

c. “All Green