Ang Sugarol: Know your betting options

Posted by Ronald Po on December 3, 2010 at 16:20 | Comments (10)

Editor’s note: Ang Sugarol is Fire Quinito’s series on sports gambling. After taking us through betting 101 in the first installment, former UP professor and sports betting professional Ronald Po discusses the options available to the betting newbie.

In the previous post, I discussed some concepts and ideas about sports betting. Armed with knowledge about the sport/league that you want to bet on, you are now ready to dabble into the fun world of sports betting. You have a few choices on where to bet, each with its own pros and cons:

Bet with Friends, Neighbors or Colleagues

This is by far the easiest way of betting. Gather a bunch of pals and make bets on some of the big sports events. Take your pick: the Super Bowl, the Ateneo-La Salle game, the PBA Finals or the next Pacquiao fight. You can have some fun at the expense of others, literally!

In my old office, we had bets going during the last NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. At the time, Boston was considered the underdog to win the series.

I made a bet with one of my officemates, taking Boston +170, with odds of roughly 38%. I made another bet with some other guys, and took LA +100, which is at 50% odds. There is a certain amount I can bet for each team wherein I will be guaranteed to win, or at least break even, no matter who takes the trophy – I just have to do the math and compute what the optimal amount is to bet for each team. This is a simple case of hedging your bets for a sure profit; in economics and finance, this is called arbitrage.

However, there are other options for you if you don’t want to run your own little micro-gambling operation at your office.

Text-a-Bookie

Assuming you have the proper connections, there are bookies who operate via text. Normally, this is done within a relatively small, homogenous group of people (e.g., Filipino-Chinese guys in Quezon City) where everybody knows everyone. As I mentioned in my previous column, these bookies usually charge a 10% commission on winning bets.

These bookies typically cover some NBA, PBA or college games. NBA game lines for the next morning’s games are usually put up at around 10-11 PM Manila time. Your text-a-bookie will offer game lines based on the newly posted odds and you can text in your bet within a window period of about an hour (typically less). It’s the opposite for PBA games, wherein they ask for your bets less than half an hour prior to tipoff (they get their game lines online as well).

I’m not a fan of text-a-bookies for a couple of reasons. One, the 10% commission they charge translates to a substantial “bookie juice” though some might view it as not paying extra when you lose a bet.

Second, you lose your advantage by betting on PBA games minutes before tipoff. When lines are first posted, you can take advantage of “poor” lines put up by some Chinese or American bookmakers who are not as familiar with the PBA. By the time the game tips off, however, the lines would already adjust, as people bet on it. These are called “firm” lines, and they reflect a more informed opinion about the game, making it harder for you to take advantage.

The World Wide Web

Anything you do, the intarwebz can do better! You can easily find sports books online, and they are very much advanced from the actual books they use to write bets. Not all online sports books are created equal so I’ll give a brief background on some of the more famous (or infamous) ones:

Pinnacle Sports. Pinny boasts of having the smallest “bookie juice” of any sports book in the world. According to their website, they can offer up to 60% better value than other sports books. As with all online sports books, you need to be of legal age to create an account (personally, I’d prefer they require a job that pays enough). You also need a credit card, a Paypal account or a bank transfer to fund your account. For PBA games, they offer pregame odds (betting before tipoff) only.

Bet365. They offer a wide variety of markets (betting options) for a lot of sports and leagues that would make the consummate sugarol drool. They also offer 100% bonus for new accounts (e.g., deposit $100, you will have $200 in your account). However, as they say in Latin, caveat emptor. Bet365 is notorious for a couple of things, one of which is their high “bookie juice”. By charging a lot, you might not even get to the point when you can withdraw your bonus. The other thing is that Bet365 really means “Bet $3.65”. They watch out for big winners and eventually limit the maximum bet they can make. If you ask me though, this is not really a big concern. If you make bets in the $50-200 range (P2500-9500), you’re safe from their radar. One thing I do like about them is that they offer live streaming of certain sports events. If you’re abroad, you can watch some PBA games via their live streaming feed. They also offer live game lines for PBA games.

