Forum: Author Hangout

Places to lay big bets

PotomacBob 🚫

In a do-over story on SOL (I forget which one), the main character talks his grandfather into placing a bet for him - he wants to bet on every game the Miami Dolphins played in their perfect season. The odds, according to the story, were really huge that before the season he could get every game right, including the playoffs. In the story, the only place his grandfather could place such a bet was in Las Vegas.
If that was ever true, is it still true today? Could you place a similar bet today (I believe it was a $10 bet that had odds of several hundred thousand to one) in another gambling city? Reno? Atlantic City?

Replies: Michael Loucks Mushroom Remus2 awnlee jawking DBActive irvmull Remus2

Michael Loucks 🚫

@PotomacBob

The online sports books (e.g. DraftKings, FanDuel, etc) accept parlay bets. You'd have to check to see if they'll take a chain of 16 spanning the 17 week season, but some will take at least 10.

Mushroom 🚫
Updated:

@PotomacBob

Well, as that would be the 1972 season, that kind of limits it.

At that time, the only place to do that legally in the US would have been in Nevada. And at that time they were not the casinos themselves, but a third-party that set up in the hotels and casinos. And the returns were not quite what the odds generally were, as there was a 10% tax on such operations.

And in that era, Reno was still a major gambling area. If they were from the West Coast north of San Francisco, I would suggest Reno.

Set today, it could be almost anywhere. Today, 27 states and DC allow sportsbooks to operate. And many more are considering legalizing it.

https://www.legalsportsreport.com/sportsbetting-bill-tracker/

Replies: Remus2

Remus2 🚫

@Mushroom

I recall the story in question. It was vegas.
MC's Dad's a loser, parents are swingers into drugs, the doover son makes millions on the bet placed by grandfather. Puts money into a trust so his dad can't get to it. MC gets mother off of drugs, and parents end in divorce. The time frame of 72 doesn't sound right, but it does fit the history.

Remus2 🚫

@PotomacBob

Another story along those lines, but with baseball.
https://storiesonline.net/s/18102/echo

awnlee jawking 🚫

@PotomacBob

Because of the small but finite risk of your winning, professional bookmakers would want to offset some of their risk. Measures they might adopt include giving you very poor odds, limiting the number of bets you can string together, and offsetting some of the risk with other bookmakers.

AJ

DBActive 🚫
Updated:

@PotomacBob

No professional bookmaker would ever take a bet of $10 and give odds of several hundred $1000s to 1. The downside is too great for no upside.

A even money 17 game parlay would payout (if my numbers are right) around $720k but I don't think anyone would give you even money odds on every game, even preseason.

To get to even money you have to give/take points. You might get someone to give you a preseason line, but you would have to remember the score for each game.

Replies: Dominions Son awnlee jawking

Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@DBActive

No professional bookmaker would ever take a bet of $10 and give odds of several hundred $1000s to 1. The downside is too great for no upside.

Actually, the downside for the bookmaker is if everyone bets for the winner.

Outside of sports betting and point spreads, that's what odds are for, to attract enough people to bet on the expected loser.

You aren't really betting against the bookmaker, but against the other bettors. The bookmaker makes his money by skimming a little off the top. He manipulates the odds he offers so that no matter who wins, more money was lost by the bettors in aggregate than was won.

If enough people were betting the other way, a bookmaker might give you those kinds of long odds. In the event that your bet did pay out, there would be more than enough people who lost money betting on the other teams to off set the cost of the payout to you.

The problem is to get those kinds of odds, you need a seriously unexpected upset and you just aren't going to get that every season.

In a do-over situation with 40 years of future knowledge, there isn't likely to be more than 1 or 2 upsets (even across all sports) that could get you odds that long.

ETA: Remember, the house always wins. If the bookmaker sets the odds (or point spread) correctly, the bookmaker comes out ahead no matter who wins the game.

There are two catastrophic situations for a bookmaker. Everyone bets on one side and that side wins. The bookmaker sets the odds/point spread wrong and too many people bet on the long odds and the upset happens.

One person betting long odds is not going to hurt the bookmaker's bottom line unless the initial bet is large.

