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A comment on Kelly Criterion For Sport Betting.

Re:Kelly Criterion For Sport Betting by TillE on Sunday May 01, 2011 @06:38PM (#2504271)
I've always thought that you could make a fair bit of money betting on football matches where one team is at least two goals up with only a few minutes to go. You still get a payout of 1%, and it's a near-certain bet. If you're willing to risk a decent chunk of money and add a few sanity checks (never bet on Arsenal if Manuel Almunia is in goal), it could be some nice income. One percent a couple times per week.

I have to actually figure out one of these betting site APIs and try to do it some day.

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Re:Kelly Criterion For Sport Betting by jakewalker on Sunday May 01, 2011 @06:41PM (#2504275)
Works fine until it doesn't. Therein lies the rub.
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Re:Kelly Criterion For Sport Betting by VB6_Foreverr on Sunday May 01, 2011 @06:48PM (#2504287)
The best strategy for this is to only do it for a limited period at large stakes so that your actual outcome is more likely to deviate from the expected outcome
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Re:Kelly Criterion For Sport Betting by khafra on Monday May 02, 2011 @12:59PM (#2506923)
I don't think you can get around the nightingale-ish expected value of this strategy, no matter how you adjust the stakes and number of bets.
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Re:Kelly Criterion For Sport Betting by VB6_Foreverr on Monday May 02, 2011 @03:58PM (#2507577)
If the true odds are greater than 50% then you are more likely to win the bet than to lose it. So even if the odds given imply true odds far greater than 50% (ie poor odds) then you will still probably win money if you bet just 1 bet.
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Re:Kelly Criterion For Sport Betting by VB6_Foreverr on Sunday May 01, 2011 @06:44PM (#2504281)
The minute in football where most goals are scored is the 90th (because it is often as long as 5 mins long). I remember where someone laid at huge odds (in running) a horse after Tony McCoy fell off only for McCoy to get back up and win the race http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcEjgnBXP40
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