The Main Task of a Smart Gambler

[Iranus]

the main task of a smart gambler isn't to be right, or rather, not only or primarily about that. The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong, big time, for big money. Or where a small number are wrong, but, again, big time, for big money. If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.

In my opinion that is a very dangerous assumption. You will see often the crowd remain orderly for long time. Ultimately it is those who bet against crowd who suffer loss. Even Soros himself has suffered massive loss in such situation.

We see the same pattern in sports betting. The favorite team win most of the time, though they do lose occasionally. In such case those who bet against crowd or the favorite can reap huge profit.

To me the true task of smart gambler is to maintain an edge that is both measurable and repeatable. This ensures survival even when mistake are made or money is lost. And most importantly regardless of whether one agree with crowd or not, the key is to place large bet only when odds are in your favor.

[FirmWars]

You said if I win and my win is just cent, then my game is pointless and if I lose just cent, then there's no problem, since I don't have control on the outcome of the game I am playing, I only have control over the amount I am playing with, how then do I prevent more loss? No matter how smart a gambler is, the high rate of loss will always overpower the profit, the house always wins. Any time I am gambling and I win a big amount, if I am able to stop playing and not lose the money back to the casino, I consider myself a smart player and I think that one character of a smart gambler, they always do not let their wins go back to the house. Even though they will later lose the money, it's not going to be that day, they need to use the money to enjoy themselves first before playing another day.

[tiCeR]

In reality, everyone can make mistakes, both the crowd and those who try to bet against the crowd. There's no particular meaning to this, but the crowd is still wrong a little more often. On the other hand, the main task of a smart gambler isn't to be right, or rather, not only or primarily about that. The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong, big time, for big money. Or where a small number are wrong, but, again, big time, for big money. If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.
This is a classic George Soros quote: the only thing that matters is how much you win when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.

If you are referring to the wisdom of the crowd, it is not true. If you are referring to "what the majority choses to be right", they can be wrong of course. However, when you bet against the majority on a huge underdog, you can be right once, but how often will you wrong? You need to build the average and if you think you will the occasions when the underdog wins more often than the crowd, I doubt that is true. Or no, you will find it more often in total, but you will lose more often because betting against the majority or against the odds is not a profitable strategy.

Ay for the term the wisdom of the crowd, it is more accurate because errors cancel each other out. Just make the test, provide ten bets when you go against the crowd and let us see how often you are right and whether that makes you much smarter. You have the crowd against you, you have the house edge against you, you have the base odds against you.

You say that that the task of a smart gambler is to be right when many people are wrong. What if a smart gambler goes with the crowd, but bets 20 times the average stake? That could still be big money and if it works he would be called smart and if it doesn't he would be called dumb. Gambling remains gambling with very few having an edge and I think that edge often goes back to the luck they had.

 Whether you are dumb or smart shouldn't depend on one bet you made against the majority. You could get it wrong with IQ 160 whereas a monkey throws a dart as to what to bet on and wins. Smart monkey?

[Ashawowo(OS)]

A responsible gambler is a smart gambler, even those who claimed to have strategy all ended up in that loop of addiction, because they all have one goal in mind, to make more money from gambling as possible.

A smart gambler cares more about risk management than winning big money, although every gamblers hope for such luck but the smart ones believe that it can't be forced.

The only way they have left is risking what they can afford to let go and making sure that they don't increase it even though the activity is favouring them.

Being smart in gambling is knowing how to reconcile your desire with responsible practices, so you don't end up incurring more problems for yourself. I don't see going big and targeting big wins as smartness, rather I see it as recklessness, especially if you're going above your budget in the process. Gambling isn't supposed to represent your main source of income, so you should go easy on it and rather and more rewarding, go hard on a career which has a better chance of success than relying on chance and uncertainty for the big rewards. Control is everything and immediately you loose it in gambling while chasing the big bag, then you also stopped being a smart gambler.

[Yeesha]

The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong

This is not about smart gamblers because it is not easy to get it right all the time when other people are wrong. The other things are the odds, you can get it right with small odds but in a way 1 loss is a huge loss. Gambling is not easy.

The main task of a smart If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.

Gambling should be done with Little amount of money regardless of the winning and losses. Being able to handle your losses in a way it will not affect you.

You're extremely right, the only way to prevent gambling from affecting you financially is by gambling with what you can afford to lose. A gambler can only be at peace when he is not experiencing excessive loss. If if it a small loss it is actually very important to prevent it from escalating, loss can cause a grave damage or danger to one's life, because some people hate to see others tagging them as a failure, so couldn't stand failure. And some can not stand loosing their hard earned money, especially in something that doesn't worth it. A smart gamble will consider the criteria of gambling before risking their money, in order to prevent themselves from losing what could negatively affect their lives.