Replies: DBActive

DBActive 🚫
Updated:

@Dominions Son

I understand how book making works but there is no way he could get a market for the other side of that bet. The odds on the other side wouldn't pay enough to entice anyone to bet it. You might be able to structure it so betting could be the Dolphins win X-number of games so the entire pool would be sufficient to cover the original bet, but seems like a lot of effort on one bet.
No long shot in history ever came close to these odds, right now the longest odds on the Superbowl are 250/1.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫
Updated:

@DBActive

but there is no way he could get a market for the other side of that bet

Yeah, you aren't going to talk a bookmaker into long odds out of the blue, but that doesn't mean long odds won't be available.

The reason long odds get offered is because there are already too many bettors on the other side of that bet.

Replies: DBActive

DBActive 🚫
Updated:

@Dominions Son

See my edit above.

I decided to check if anyone is offering odds on this type of bet.

Right now on Draft kings the odds that the Bills will go undefeated (17 games) are +3500, (35/1). That any team will win 17, are +1400, or to win 20, +4000.

A long way from 70000/1.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@DBActive

No professional bookmaker would ever take a bet of $10 and give odds of several hundred $1000s to 1.

Multiple UK bookmakers offer odds of 250,000/1 for matching five numbers from five on the New York Lotto. At least one bookmaker allows a stake of up to £6,000. However the T&C normally contain a kicker limiting the maximum payout for a single bet, so the lucky punter might well find their payout capped at £1,000,000.

An occasional payout of £1,000,000 is relatively affordable to a large bookmaking operation and provides good publicity, encouraging other gamblers to attempt the same feat.

AJ

Replies: DBActive

DBActive 🚫
Updated:

@awnlee jawking

Since the odds of picking 5 out of 59 numbers (the card goes from 1-59) are something more than 5MM/1, any decent size pool is a sure winner for the bookmaker.

That's not true in the example given where it's a single bet at grossly inflated odds.

irvmull 🚫
Updated:

@PotomacBob

By all means let us strive for accuracy, because time-travel may be invented any time now...

In fact, it may already have been invented next week.

Replies: joyR

joyR 🚫
Updated:

@irvmull

By all means let us strive for accuracy, because time-travel may be invented any time now...

Even if we attain perfect accuracy, there is nowhere to time-travel to. The past no longer exists and the future has not yet happened.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

The future will be here in 3, 2, 1... (pause) Damn, now it's in the past.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@joyR

The past no longer exists and the future has not yet happened.

Yesterday, the day that never was, because yesterday, yesterday was today.

Tomorrow, that day that never will be, because tomorrow, tomorrow will be today.

Today is the only day that exists.

Remus2 🚫

@PotomacBob

In a do-over story on SOL (I forget which one), the main character talks his grandfather into placing a bet for him

https://storiesonline.net/s/72152:136223/hindsight-20-20-book-1-chapter-2
The story you couldn't remember.

Replies: richardshagrin

richardshagrin 🚫
Updated:

@Remus2

It is also in "Echo". Reluctant_Sir: Stories.

Replies: Remus2

Remus2 🚫

@richardshagrin

Which is why I posted a link to echo earlier in the thread. But as noted, the bet in echo was baseball, not football so it wasn't the same.

Replies: PotomacBob

PotomacBob 🚫

@Remus2

Thanks to all who responded to my query.

Replies: awnlee jawking

awnlee jawking 🚫

@PotomacBob

I hope you're now preparing to write a story for SOL in which the ability to place large bets on sporting events is a key plot artifice ;-)

AJ

Replies: PotomacBob

PotomacBob 🚫

@awnlee jawking

The experts on the SOL forum seem to have thrown cold water on the plot idea of betting $10 and getting high enough odds that winning would return millions.

Replies: Remus2

Remus2 🚫

@PotomacBob

Depending on the timeline, it's possible, but not likely.
I've read several scenarios where it happens in decreasing order of probability.
I keep waiting for the newer doover involving bitcoin. One scenario I'm playing with is the early stages of BTC, when it took several BTC to buy a couple of pizzas.

On 22 May 2010, a young US engineer and crypto enthusiast, Laszlo Hanyecz, paid a fellow user a staggering 10,000 BTC for 2 Papa John pizzas

.
Imagine 10k BTC at last May's price of 28k per BTC plus.

Reply to topic

Forum: Author Hangout

Places to lay big bets

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...