Betting and the layperson...

A chance meeting in a London gym leads to all sorts of tangents. Chris and David do a deep dive into tipsters, probability theory and gambling Twitter. All the SharpBetting videos are available here or go to our YouTube channel here.

Video Transcript

David

Hi, Chris. I just wanted to discuss something with you because I was in the gym this morning and it brought back some memories because I was chatting to this lad and he knows what I do. And he was telling me about this amazing Twitter tipping service that he had heard about. And I was obviously intrigued and he explained it to me. And it was the old short prices, odds on over 0.5 goals, whatever it is. pile them up and put them in accas and trains and all this stuff.

He was he's a smart guy lovely guy and he was totally convinced this this chap behind a facade of a person that isn't actually a real person I don't think um was giving all these tips away to hundreds thousands of people and it just reminded me we're in a bubble of people who are sort of sophisticated punters, but it reminds me the man on the street, the woman on the street, the person on the street doesn't really understand betting. And I just wanted to, you to tell me that story about when you were at school and some chap was doing a, offering a casino roulette. And I remember you telling me that, what was it?

Chris

Hi, there was a, there was a loophole in his casino house rules that you were able to exploit. Yeah. So, Yeah, from what I remember, he offered like no limit casinos. So roulette wheel and no limits on the credit. You could bet as much as you want. So I remember going in there and I'll place a bet. If it lost, double the stakes, place another bet. So obviously what you find out later, this is like the Martingale system, isn't it?

But what happened is if there's no limits, you can just keep betting and betting and betting. So you start off, say, one pound, lose, bet two pounds, bet four pounds, bet eight pounds. I remember betting, you know, you'd be betting, I think the highest I got to was like two thousand something on a bet. So that would be like, would that be like eleven losses, something like that in a row. But it's the sort of thing that, yeah, if people don't totally understand how betting works, there's loopholes everywhere.

David

the very thing that he thinks is his USP is the thing that is going to destroy him.

That's amazing. That's brilliant because he thinks he's offering a USP of no limit credit as a way of getting people in to win off them. And the very thing that he thinks is his USP is the thing that is going to destroy him.

Chris

Yeah. And I think that's probably the case, you know, with a lot of people offering bets nowadays is that there's, there's USPs all over the place that people would, Unless you completely understand odds and how odds work, there's so many trap doors you can fall down.

David

Well, that's it. I think if anyone's watching this, they will be familiar with going to a wedding or a barbecue or a party and they talk to someone about betting. And you might know a professional gambler or someone who's got this experience. And generally people think it's just, I mean, I've talked to people about professional gamblers I know, and they ask, is it luck?

And, you know, you get incredibly quite difficult questions to answer sometimes when you talk to a layperson about what we do, what people in this industry do from a skilled point of view.

And I think this chap this morning, a university guy, twenty years old, smart guy, and he still didn't see that what this Twitter account was doing was probably not going to be a long term successful strategy. And yet people do lap it up.

Chris

Well, I think, yeah. So you offer a series of odds on bets. At the end of the day, most of them are going to win, aren't they? So you have a tip, it wins. You have more trust in the tipster, you go back. I mean, it's not in the best interest of a tipster to offer 10/1, 20/1tips.

David

Yeah.

Chris

The best interest of a tipster is to get people coming back because you're giving them winners. People want winners. They want that dopamine hit.

The best interest of a tipster is to get people coming back because you're giving them winners. People want winners. They want that dopamine hit, they don't want to wait for nine losers and then suddenly they get an eleven to one winner. That would be a great result. But for most people, that would be an awful result.

David

And the other thing is people will often ask me, is this definitely going to win? That's the other question that concerns me when someone asks, is this definitely going to win? Even if it's ten to one on, it's not definitely going to win. I've got friends who have done the old, what's the expression? Picking up pennies in front of a juggernaut or something and when New Zealand were always twenty to one on in rugby union and they went fifty they often went fifteen in a row without losing and stuff and friends would be like that's my strategy I just back back New Zealand back this huge place whose huge favorites and then put the winnings on the next one and they keep doing it.