For a typical game (e.g., Meralco Bolts vs. Barako Bull Energy Boosters), this is how game lines might look like:

Pinnacle Sports
Meralco -7 -105 (Bet 105 to win 100)
Barako Bull +7 -105

Bet365
Meralco -6.5 -120 (Bet 120 to win 100)
Barako Bull +6.5 -120

Mega Sports World. MSW holds the distinction of being the only fully licensed sports bookie registered in the Philippines. They operate under the licensing and supervision of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PACGOR), the state gaming operator. As such, MSW holds significant advantages over other online sportsbooks (though I wonder if winnings are subject to tax).

MSW’s key competitive advantage is access. MSW offers betting markets for the most popular sports for Filipinos such as basketball (NBA and PBA), soccer (Premier League and UEFA Champions League), NFL, and tennis. You won’t need a credit card to place bets on your favorite sporting events. This bodes well for those who are averse to making online credit card transactions. Heck, you won’t even need a computer! You may place bets over the phone (reminiscent of pre-Internet sportsbooks seen in the movie Two for the Money) or with any of MSW’s outlets (akin to placing Lotto bets). The minimum bet is P100 and you have to be at least 21 years old to create an account.

MSW offers mostly pregame markets but certain games are offered “live”. When the game tips/kicks off, the pregame market closes and the live market opens. Betting live games as opposed to betting before it starts has its pros and cons which I can discuss in a future post.

Now that you know where bet, you should start watching the games, look at the game statistics and read league/team/player news updates. The more information you have, sports betting becomes less of a gamble. Have fun!

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Tags: Ang Sugarol: The Sports Betting Series, Barako Bull Energy Boosters / Barako Energy Coffee Masters, Basketball, Boxing, Meralco Bolts, National Basketball Association, Philippine Basketball Association

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Comments

#1 Franz on 2010-12-04 13:09 (Reply)

interesting thoughts. any advice on parlay wagers?

#1.1 jem on 2010-12-04 13:20 (Reply)

correlated parlays if you can get away with them

#2 junior tubero on 2010-12-05 11:23 (Reply)

in betting in the NBA especially in parlay. better read if ever a player will not play or if that player is a contributor.

#3 Ako Daw si FireQ on 2010-12-06 01:18 (Reply)

the PHI-VIE could have been an awesome game to bet. lol

possibly my P1 would earn me P2.80. lol

#3.1 jem on 2010-12-06 16:43 (Reply)

srsly!

considering that PHI was hovering at around a +2.5 - +2.75 dog and there were no funny draw speculations, your projection would have been a bit off -- your Php1 would have gotten you at least Php12-13.

even i was surprised at the outcome.

#3.1.1 Ako Daw si FireQ on 2010-12-06 17:28 (Reply)

wow! really? heavily underdog nga ang Azkals.

teka, maganda yun ah: underdog Azkals.... lol

#4 Kevin Regan on 2010-12-08 14:39 (Reply)

I'm an American looking for a Filipino perspective. Which major American sport is the most popular in the Philippines? please comment!

#4.1 jem on 2010-12-08 17:39 (Reply)

hey hey,

this would probably be the nba, mlb and nfl, in that order.

#5 Jed Marcaida on 2010-12-08 14:46 (Reply)

Hi Jaemark,

Thank you for featuring our company, Megasportsworld.

I would just like to add further on what you said about our company.

We pride ourselves as the only legal and regulated sports book in the Philippines. What it means is that we provide our clients with a safe and credible betting environment. With our capability to conduct telephone betting 24/7, prospective clients will have a wide range of options not available anywhere else.

For any inquiries you can all call our customer service hotline at (632) 88 66 180.

We will be more than happy to accept any questions about sports betting.

Thank you and more power to your blog. One of the best in the country.

Sincerely,

Jed Marcaida
Marketing Manager
Megasportsworld

#5.1 jaemark on 2010-12-08 16:12 (Reply)

Hi Jed,

Actually, it was Ronald who wrote the piece, but thank you for commenting and leaving your phone number. I'm sure people interested about it will find it helpful.