Here's a question for you. Why do bookies drive Cadillacs? Why do British bookies like Ladbrokes and William Hill have market capitalizations in billions of dollars? The answer is pretty simple. It's because the odds are stacked in their favor. And why is that? Easy. Because they decide the odds.
Hard to believe, but most bettors don't even realize that they are being systematically fleeced. Bookies take refuge behind numbers. Most bettors are not willing or able to do the math that would make it clear just how much the odds are stacked against them
Say you have 10 horses in a race and the bookie is offering odds ranging from 2-1 to 40-1. The smart bookie will have one thing in mind when he lays those horses: try to make sure whatever horse wins, he wins too. Doesn't always work, but slowly but surely most bettors will lose their money. It has always been that way. It's a numbers game and the bookies crunch the numbers
But guess what? Things are starting to change. I'm talking about a revolution in wagering. What if there was a place where bettors could have some action between themselves, thus cutting out the bookie?
Say it's Week 1 of the NFL season, Philadelphia at Tennessee. I like the Eagles and some guy in Nashville is convinced the Titans are looking good this year. We both like a little wager, so what are the options?
We could go to our regular bookie and take whatever odds he's offering. We would just have to accept that in-built in those odds is a vig, otherwise known as the bookie's profit, no matter who wins the game.
Alternatively, we could be part of a wagering revolution and log on to TradeSports. It's a sports trading exchange, an electronic marketplace where people with differing opinions on the outcome of a sports event come together. They're called buyers and sellers - just like in a stock exchange. Unlike bookies, TradeSports has no interest in the outcome. It makes its money by taking a $0.04 fee for every $10 bet that is traded over its exchange.
So how does it work? Well, TradeSports will offer a contract on one team to win, let's say Philadelphia. That contract will 'trade' anywhere between 1 and 99 and will 'settle' at either zero (the Eagles lost) or 100 (they won).
So if I want to bet on the Eagles, I buy the contract - if I'm feeling bullish I might buy 100 contracts, if I just want an interest I might buy just 10. The guy in Nashville will 'sell' the Philadelphia contract. They key point, though, is the price at which we buy and sell. This is where, ultimately, the bookies will not be able to compete. This is the true value proposition of TradeSports.
Only a true exchange can offer fair value. If enough buyers and sellers come together, it is a certainty that they will get better odds than any bookie can offer. A betting exchange in the UK called Betfair
has proven this conclusively. TradeSports is poised to do the same in the US. That means the Eagles fan and the Titans fan can both get better odds. If a bookie is offering odds of 2-1 and you can buy the same team on TradeSports for a price of 28, that means you are getting odds of 5-2. After only five months, TradeSports has a proven record of offering superior value. In golf tournaments, exchange prices have often been as much as 30% better than with a bookie.
Person to person wagering is the future. It is a concept made possible by the Internet and it is going to be huge. TradeSports is at the vanguard of that revolution.
Article by Alan English. TradeSports is a person-to-person (P2P) sports betting and trading exchange.
