One of the most important things to remember when you engage in sports betting, regardless if you are football betting or betting on horse races, is that every system has flaws and even the best statistical analysis and mathematical systems can fail. Any time you gamble you risk money and like it or not, sports betting is gambling. While you can play it smart using sports betting systems that are rooted in mathematical and statistical analysis, there is always some measure of risk. One of the most commonly misunderstood aspects of sports betting systems is that they can often be confusing for players who are new to this type of gambling.

The simplest example is the coin toss. Everyone understands that heads and tails statistically each have a 50% chance of showing on a coin toss, but if you restrict the toss to a limited number of flips, it is conceivable that meaningless criteria can be created in order to create an illusion, such as a coin being tossed ten times and eight of those times it lands heads. Statistically, if you were to flip the coin over several hundred tosses it would eventually even out to 50%, but on a limited number of tosses the illusion is that 80% of the time heads will be showing. This is one of the most common methods used by bookmakers when they are setting the odds for events or matches, so if you are using a sports betting system always remember to look for the long-term average rather than the short-term.

Jul 29 2010