Betting Blog – Bang and Pod’s bets

We sometimes play casinos online. It can be a fun past time. Here’s our guide to casinos

First off, casinos are places to play for fun. Theoretically you can win at blackjack at a land casino but all other games, you will eventually lose. The only way you can win at blackjack is to count cards. As casinos frown upon this, you are likely to get barred. Roulette can be beat with special devices but these are banned in casinos too.

Online its slightly different. You can not win at all in the long term. There is no scope for card counting as decks are shuffled after every hand and you cannot user any lazer devices as the casinos use a random number generator rather than a ball. You can be up in the short term but eventually the house edge will get you. This is how casinos sucker you in online. As the house edge is tiny its possible to be up in the short term due to just random fluctuations.

We generally play blackjack as its a game where you actually have some control over the outcome. Roulette is OK but its all luck. No skill at all. They payout is 97.3% no matter how you play. With blackjack, you have some control over the outcome. With certain favorable rules, you can get 99% payout in blackjack with perfect play. In the medium term that makes a difference to how much you are going to lose. In the long term, you’ll lose it all so it doesn’t really matter which game you play.

Casinos offer many other games too. A lot try to push slot machines. These payout around 95% which is a lot better than the machines in the pubs but compared to other casino games thats a poor payout. Baccarat and craps have decent payouts so if roulette and blackjack aren’t your cup of tea, you could try those games. Avoid online slots.

If you are going to play online casinos, make sure you set a deposit limit. Its so tempting to keep depositing money until its all gone. All responsible casino operators will have an option to limit daily/ weekly deposits. If you do find yourself losing lots of money, you can always self bar too.

So in summary, only play online casinos for fun. Expect to lose eventually and make sure you do gamble what you cannot afford to lose. With football betting, you can only bet on so many games a week but with casino, you can lose all your money in a night.

Had a loss midweek. We had a cheeky bet on the snooker. O’Sullivan to win. Not a clue why. Another one of Pod’s nailed on bets. Don’t know the result but he didn’t win. Might have drawn or lost, I do not know. £100 lost. Bank at +£50.

This weekend we are going to have Chelsea to win. It was a toss up between -2 on the Asian and win to nil. With Chelsea’s injury list, we decided to go with the to nil bet. Price was 1.73. Thats a bit low so we dutched 1-0, 2-0, 3-0 and 4-0 to get 1.98. Bookies are a bit stingy with the to-nil bets sometimes. Its highly unlikely its going to be more than 4 so we got effectively the same bet but at a better price. £100 staked.

Online poker is booming nowadays. Texas Holdem is still king but Omaha Hi and Omaha Hi-Lo are great variants to try. Pacific Poker offer all these games and more. Part of the 888 group (they sponsor Middlesbrough FC), you can be sure they are rock solid.

Their website offer a great flash-animated poker school where you can learn the rules of the most popular poker games. You can discuss poker related topics and learn some more in their poker forum. New players can get a bonus of up to $100 (or £50). They offer a handy non-download version so you can play on the sly at work and a standard download room. Give them a try here.

Online poker is one of our other pastimes. There are many poker room out there and picking one can be quite daunting. Not to worry, here’s our Online Poker Guide

Forget about sign up bonuses. In the long run, these mean nothing. Look for rakeback or loyalty points. These will payout as long as you play at the poker room. Sign up bonuses don’t last as long.

Pick a room with a big network. Many poker rooms are part of a network. This gives players a much wider range of players to play against than if each room was a separate entity. For example, Bet365 and Paddypower are part of the Ipoker network. You can sign up to either and play against the same players. All that would be different is the branding on the software, the sign up bonuses and on going loyalty bonuses. The actual players you play will be the same.

We would also recommend playing at stakes you are comfortable playing at from the start or playing at least 25/50c blinds. This is because below a certain level, you get people who aren’t really playing serious poker. When you have 5c/10c blinds, the pot might get up to $5 but to a lot of people that isn’t a lot of money so they will call you regardless. If you don’t get what we mean, then try playing free poker. People will go all in with any hand. Its not real poker its a lottery.

Play satellite tournaments occasionally. For a small amount, you can win very big if you get entry in to the higher rounds. As your loss is capped at your buy in, its a good way to get experience playing at a high level without the high cost. Thats how Pod managed to get to Vegas. He started off with a Satellite tournament and worked his way up. .

Finally, know when to quit. Some people are not cut out for online poker. If you find yourself losing consistently to bad beats then they’re probably not bad beats. All you are doing is giving your money away. There are other games of skill out there, where you can win money. Backgammon and Rummy spring to mind.

Been a while. For some reason we haven’t been betting. Last month we ended up £5 up. Just about buys us a pint each. Still, better than a loss and thats 5 months profit in a row now. Still down overall but we are heading in the right direction.

Tonight we had just the one bet. £100 on Portugal at 2.5. Strange bet to have as Portugal didn’t need to win to get through (I think). Only had it because Pod said it was nailed on and a good price. Portugal win 1-0. So good start to the month. Bank at +£150

If you are a regular reader to this blog, you know that its mainly about football betting. We do other types of betting but football is our bread and butter. We like football betting because the range of football bets is wide but the outcomes are limited. With limited outcomes there is less scope for bookies to add in over round.

Here is a brief description of our favourite football bets.