Chris

It would be the same if you just laid the outside of every race, wouldn't it? Yeah. Most of the time you'd win. And then at some point it's all going to come collapsing down. I mean, it comes down to, you know, the markets are generally pretty efficient, whatever way you look at it. So yeah. Why, why would you pick up one penny pieces in front of a bulldozer or whatever coming at you?

David

Um, yeah it's it's when people do that don't they laying yeah back in 1.01 one shots I mean it wouldn't be for me I um My betting now, betting is very well documented on our website. I do still enjoy betting on sports that I'm no longer necessarily an expert in.

But in terms of the topic of, is it definitely going to win? I felt that twice in my life.

I watch a lot of tennis and a lot of boxing and I like to bet on them. This is a massive, it's not even a humble brag. This is just a straight up brag. But in terms of the topic of, is it definitely going to win? I felt that twice in my life. Okay, one time. David Haye was fighting Audley Harrison and the market was about 1/5 David Haye. Okay, 1.2. This was probably ten years ago, a bit more. And it was in the peak of my betting days. So I'm happy to have a thousand quid on David Haye to win two hundred quid. No problem.

And I wrote back in those days, I would write up my previews, send them out and just explain how confident I was. Friend of mine came over, never had a bet before in his life. He likes sport, wanted to watch the boxing with me. I know there were a couple of beers as we're talking about the fight. I'm explaining why. If David Haye doesn't win this fight, I will never have a bet on boxing ever again. This is, this is, this is, this is, is a hundred percent as it gets. I was like, he, I don't think. Audley will even land a punch on David Hay before Hay stops him.

So my friend, who never had a bet before, set up an account and had a thousand pounds on David Hay, like with no previous betting. And yeah, so it was great because obviously Haye won. Audley didn't even throw a punch, let alone land a punch. But this idea that will something definitely win? Yeah, I think you said recently you'd rather have a thousand one pound bets than one thousand pound bet in terms of getting the EV on your side.

Chris

Yeah, I mean, I think that's the difference between betting to win money than betting for fun, isn't it? So you're betting for fun. Yeah, you'd like to have a thousand pounds on a fight. So you watch the fight and you've got that level of excitement watching it. Whereas if you put a pound on it, it's like there's not really the same level of jeopardy there.

David

But that's the thing. That's the difference with betting on football with the system that I've been using. The turnover is there to exploit. When I was solely betting on big-time boxing, a bad result. You've got to wait weeks or months to even entertain winning it back.

Chris

Yeah, I'm amazed people still... pick these sports with so so few events to make the most of their you know to do to do their serious betting on like you say so when you were doing boxing how did you know that you're a good boxing gambler like how would you be able to assess that on like three or four fights a year?

David

It's so interesting because I've never boxed in my... I've done a little bit of sparring and, you know, in old time, it was boxersize, you know what I mean? I'd skip rope and hit a punch bag and stuff. I've never been in a competitive fight, but I've watched boxing all my life. For some reason... I found that there's several things.

The psychology behind the sport is often underrated.

The psychology behind the sport is often underrated. I did psychology at university. I think you can tell a lot in the build up to a fight, how people communicate, the words they use. There's a lot beyond the technical aspect of the sport that helps you pick a winner. what I would do when I was before YouTube, even I would order DVDs of fights that I was interested and just watch, um, the the the careers of different fighters and sometimes so I'm not I'm not this is why I only picked um maybe half a dozen ten fights a year when I went in pretty big because I was like otherwise I was like I don't know I can't pick this but sometimes I would look at something and just say that guy's terrible against south paws or that guy's got crazy power but if he can't get in range he's not gonna and just something would be there that would appear once or twice um every one or two months in a fight that I would just see something that made me completely convinced it was um worth betting on and and and and that was a long time ago when I was a boxing odds maker but now even when I watch the big fights now sometimes I see that again and often but I don't do it very often.

