Its really important you understand the margins you are up against in any form of gambling. This takes many different forms depending upon where you are betting and what you are betting on. If you cant overcome the margins you wont win at this game.
On the exchanges those margins are overrounds on prices, commission and potentially premium charges. With bookmakers it is the overrounds (vig) they have with the prices they offer. If you play poker/DFS, the rake are the margins.
You have to understand those margins and in many cases try and work out a way to lower those overrounds to a more favourable number for yourself. That maybe done through something like using odds comparison sites and being very price sensitive.
Understand that different markets will have different margins to beat. The lowest margins will be on the biggest markets such as Match Odds in Football. The smaller the market the bigger the margin is likely to be.
There are other ways though that you can shift the balance back in your favour. Many of the big syndicates will have rebate deals depending on the type of gambling. If we take something like horse racing some syndicates will have rebate deals on pools betting.
It was in fact how some of the biggest racing syndicates started out and how they became as big as they did. Zeljko had huge rebate deals with Tabcorp in Australia. What it means is that instead of having a system that is marginal in terms of profitability, it can be wildly successful.
It could even be a losing system but for the rebate. We used to see it with poker players all the time where a lot of their profitability came from the rakeback deals that they were able to secure. They would breakeven during normal play and the rakeback was their profit.
Its not always easy to get rebate/rakeback type deals and they often hinge on large volume. It is always something to think about though. There has to be something in it for the operator to give them to you. There isn’t a form of gambling where you cant get some more favourable terms.
I have seen and heard of many deals on things like the exchanges where they would give you commission and PC exempt terms if you were to seed certain markets. These types of things are constantly changing and evolving. If you don’t ask you don’t get.
I know of many players and strategies that could beat the Betfair markets but they couldn’t overcome the commission charged for example. It is unfortunately a huge part of the game and something that you have to know and understand inside out.
Know your margins, try and work out your edge and see where you are at. You may only have to shift the balance in your favour a small bit to really change the outlook of a particular strategy. It is a game where often small margins are everything.
ProPunting 