[Finebone]

Is there smartness in a scheme that often involves luck? I feel the best way to be smart in gambling is to:
- Know when to walk away—whether in profit or loss.
- Know how to manage your portfolio to make the best out of it.
- Have self control and be disciplined enough to stick to your strategy.

I know that these are common knowledge, but not commonly practiced. I feel only the "smart gamblers" can apply this to mitigate a little of the disadvantage they have in the game.

When he is talking about being a smart gambler, I think he is talking about trying to make the best possible decisions when gambling, especially on sport where your personal input, like your own analysis matters a lot, because if luck is still not on your side, you will still lose your bet, after making all the decisions you think was a smart one.  So being smart with your decision making is good, but your ability to win consistently rely mostly on luck than your smartness.

[Achalugo BTC]

With the lesson i have gotten so far while gambling, i will rather prefer winning and be getting small small profits than pursuing big money that my games will be exposed to much risky and at the end of day, i will not have any to hold on to as a profits, so if  goal of gamblers is enjoyment, means that gamblers should be Smart enough to secure winning than losing, i was little confused when OP said if you win and your profits will be small, i thought i was only one seeing that part of his illustration and i agree with that every has their own philosophy, so like i said earlier, i rather channel my smartness of winning small small consistently than taking risk i can't hardly bear.

I totally agree with you. It is better for a gambler to have smaller wins than to lose it all. In reality, the game is not designed for gamblers to make money from it but to entertain themselves with an amount they can afford to lose. So, securing your wins, even if they come in smaller amounts, is the smarter way to keep everything under control and maintain balance. Anyways, everyone has their own perspective on gambling and believes it won't be cause any harm to their lives.

[gracreavix]

A gambler should focus on profitability for me. Why do I say so. Someone can say win rate is better. But I beg to differ that profitability is best. You can win 7 times in a row and just 2 losses can wipe out all your wins. So I even going into risk management as it is also connected to this. Have a precise risk so you won't risk as you feel like because that is dangerous to begin with. So my focus will be risk management and having profitability if profit is What drives you.

[Royal Cap]

I would say that it depends on the situation. The reason for saying this is that a gambler will be in a good position if he wins repeatedly but this is not the case. Because a few big losses can erase all the previous small wins. That is if someone bets ten times and wins seven times but loses so much three times that in the end the bank roll decreases, then ultimately he has no profit. For this reason I say that for a gambler, not only the winning percentage is important but how risky each bet is also important. Because here a big bet can wipe out your bank roll more than a small bet.

[SUPERSAIAN]

I always think the job of a gambler is to gauge risk and reward.  Nobody is going to win them all, but managing risk and placing bets according to when you feel the risk/reward is in your favor is the trick.  That is about as close as you can come to the joke of betting big when you are going to win and betting small when you are going to lose.  In other words, when the juice is worth the squeeze, load up on it.

Isn't that exactly what risk management is all about? Gamblers who excel at risk management might actually be more successful in real life, simply because they are accustomed to trying to predict what will happen next. If there is a high probability of a win, one shouldn't shy away from increasing the risk—that’s certainly my personal approach.

Otherwise, I’d just keep dwelling on the missed opportunity, though of course, there are times when I simply fail to notice it.

[Hatchy]

In reality, everyone can make mistakes, both the crowd and those who try to bet against the crowd. There's no particular meaning to this, but the crowd is still wrong a little more often. On the other hand, the main task of a smart gambler isn't to be right, or rather, not only or primarily about that. The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong, big time, for big money. Or where a small number are wrong, but, again, big time, for big money. If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.
This is a classic George Soros quote: the only thing that matters is how much you win when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.

This applies so much to trading as well. I've read this quote many times, but I never knew who the author was. Thanks for sharing it. Indeed, both gambling and trading involve taking chances. We take advantage of opportunities that we believe could make us money in the short term. That's why, whether gambling or trading, we have to be able to accept losses because there is never a guarantee that we will win.What keeps a gambler or trader going is the fact that the number of times we are right should be enough to make up for the times we are wrong. No one can predict the future. I mean, if it were possible, we would all be wealthy by now.That's simply the nature of gambling and trading.

[Chinesebaby]

In reality, everyone can make mistakes, both the crowd and those who try to bet against the crowd. There's no particular meaning to this, but the crowd is still wrong a little more often. On the other hand, the main task of a smart gambler isn't to be right, or rather, not only or primarily about that. The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong, big time, for big money. Or where a small number are wrong, but, again, big time, for big money. If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.
This is a classic George Soros quote: the only thing that matters is how much you win when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.