I just go into the big fights. So sometimes people ask me about opinions on fights that I should have an opinion on, but I just don't, because I've just now and then I do a deep dive. And I think because I've done it before, I'm still able now and then to be quite confident that I can pick the right side. But boxing for me is a great sport to bet on because it's got these intangibles about the psychology.

And another thing about boxing, there is no data. The data is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. You've got the whole thing of A beats B, B beats C. That doesn't mean A is going to beat C. You know, you've got one fighter who's knocked out eighty-five percent of his opponents against a guy with a forty percent KO ratio. Again, it doesn't matter. Styles make fights. There's so many imponderables and it's a non-data sport that I think allows people to exploit it. Yeah, it's fascinating. That's completely different. The way I look at betting on anything that you actually have an opinion and use subjective information completely different.

Chris

How would you know if you were having, say, ten bets a year that you were good at it?

But yeah. So what I meant was, like, how would you know if you were having, say, ten bets a year that you were good at it? Like, how would you judge that?

David

So that question, I answered a different question. Exactly right. So all I knew is the – so obviously I'm a data person. Every single bet I've ever had in my life is in a spreadsheet. So I know – Exactly what I was doing. So there was a twelve year period in my life where I was betting semi seriously. I still had a day job and betting seriously for me meant maybe the profit I made in a year was enough to go on holiday with, or it meant I could take taxis around town rather than getting, that sort of thing. It wasn't life-changing, but it was just like, oh, I don't mind splashing a bit of cash because I've won money betting this year.

In twelve years of serious betting, I won eleven.

And in twelve years of serious betting, I won eleven. I lost, what, overall? And the one I lost was the last time I took it seriously because it was fights when I thought I had strong opinions and they were wrong. So I stopped taking it seriously then. So how did I know I was good with such a small data set? Maybe I wasn't. Maybe I got lucky with a small sample.

But the big thing for me is and particularly now, Twitter's a thing, and people put their opinions on Twitter. And if you put up an opinion and people disagree with it, they're very quick to burn you down. And if you get it right, they never come back and say, oh, well, a lot of people do, actually. It's much better nowadays than it used to be. But it used to be negative, negative, negative. Now, when you get that sort of feedback about, you know, your hot takes in boxing, if anyone gets, like, particularly aggressive, then it's quite simple to just say, well, let's go, let's go twelve months, let's do a prediction for every fight for twelve months and see who comes, you know. So... I don't know. At the end of the day, betting for fine record, it doesn't really matter, does it?

Chris

Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? I remember when I was tipping cricket stuff and yeah, whenever I would tip an outsider in a T20 game, people would be like, oh no, but they're like the 1.3 shot, you know, they're obviously going to win. But of course, they're favourites, you know, they're going to win most of the time that game. You know, if you played it ten times, they're going to win most of them. But it's the value, isn't it?

I think that's what a lot of betting and tipping, people exploit that. They exploit the fact people just want the winner.

And I think people just don't, a lot of people in gambling, especially in the world of Twitter or X as it is now, just don't really understand the odds, the probabilities, expected value, all those sort of things. They just, like we're saying, oh, they just want the winner. And I think that's what a lot of betting and tipping, people exploit that. They exploit the fact people just want the winner.

David

Yeah. And I think that it's kind of, It's a bit, not annoying, but it's difficult for us, well, for me anyway, as someone that always looks at the numbers, to understand why the human psyche is based on, yeah, I need that winner. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that bleeds into everyday life as well, the lack of understanding from a sports betting point of view, and yet... So sports betting, oh, it's too risky, it's bad, it's just losing money. But what you're saying is, no, if you've got the data and the processes in place, you assess the risk against the reward and you make decisions.

