What you have to realise with betting is that it is continually a game of information asymmetry. Information asymmetry is a condition under which one business party possesses more information than the other party they are dealing with.
One party’s access to more relevant and up-to-date information can result in business imbalances and even exploitation. This asymmetry can present itself in many different forms in betting. In football a good example would be team or injury news.
There are plenty of people who have made living from this game simply from having better access to team news/injury news than others. In golf it might be information about a player being injured. Or a player who is flushing it in practice.
In essence we are looking at information not readily available to the public. The sport which is the best or worst (depending on how you view it) is Horse Racing. Horse Racing is littered with inside information and gambles/non triers.
There is also information asymmetry when it comes to betting in running. This is related to courtsiding and all that that entails. It is literally people getting the information from live sporting events before others. We will discuss that in more detail in a diff tweet.
The other information asymmetry comes from the data/stats that are widely available to the general public. Expected goals (XG) is the new trendy stat everyone refers to. What you have to realise is that the biggest players in these markets have been using XG and variations of it a long time before it became part of the public domain. These companies have moved onto more modern, better versions of these types of stats. It isn’t a level playing field and never will be. Why you have to be so careful if you are playing against these syndicates.
With golf we see it with Strokes Gained, which has become all the rage in recent years. This data was available to some long before it became a common data metric. Scott Fawcett even alluded to additional data in his podcast with Bet The Process.
There is lots of other data out there that some people have access to that is beneficial for betting, that isn’t available to the public. Scott was very clear that he isn’t allowed to talk about it and I have no reason to question his morals. There maybe others though in a similar
situation who aren’t as moralistic with that data. Money talks after all and that data might be worth an awful lot of money to someone. It isn’t a level playing field and hasn’t been for a long time.
Just be very aware of the different types of information asymmetry, how they affect what you do, the markets you play in and as mentioned previously who you are playing against!
ProPunting 