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Gambling with any company is going to be negative expected value. However, I feel the same way gambling with individuals where the expected value is zero.
Not necessarily with sports betting though: Then you have a legitimate possibility of being more well informed than the bookies. A casino is mathematically rigged such that you will lose over time, that doesn't apply to games of skill (sports).
I don't gamble myself, but I seem to remember reading that the average person actually makes a net win in football betting (that is, more than 50% of gamblers are winning). Apparently, the betting companies make it up because you have a relatively small fraction of people that are losing big, and losing consistently.
Unless I've got some insider information on specific athletes or I've done enough statistical analysis to gain a statistical analysis to gain an advantage over the house, I don't see myself getting positive expected value.
Also, it is in the interest of sports books for a rumor like that to propagate.
Oh, definitely. I'm not sure about this at all, please don't take it as fact.
I completely agree with you. My point is just that with sports betting the playing field is actually fair, in the sense that anything can happen and that the bookies and the betters are considering the odds based on the same publicly available information. That differs significantly from games where the house is mathematically guaranteed to win in the long term, while the gamblers are guaranteed to lose.