Are “safe bets” really safe, or just overpriced?

[Felicity_Tide]

~snip

For those who do sports betting, do you still trust favorites when the odds are low, or do you avoid them once the price looks too expensive?

Lol, I know what you're trying to pass across here, but in my opinion, it's a very terrible idea.
So, just because a particular team happens to be the favourite to win a game, and bookmarkers issued a very small odds, which means you're likely to receive a small pay when they get the win, and you opted to bet against them because that odds looks way bigger, trust me, you might wrap up with betting even before you begin.

AFAIK, it's normal to issue out smaller odds to conditions with higher probability. That's literally how the game works. So, choosing to bet against the odds itself means that you believe In the 'nearly impossible'. I have done this a couple of times, but I didn't just do it because I thought I could outsmart the bookies. I did because I felt there was a chance, and mind you, it was all based on a calculated risk. I understand that there is no such thing as safe bets, but we have favourites for a reason.

[GiftedMAN]

For some favorite with low odds but good performance all round regardless of the odds given I still make bets with them for either direct win or over 2.5 goals if they are facing a team that scores goals. But any favorite team with over 1.7 odd has the probability of winning either half so the best option will be to for them to win either or the half so if they win in the first or second half your bet will still go through. Remember the term favorite doesn't mean they will always win.

Betting strategically on the favorites is more preferable than hopping on a winning prediction alone, over 2.5 is a better way to be on the safe side, because it'll be hard not to get more than 2 goals in games involving favorites and underdog teams, which ever side wins, you're on the verge of getting rewards.

Football goes south ways some timesso you don't have to be too confident when betting on favourite teams cause they can disappoint you and not score a goal when you expect them to score up to 3 goals. Be very selective in your pick when you are choosing favourite teams and also pray to be lucky because without the luck factor you will play with big amount and still lose.

[WhoYouCantKill]

Such "guaranteed" bets are not suitable for me for several reasons. The profit percentage is usually very low. Therefore, you need a large amount of money to win a significant amount of money. Since I don't have a big bankroll, I don't even consider such bets. Moreover, even if there was a big bankroll, the winnings are not guaranteed at all. And in such a situation, there is a risk of losing big. In other words, there is no value in such bets.

The biggest issue with these so called guaranteed bets is that the potential risks attached to these kind of bets are always far bigger than the potential rewards promised. The rewards rarely matches the risk because the returns are most times very small to be worthwhile without a much larger bankroll, and since we already know that there’s really no bet that is truly guaranteed, just one loss can rapidly make all the profits you’ve gathered overtime to disappear in an instant.

[Cointxz]

For those who do sports betting, do you still trust favorites when the odds are low, or do you avoid them once the price looks too expensive?

I always avoid it because there’s potential small gain while there’s still a risk of losing everything of my bet which I find no worthy the risk.

I only choose this bet when I’m farming wager since it’s the easiest way to accumulate wager as much as possible using a tight bankroll and minimal risk.

Honestly, it’s dumb to place a huge bet on small odds thinking it’s a guaranteed bet.

[Odohu]

There is no such thing as safe bets because nothing is guaranteed in gambling. Instead of using safe bets, it is better to use high probability bets to denote bets with high chances of working as predicted. Using the term 'safe bets' be dangerous because it can make a player go beyond their risk limits and since anything can happen in gambling, losing such bets will be disastrous. I rather avoid engraining that idea into my head so it does not hurt my gambling in any form.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

There is no such thing as safe bets because nothing is guaranteed in gambling. Instead of using safe bets, it is better to use high probability bets to denote bets with high chances of working as predicted. Using the term 'safe bets' be dangerous because it can make a player go beyond their risk limits and since anything can happen in gambling, losing such bets will be disastrous. I rather avoid engraining that idea into my head so it does not hurt my gambling in any form.

Well, the word "safe bet" may likely not be misunderstood by people who are already well experienced in gambling, but definitely it can be misunderstood by the newbie gamblers amongst us who in their quest and hunger to win from gambling and make money, they may go all out seeking for find that safe bets being refered to here, and like you said, this can be very bad because many gamblers have lost money that later ended their life due to over confidence in a game, and carrying that mentality that some certain types of bets is safe is something that could install that over confidence in the head of a gambler, causing him or her to bet with an amount of money they can not afford to lose.

So I completely agree wit your input here, so far as there are no guarantees in gambling or betting, then what this means is that there is no such bets as "safe bet".

[alastantiger]

Betting strategically on the favorites is more preferable than hopping on a winning prediction alone, over 2.5 is a better way to be on the safe side, because it'll be hard not to get more than 2 goals in games involving favorites and underdog teams, which ever side wins, you're on the verge of getting rewards.

