Win More by Avoiding Sucker Bets

Betting on sports is a means of recreation for most gamblers. It's a way to gain a vested financial interest in following a favorite team or while watching a game on TV. Although I've been a professional gambler most of my life, I understand this. Math and advantage betting takes the fun out of it for most bettors. In this article I'm going to discuss sucker's bets and my intention is not to ruin anyone's fun but rather show recreational players how they can win more money by slightly changing their betting habits.

Before I even get into this topic I should tell you the absolute best thing a recreational player can do is always bet with a bonus. For example right now www.topbet.com is giving away a 50% up to $250 bonus for players opening an account using the code FREE250. Meanwhile www.justbet.cx has an 80% up to $400 free play bonus available via code FREE80. By taking advantage of bonuses you're greatly offsetting the bookmaker advantage. I also suggest having an account with www.5dimes.eu for the purpose of reduced juice. With this now covered let me get into the topic avoiding sucker's bets.

What is a Sucker's Bet

A sucker's bet is just what the name suggests, it's a bet only a sucker would place. In many cases this involves making a wager at worse odds than you could have gotten had you made the wager some other way. In this article I'll cover a few of the most common sucker's bets I see recreational players make.

Sucker Bet Parlays

In my article on parlay betting I explained parlays in a nontraditional way. What I suggested was, imagine you sit down at a blackjack table with one single $100 black chip, bet it and win, have two black chips ($200) go all in again, win and have $400. You repeat the process of going all in successfully six-times and have $6400; $100 was your starting stake so $6300 is the profit. This tells me, the odds winning six 50% chances in a row are 63 to 1. I further showed that if you did the same betting against a bookmakers -110 house advantage, your profit for winning 6 consecutive bets is 47.4 to 1. Now interesting was the fact 6-team parlays using only point spreads and totals priced -110 have far lower payouts at most sports sites. See the odds given below:

BetOnline 45 to 1 | Topbet 40-1 | JustBet 35-1

This is highway robbery! However, these sites get away with it because most recreational bettors are suckers, and don't know any better. Honestly I have no idea how to drill this concept into someone's mind but there is no reason for most to ever bet parlays in the first place. If you really want to bet this way, then simply collect your payout and bet it on the next game.

What if the game's start at the same time? This is another paradigm issue - simply bet your base stake on that second game, and start a new series of betting all in - so you have two manual parlays going at the same time. I'm not sure you'll catch this but so many bettors throw away money because parlays (also called accumulators) feel better. Don't make that mistake.

If You Do Bet Parlays Use True Odds

Worth noting is Bovada and 5Dimes - each offer true odds parlays. When you bet with these sites and win a 6-teamer your parlay will pay the 47.4 to 1. Understand the true odds of winning a point spread or total bet 6 times in a row are 63 to 1. What they mean by true odds is they are paying you the same as if you successfully bet all in at -110 six times in a row. In this case a parlay bet is not a sucker's bet, it's the same as making any other -110 wager. It is however poor bankroll management.

Sucker Bet Pleasers

Pleaser bets in general are sucker bets regardless of which teams are selected. If you're not familiar with this form of wagering see my article on pleaser betting where I cover some strategy that can be used to make these worthwhile gambles. Now with that said there are certain pleasers so silly to bet you're a newbie or a pure sucker if you're betting them.

The specific example I see frequently on betting forum is a pick where the poster pleased two small underdogs such as taking two point-spreads +3.5 and pleasing them to -2.5. The foolishness here is most 3.5 point underdogs in football have a moneyline around +170. If you parlay moneylines of +170 and +170 together the payout is 6.29 to 1. Meanwhile the pleaser only pays 6 to 1 (less) and you have to cover -2.5 where in the other case you just had to win. Obviously when there is another way to bet the same thing at far better odds, choosing the lesser option is for suckers.

Failing to Shop Prices

Alright, truthfully most recreational bettors are going to stick to betting at one site and one site only. I strongly encourage you to break that habit. At the very least if you're going to use only one account make it www.5dimes.eu. Now even better is if you keep an account at 5Dimes who offers great odds and then rotate around keeping a second account with a betting site that offers deposit bonuses. From here, prior to making any bet check to see which website has better odds. You'll find that 5Dimes has the best odds most of the time, but in the times the odds match you can work off part of your bonus betting at another site.

Times where line shopping is the most crucial is when betting football props as the odds vary greatly. Also if you do any future betting this is a time where 95% of the time 5Dimes has the best price. For example I can recall a couple seasons ago odds for Tampa Bay Buccs winning the Super Bowl were Bovada 80 to 1, Intertops 100 to 1, and 5Dimes 175 to 1. When making bets on who will win a division, league championship and the like always compare the line you're about to bet with the 5Dimes price.

The Martingale Betting Mistake

This is the oldest gambling system in the book, and over the past decade all sorts of modified martingale systems, also called doubling or progressive systems, have been introduced. The idea here is make a bet, and if you lose double your stake, if you lose again double your stake again. For example at $20 base, as soon as you win you're up $20. Let me show you why this doesn't work:

Let's take flipping a coin 8 times in a row with no bookmaker advantage starting with $1.00. If you win all 8, you go to a bankroll of: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256. The first 1 was your stake so the odds of winning are 255 to 1. Do this in reverse there a 0.39% chance you will not be successful in winning a single time before losing 8 in a row. I'll save the boring math and tell you if you make ten bets per week under the martingale system there is 63.9% you'll lose 8 in a row at least once. If you did this for 10 years there is 99.997% chance you'd lose 8 in a row at least once, a 99.93% chance of at least twice, a 99.4% chance of at least 3 times and a 96.9% chance of at least 4 times.

Martingale is a horrible system because the times you win you win small, and the times you lose it crushes entire bankrolls. To further put this into perspective the bookmaker has an advantage. If he's offering you +100 then the true chance of that bet winning is 47.82%. If this the case then that 63.9% chance at ten bets per week turns into a 74.8% chance that at least once per year you're going to lose 8 in a row. In fact it probably happens 2 or 3 times. How about Martingale 9 times in a row? There's still a 50.9% chance you'll lose 9 in a row at least once in a year. This is a system you'll want to avoid. Stick to betting the same amount each game, and ride through the ups and down and you'll have a chance of winning, while on the other hand Martingale almost guarantees you'll eventually go broke.

How to Avoid Suckers Bet

The best way to avoid suckers bets is to learn football betting strategy. Now if you prefer to keep this simple, because after all you're just a recreational bettor looking to have some fun, well in this case I suggest reading my article on football betting systems. This article breaks sports betting down into very easy bets that will keep you away from sucker betting and thus increase your overall chances of beating the bookmaker.

Keep in mind again the best thing a recreational bettor can do to negate the house edge is to take advantage of bonus offers. If you've never had an account at TopBet before I suggest changing that by opening an account with code FREE250 and claiming your 50% up to $250.00 instant cash bonus. With all this now covered on behalf of everyone at gamblingsites.org I wish you the best of luck this betting season. For additional bonus offers and site rankings, please refer to our gambling homepage.