In everyday life, everyone is doing that on a daily basis. You buy a new TV at Curry's, do you want insurance for this? You go on holiday, do you want insurance for this? Everything is an upsell of insurance. Buying a house, so many decisions you make come with risk assessment. And yet betting is seen as a different thing.

Whereas I think I saw someone write on Twitter, might even be one of your tweets, that learning like probability theory, which is a very important skill to have as a human being. This individual learnt it because one of their parents was teaching them about the odds on the Grand National when they were a child. And that led them to be interested in probabilities and, you know, a really important life skill.

Chris

As soon as you can understand probability theory and assess risk, that's what drives the modern world.

Yeah, I mean, probability theory, the whole the whole thing started in the, I think, sixteenth, seventieth century. Before that, no one really understood what the chance of anything was happening. And what that's done is transformed the world. Being able to understand risk and assess risk. So before probability theory came out, there was no commercial casinos. There was no proper insurance, proper banking systems. But as soon as you can understand probability theory and assess risk, that's what drives the modern world.

But it seems at the moment, it's kind of a, As soon as you sort of move from, it's like if you tell your parents or friends you're a banker or an insurance broker or something, that's good, you know, that's great. That's highly credible job. Tell me you're a gambler and it's like, oh, you know, that's awful.

David

I've had a conversation with a senior trader, a very big company who was convinced that if you roll a dice, the average number in the longterm is three on a six sided dice.

Yeah, exactly. That's interesting. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I, the lack of understanding part is, is, is I, I have experienced some crazy, um, moments of people in quite senior positions in the betting industry who also don't understand some of the basis. I've had a conversation with a senior trader, a very big company who was convinced that if you roll a dice, the average number in the longterm is three on a six sided dice.

Chris

Wow.

David

Yeah, so things like that. And that's an individual who's responsible for a significant trading budget. So yeah, I think that the sort of the lack of this this lack of understanding of what goes into sort of probability betting is a huge one and yeah and this this chat this morning it just it it struck a chord with me because he was he was going on about these odds on shots that keep winning and this great chap that's putting up these tips.

Chris

Yeah I think it's really important to yeah for people to learn to learn about probability and learn about And it's something that just seems to be lacking generally in society. And what you experience there is people are kind of looking for this get-rich-quick scheme without really understanding the risks involved.

It's just someone is there on Twitter or on whatever it is saying, look, I'm here and I can make you this money. And I wouldn't say it's a scam, but it it's kind of disingenuous to keep putting out those short price tips or telling everyone just to bet overs all the time without, you know, because I mean, a lot of these tips, they have no track record, do they? They don't publish their results. They just bring people in and, you know, make money out of it.

David

Yeah, I mean, I think disingenuous is flattering. I think that's at least what it is. And I think, you know, I think it's very important that what we do on our websites is not not promise life-changing results here. We're not selling an illusion. I think what we've done is with the power of the results you've achieved through some of our models, the results I've achieved, they're all incredibly good numbers. It's incredibly impressive stuff. But that doesn't mean that everyone else can just find an easy way to make a lot of money. And that is really important.

I would hate being accused of sort of selling that illusion that something that is very hard to achieve is easy. You know, what we want to do with sharp betting is make sure that anyone who visits the site comes away feeling educated, entertained. And if they've got a recreational interest in betting, their betting is going to be slightly better off at the end of that month than it was before. And it's not a life-changing come here and, you know, achieve anything like what you achieved.

Chris

I think there's also a thing with some people that gamble as seriously as we do, that we don't tend to acknowledge the fun element as well.

Well, I think that's important as well to acknowledge that. You know, most people that bet, are not looking to make money. I mean, I think there was a study done where, you know, making money is one of the top reasons why people bet. And another is because it's entertainment. It's fun. So it's not, you know, we can't just see everything through our eyes of like, everything's like, what's the expected value of that? What do I expect to make if I bet that?