1X2
This is basically the win-draw-win market or home-draw-away market. 1X2 comes from the bookies coupon in a betting shop. You mark, 1 for a home win, X for a draw and 2 for the away win. Its a self explanatory bet. If you think the home team will win, you bet on the home win. If you think its going to be a draw, then bet on the draw and if you think its going to be an away win, you bet on the away win.

Asian Handicap.
This bet is popular in Asia. You don’t be on the straight result like in 1X2 betting but you bet on the handicap result. A team may get a head start. For example, Chelsea vs Manchester United at Stamford Bridge. Odds on the home win may be 1.91, draw, 3.25 and 4.0 for the away win. On the Asian Handicap, Chelsea will get -0.5 whereas Manchester United would get +0.5. At the end of the game, the handicaps are added to the score and the bet is paid out according to the result. Eg, if it finished 1-1, and you bet on Chelsea, you would lose at the Asian Handicap score would be 0.5 -1.

Unders/ Overs in the goal market.
Betting on scores is useful, when we don’t know who is going to win but know what type of games its going to be. Sometimes, you look at a fixture and you think they could play for 900 minutes and no one is going to score, whereas other times, you can spot a goal feast. Unders generally happen more often than overs so the odds are usually poor. (Think of all those 0-0, 1-0, 2-0, 1-1 scores).

Strong double.
Sometimes, we think a team is going to win but the odds are something like 1.4. Not really a good payout. Find 2 of those, double them in a bet and you almost get even money. We’ve found this to be more profitable to betting on a single at similar odds. The key is to stick to doubles or at most go in to trebles, Any more and it seems like the betting gods strike you down.

So there you have our favourite football bets. We bet on other things like, draw no bet, 1X2 handicaps, anytime goal scorers, etc but they all depend on the price. You can occasionally find good value bets in those but stick with the 1X2, Asian Handicaps, Unders/ Overs and Strong Doubles and you won’t go far wrong.

For those of you with less of a budget, you can play 10p roulette or 20p roulette at various tables online or check out the full range of Low stakes roulette tables

Well, last set of bets went lost 1 won 2. Birmingham scored against Arsenal so that did us in. We did profit overall though £94, bank at +£134.

Monday we had Fulham to beat Hull. 1.67. Fulham win 2-0. £67 profit.
Tuesday we had Sheffield Wednesday to win, lost 2-1, £100 lost.
Saturday, we had Burnley/ Wigan overs. Finished 1-3. £104 profit.

Then today, we’ve had a bit of a disaster. Bolton/Everton unders. Finished 3-2. Also had City to win to nil. Its 2-2 now. Thats £200 lost altogether today. Totting it all up, we are £5 up over the month.

Its been a very tricky weekend betting wise. All my personal bets have gone tits up. Bookies must be clawing back all that money the punters won when there was a lack of draw in the premiership.

We took a break for the internationals. Pod wanted England -2 on the Asian against Belarus. I didn’t fancy it so we didn’t have it. England won 3-0. Feels like a loss to him but you can’t look at it that way. We’ve loads of potential bets not placed. You got to offset that with all the bets we didn’t have and would have lost.

Anyway, 3 bets this weekend so far.

Arsenal to win to nil. 1.91. Birmingham couldn’t score in a brothel and are certainly not going to get past a Arsenal defence.

Portsmouth/ Spurs overs. 1.84. Spurs games are usually overs. Away win is 1.91 but we decided to go with overs as it covers more likely scores.

Sheffield Wednesday win. 2.1. Not a clue about this. Pod’s bet of the week.

£100 on each.

A bit late with the update but this month has started well. Just 2 bets.

Spurs/ Bolton overs. £100 at 1.8 after commission on Betfair. Finished 2-2 so bank up to +£80.

Second bet didn’t go as well. It was a perm of doubles on the Man U and Arsenal games. We figured they’d be low scoring to nil scores. So we permed 1-0 and 2-0 in 4 doubles a tenner on each. Epic fail as Man U finished 2-2 and Arsenal 6-2.

So bank after the weekend, +£40.

Espanyol drew 0-0. I looked at the stats and they won, practically all their home games this year and their opponents, lost practically all their away games. You can’t win them all. Bank down to £449.

Tonight we had City on the Asian handicap. I put in on last night at 1.8 -1. This morning it had dropped to 1.68 but then rose up to kick off to 1.9. Madness. I was a bit worried as odds generally don’t move like that. I heard the starting team and was reassured. City ended up winning 3-1, so handicap cleared. Bank now at £529.

Thats it for the month. Not bothering with the Champions League. Its our second biggest winning month. You have to go back to August 2007 when we won £570 to beat our total for this month. I can imagine the bookies are down as there haven’t been any pesky draws.

All time running total is now -£475. Its not bad since we’ve been going for 31 months. Its actually 4 months profit in a row. Fingers crossed for a good October.

Yesterday could not really have gone better for the syndicate. Wednesday win 3-1 and Rotherham 3-0. Bank this month is +£549.

Personally, it wasn’t such a good day. Villa and Chelsea busted my 6 fold and my clawback mission failed. I lumped on Arsenal/ Fulham overs but it ended 1-0.

Today’s bet is Espanyol @1.57. Not a clue but Pod’s on a roll so just having a tonne on it.