Over 2.5 means 3 or more goals to be scored and although most matches seize more than 3 goals but in some instances this type of bet are not usually safe because a team can end up drawing 1-1 or 0 and then your slip cuts. Safe bet aren't that safe since it is not every time that you are going to get what you wished for and even though you get an exact score the amount of odd for those games are not that high and unless you stake a very high amount of money the chances of you getting a big profit is going to be less. Considering that you stake a high amount and then you lose you understand why this games are still not safe. Getting results from gambling is always about luck that is why there is no specific bet that is a safe bet.

[shinratensei_]

For those who do sports betting, do you still trust favorites when the odds are low, or do you avoid them once the price looks too expensive?

I often avoid this kind of game. A game where it's involving a top team against a weak team is not really worthy to bet. Let's say we got Arsenal vs Brentford at feb, the odds was in favor Arsenal, but it gives very small, which is not worthy compared to the risk(draw).
It likes we got 20 - 30% in return for 100% lose. So this is basically a trap. That's why i often avoided this kind of game. I'd rather betting on a game that gives me 50% ROI at very least.

Then the odds is not worth with the risk. Stay away is the best thing we can do.

[Fortify]

Many bettors like to pick the favorite because it feels safer. Strong team, better players, better record, so it looks like the obvious side to take.

But that is where the trap can start.

Sportsbooks already know most people will run to the favorite, so the odds or spread can become too expensive. The team may still win, but the bet itself might not be good anymore because the value is gone. This is why I’m starting to think that a safe-looking bet can still be a bad bet. Maybe the question should not be “will this team win?” but “am I paying too much for this pick?”

For those who do sports betting, do you still trust favorites when the odds are low, or do you avoid them once the price looks too expensive?

You have to analyze every single bet that you do for this reason. It may not even be anything to do with value, it can even work the opposite way when a bookmaker might have taken a heavy bet on one side and are trying to balance the book so they are not too exposed, so they give you slightly better rates than others. At those really low returns it would be curious to know what percentage of people are betting because I can imagine it's quite small. Sure you see the odd story about somebody losing $50k on a 1.05 bet, but I doubt there are many people betting at all at such a low level, nobody will be interested in risking $10 to make 50 cents after all.

[Orpichukwu]

There is no such thing as safe bets because nothing is guaranteed in gambling. Instead of using safe bets, it is better to use high probability bets to denote bets with high chances of working as predicted. Using the term 'safe bets' be dangerous because it can make a player go beyond their risk limits and since anything can happen in gambling, losing such bets will be disastrous. I rather avoid engraining that idea into my head so it does not hurt my gambling in any form.

I also have the same opinion as yours when we talk about a safe bet, but that might not be the context the op is looking at it from but from the area of the value of the bet if it's worth it or not and not the bet being regarded as safe above every other one, like saying it has confidence in the winning rate being high.

[hedgeh0g]

I also have the same opinion as yours when we talk about a safe bet, but that might not be the context the op is looking at it from but from the area of the value of the bet if it's worth it or not and not the bet being regarded as safe above every other one, like saying it has confidence in the winning rate being high.

In my opinion, a bet is safe for me when I don't exceed the risk of my entire bankroll. And even if I lose, I'll only lose a small amount and it won't significantly affect me, although of course, it's clear that we won't win much either. At some point, many players may get bored and want to bet more and more. This is a common occurrence or scenario for many players. It's better to think about this in advance and be prepared for it to avoid making stupid mistakes. Although I've made many of these myself because sometimes I wanted to win back my money right then and there.

[YOSHIE]

For those who do sports betting, do you still trust favorites when the odds are low, or do you avoid them once the price looks too expensive?

I quite understand, gambling is money at stake, the basic goal is to win and make money, why bother risking money just for an unclear favorite team, try betting professionally, maybe that's the best.

For me, gambling is still gambling, betting involves money, in sports betting, especially soccer betting, there is no favorite team for me, where the team is strong and the best is my betting choice, I don't want to take risks, we clearly know that the favorite team is not important.

[Rabata]

For those who do sports betting, do you still trust favorites when the odds are low, or do you avoid them once the price looks too expensive?

In sports betting, many gamblers choose teams with low odds to ensure their winnings, that is, they select the favorite team for betting. But the problem is that when this favorite team loses, the amount of loss is much higher. For those who only use this strategy, I don't think such a strategy should always be chosen. Sometimes it is necessary to place bets after looking at the odds and considering the possibilities. In this way, the amount of loss will be at least less if they do not win. Today, in the FIFA World Cup, most people supported Spain against Cabo Verde, but in the end the team could not score any goals. The match had to end with a draw. Most of those who bet on Spain were sure that Spain will win and because of this, they would definitely lose more.