I think there's also a thing with some people that gamble as seriously as we do, that we don't tend to acknowledge the fun element as well. I mean, I've had conversations with people who say, you know, the best thing that's happened in the industry recently is bet builders. You know, I'm a bit kind of like, really?

But in terms of the public betting and enjoying betting and that fun element, you know, it's a good thing to, it's a nice bet to have. It's things that people actually want to to bet on. So I think it, you know, I don't want to sort of say that people just betting recreationally is a bad thing. I mean, that's what most people do. And as you say, yeah, sharp betting, we can help people giving you more information so that those fund bets, you know, are not, you're not going to lose so badly.

David

Oh, yeah. But I think that's at the core of any sports better is that fun element. And I certainly continue to bet for fun. I derive a lot of fun from some of my bets that are not successful.

You know, not everything is, you know, paved with gold. And sometimes, I mean, God, I... I've backed tennis players. I've backed odds on tennis players who have come on. And I can't remember, you know, the settlement rules used to be different with different firms. If you don't get through the warm-up, bet void. If you hit one point, bet whatever it is. I think now you have to get into a second set. Otherwise, first set, retire, bets void, something like that.

Anyway, I had a guy who I backed odds on who... um pulled a hamstring in the warm-up hit one serve off bet lost I've had a guy who smashed all his rackets ran out of rackets couldn't play anymore off you know so I've had some terrible bets but it's all you know it's it's still kind of fun and they're kind of like when you get a bad beat like that it's kind of just it's all part of the the the narrative about being a better.

Chris

Yeah I mean for me I prefer Why I'm such a big horse racing fan as opposed to sports betting for recreational is just you put your money on it and you see the result really quick. I hate the football where you put a bet on, say, under 1.5 goals or whatever it is, and a team goes one nil up early on and you've got to just wait for like eighty five minutes hoping no one's going to score.

David

Oh, yeah. It's just to me, there's no fun in that. Oh, no, I mean, it's a certain, it's a painful fun though. So I've got a project I'm doing with the sharp betting football system now that I'm, it's called David's Daily. It's coming out anytime soon. I'm plugging it on Twitter and every day I'm doing that. I'm either, yeah, like you say, if I might be, I might be BTTS, no. And it's, you know, one nil. And then you see the equalizer going in the ninety seventh minute. And it seems like when you get when you're on the wrong side of it, it seems like it's unfair and it's happening to you more than it should.

But then again, you look back at the monthly results and you see that actually it happens in your favour more often than not. But when you're it's the whole fallacy, isn't it? You remember the. No, the fallacy is meant to be, you remember the good times, but when you when you suffer recency bias, if you've had a shocker, it stings.

Chris

Yeah, massive recency bias. I mean, I think gambling in general, when you're going through a randomly good run, you just think it's going to go on forever. And when you're going through a randomly bad run, you think everything's a disaster and it's never going to win again. I mean, that's just the numbers playing out, isn't it?

David

I remember putting up a bet when we were testing the system. We put up a bet on one of our Twitter accounts and it was under one and a half goals. And it was a decent price odds against. I think it was like something crazy. Like, I'm going to say 8/1. It was a big price under one and a half goals for this match. And maybe six to one.

Anyway, it was a decent price under one and a half. And one nil. maybe like two minutes in one nil so we've got eighty nine minutes to go and twitter didn't blow up but everyone there was quite a few negative comments on twitter and we just had this policy of just saying yeah we trust the process we try we we trust the model we trust the process and obviously in ninety minutes later it's still one nil and we collect our bet and there's no further comment made out of course there's no further comment yeah so yeah I don't think I think Yeah, Twitter is a really good way of communicating, way of, yeah, communicating with people, especially in gambling. But yeah, there are the odd few trolls, aren't there, that wouldn't, yeah, any tip you put up, they'll literally just look at it as a one-off tip.

Chris

Yeah, absolutely. But I think it's fine. I think the people that are confident in their abilities don't really worry about that. You know, it doesn't matter as it is.

