Thursday, October 22, 2009

Spread in betting games

What are the spreads in some of the common betting games, such as 4D, Toto, Big Sweep, horse racing, football betting?

Here are the ways to find out:

a) 4D, Big Sweep. Assume that the operator sell all of the tickets. How much money is collected? How much money is paid out, adding up all the prizes of all the winning tickets. This represents the odds. I believe that the total payout is about 60% to 75% of the total bets. The balance goes towards expenses (e.g. salaries, printing, office, sales commission), taxes (i.e. paid to the Government) and profit to the operator.

b) Toto, horse racing, football betting. You are not able to calculate the bets and prizes from the structure of the betting game as there are some variables that cannot be directly calculated. Here, you can look at the accounts and find out the total amount that is collected from the bets and the total paid out as prizes to the winners.

Which game is best for betting? It depends on whether you are a real gambler (in which case, you choose a game with the highest payout ratio, such as roulette or poker), or whether you are a fun gambler (in which case, you choose a game that you enjoyed most, such as horse racing or football betting).

Tip: Always bet with money that you can afford to lose. Treat it as another form of entertainment. If you can spend $500 on a holiday, and you enjoy spending this amount on a betting game, go and bet - but make sure that the money can give you the enjoyment for a few hours or a day (and not in just a few minutes).

Tan Kin Lian