Question by Lee L: If gambling house focuses on making money off of fees, then what kinda of bet is optimal?
If gambling house makes money off of fees they collect from gamblers, whether it is a winning or losing bet, then what happens if two sides is heavily imbalanced. For example, if there is game say Team A is fighting against Team B. Team A is seeded #1 and Team B is seeded #200. It is apparent Team A is going to win by landslide. If everyone bets on Team A, the house will lose, but still has to put up the bet for the sake of gambling. What kind of options are left for the gambling house to minimize a loss?
Best answer:
Answer by Ranger4402
You forgot two things: Point Spreads and odds.
If one team is heavily favored over the other then the bookmaker will set a point spread that levels out the bets to equal money on each team. So if Team A is ranked #1 then Team A has to win the game by a specified point margin for people who wager on Team A to cash in.
The other way is to set odds. When Germany plays Greece in the Euro 2012 soccer tournament. People who wager Germany get 4 to 5 odds. So if you bet 0 on Germany you win plus the 0 you wagered. You get 0. If you wager Greece you get 9 to 1 odds. So if bet Greece and win your payoff is 0 plus the 0 you wagered. Equal money will be wagered on both teams because half the people will take Greece with 9 to 1 odds.
If a bookmaker ends up with lopsided bets then the bookmaker will lay off bets or adjust the point spread or odds to even things out. If that doesn’t work then the match may be fixed and the bookmaker will take the game off the board.
What do you think? Answer below!