David

Yeah, but I think it is getting better. I think there's a lot more sort of camaraderie. It seems to be more supportive. Certainly in the last year, everyone's saying since Elon took over, it's got worse. But I think since, you know, since I've seen a lot of more betting people on Twitter and it seems like quite a lot of positivity.

Chris

I think, yeah, I mean, since got involved in, I think, I don't know, maybe eight months ago, I started posting quite a lot. And to me, it's always been positive. I've never really had any negative feedback on that at all. I think it's how you come across as well. If you come across aggressive, attacking people, you know, obviously, you know, you have to be strong with your point of view. But no, I think if you're fair and you tell the truth, then I think it's a very good platform. And I think for gambling, it is, you know, the what back in the day would be like the Betfair forum where they used to like post prolifically. Now it's like, yeah, Twitter's a much better place to do it.

David

Does that forum still exist?

Chris

Yeah, it does. I was looking the other day. I don't know. The politics forum has now disappeared. Right. There was one chit chat forum that went years ago. Yeah. But I think it's quite hard for them to, to sort of moderate what everyone's saying on there. It's interesting the... I guess it comes back on them as a company if people say bad things.

David

There's a few people in betting Twitter that I think everyone sort of knows, like knows who they are, but like knows their handles, but doesn't know who they are. And I sometimes see these people, I'm like, I've seen you on here for years. And like, I agree with quite a lot of your comments, sometimes a little bit edgy, but I agree with quite a lot of what you're saying here, but who are you? Like, you're so curious when someone's like still like, why, why, why have you, why have you gotten a handle? That's not like there's a celebrity's name or, you know, or.

Chris

Well, I think it's quite obvious if you were, If you're a winning punter and you still want to bet with the recreational bookmakers, you're not going to put your name on Twitter, are you? That would be idiotic. So it was only after I got banned off Twitter that I put my name up. Sorry, not banned off Twitter, banned with recreational books. I can no longer bet. Then I'm quite willing to go and say my name. Before that, I wouldn't put my name up.

David

Well, that's interesting you say that, but I'm on all social media channels as myself, and I was able to win quite a lot of money with, presumably, if these companies are looking me up, they would have, I don't know, or maybe what I thought was quite a lot of money actually wasn't. Yeah, but were your social media posts saying, I've made X amount of money? Well, I mean... I used to work for a betting company. My email address was, it had the name of the company in my email address. And I, I set up betting accounts. I mean, how naive is that? I set up betting accounts with my betting company name and was able to win money.

Chris

But were the people, do you think, see, I'd be quite happy if I was a bookmaker to take bets off. Ninety-nine percent of the people that work for betting companies. Especially if they don't have a role. Maybe that's not like a, A good barometer of how good people are at gambling.

David

Maybe not, yeah. But so you think the anonymous Twitter accounts are because they're big punters?

Big punters, or they just don't want to, they want to say horrible things about people without being known.

David

Weird. Yeah, fascinating. I want to name some names, but I won't. Yeah, I mean. But if they're in the comments, come clean.

Chris

Yeah, there's been all sorts of, spats aren't there and I just try and stay away from it.

David

It is weird I think I think people definitely feel I'm gonna say two hundred percent braver on twitter than they maybe five hundred percent braver on twitter than they do in real life and um yeah and just and I also have sort of behaviours that possibly I don't know a little less integrity sometimes that you wouldn't do in real life but it is what it is.

Chris

Yeah I mean, I think, I think with, I think there's certain things that you just shouldn't post. It's like, you've got to respect confidentiality and all that sort of thing. And I think sometimes that goes out the window on, on these platforms and people just make everything public. And I think if it's, so I've been accused of that, but I think if it's like a, in the public interest and the information's already in the, in the public domain, that's fine. But if someone talks to you privately, then you shouldn't, publish it I don't think yeah yeah no