[washingtonismoney]

Well, if the odds are systematically correct, then the people gambling would win just as frequently. My understanding is that there is a group of folks who give the casinos the "honest" odds and then the casinos manipulate those to make their profit.

Theoretically, sure: fifty percent winners, fifty percent losers, and theoretically the winners could just keep on winning. But in practice the winners do not stay hot; they give back their winnings over time. That's because in sports gambling -- as with the stock market -- it's  very difficult to win consistently without an edge. Such as some sort of systemic problem in casino odds. (Or match-fixing, a problem in tennis and soccer.)

Since we don't really see a class of systemic winners in gambling, it seems more likely that the sports gambling market is efficient -- and therefore that the odds are reasonably good proxies, based on current information, for what we can expect to happen in the future.

[washingtonismoney]

Well, if the odds are systematically correct, then the people gambling would win just as frequently. My understanding is that there is a group of folks who give the casinos the "honest" odds and then the casinos manipulate those to make their profit.

Theoretically, sure: fifty percent winners, fifty percent losers, and theoretically the winners could just keep on winning. But in practice the winners do not stay hot; they give back their winnings over time. That's because in sports gambling -- as with the stock market -- it's  very difficult to win consistently without an edge. Such as some sort of systemic problem in casino odds. (Or match-fixing, a problem in tennis and soccer.)

Since we don't really see a class of systemic winners in gambling, it seems more likely that the sports gambling market is efficient -- and therefore that the odds are reasonably good proxies, based on current information, for what we can expect to happen in the future.