That's definitely a great quote that every gambler needs to have at the back of their mind when analyzing and making a bet prediction. Because always being does not automatically mean you are profitable at gambling, which can be as a result of the huge amount you stake while chasing smaller odds while having the mindset of avoiding high risk. Because one thing that is certain about gambling is the fact that risk can never be totally eradicated. Hence, a more reason why, as a gambler, it's always good to target high odds, so that if eventually you happen to get lucky once, that once would have covered up all the losses you may have made in several weeks or months of gambling. So it is actually a nice quote.

[Mr_Brilliant$]

Let's take a deep breath. This one is tricky. There are many things to choose from. If I were to be that smart gambler. I will go for odd. Yes. You can have the best strategy and everything. But the odd is were might fuck you up. So in as much as we all want to be in profit, the odd might eat some of that away. So being right is not really enough. You should ask, is the odd favourable to me? That's very important with some bunch of others.

[fredericktaylor]

I think that adopting the right method or wrong method through gambling depends entirely on the knowledge and mentality of the gambler because if the gambler has little knowledge about gambling, then he will never be able to gamble by following the right way, on the other hand, the gambler has complete knowledge but he gambles aggressively due to greed or emotion, as a result, the gambler will never be able to gamble by following the right way despite having knowledge about gambling. We always see that the greed of the gambler can make him destitute while gambling. When the gambler knows about the risks and gambles within his means and does not gamble outside his own interests by taking excessive risks due to greed or emotion, as a result, the gambler will be able to gamble by following the right rules, which will reduce the risk of losing money.

[Loyang]

Most of the people are seen making wrong decisions while gambling. Gambling is an addiction where every person is forced to make mistakes. But the person who can move forward without falling into the trap of this mistake can definitely save himself from big losses through proper management. Because whenever a person becomes aggressive or starts playing beyond his financial capacity due to greed, then a person faces big losses. So if every person can control himself then they will never make wrong decisions.

Before betting on every match, a person must definitely analyze it properly and know which team is in good form and which team has player injury problems etc. A person must analyze everything and take a decision.

[Findingnemo]

You are just saying that when you win then the win must be big, or bet on the high-odds games but I doubt that logic applies here. When you bet on high odd games the potential win is big while the risk also increases accordingly that is the smartness?

The actual smart gambler will not force to bet on any games, they do when they feel like doing it or simply wait for the better games.

[Taricoins]

In reality, everyone can make mistakes, both the crowd and those who try to bet against the crowd. There's no particular meaning to this, but the crowd is still wrong a little more often. On the other hand, the main task of a smart gambler isn't to be right, or rather, not only or primarily about that. The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong, big time, for big money. Or where a small number are wrong, but, again, big time, for big money. If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.
This is a classic George Soros quote: the only thing that matters is how much you win when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.

This is deep but very hard to actually do, I understand the huge odd gap when betting against the crowd, literally odds takes a drastic leap when the crowd is in the opposite direction but to actually do this, first we have to bet against yourself. What I mean is that you have to bet against your own reasoning, for instance that Brighton and Arsenal match, common reasoning, Arsenal are the sure favourites but betting against own thinking would make you boom with that Brighton win yesterday

[letteredhub]

The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong

This is not about smart gamblers because it is not easy to get it right all the time when other people are wrong. The other things are the odds, you can get it right with small odds but in a way 1 loss is a huge loss. Gambling is not easy.

It's true that gambling is not an easy activity to handle with a constant winning spree but nevertheless as a gambler you must be smart by making smart decisions that reduces losses instead of greedy risky ones that burns down your bankroll even before you could enjoy the games or even make a single cent as profit..

The main task of a smart If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.

Gambling should be done with Little amount of money regardless of the winning and losses. Being able to handle your losses in a way it will not affect you.

Exactly how it should be instead of how some of these gamblers spend to much money gambling all day and after making losses they get emotionally affected and  mentally disturbed by amount lost. No odd is a sure one neither the predictions guaranteed regardless of the source of it, hence using what can be affordable to lose is just another smart way to gambling.

[AmaGold70]

In reality, everyone can make mistakes, both the crowd and those who try to bet against the crowd. There's no particular meaning to this, but the crowd is still wrong a little more often. On the other hand, the main task of a smart gambler isn't to be right, or rather, not only or primarily about that. The main task of a smart gambler is to be right where many people are wrong, big time, for big money. Or where a small number are wrong, but, again, big time, for big money. If you win, but your winnings are mere cents, your game is pointless, even if you're right. Conversely, if you lose often, but your losses are small, then there's no problem.
This is a classic George Soros quote: the only thing that matters is how much you win when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong.

No gambler will always be right no matter how smart you might be, but many times you will always do something very different from the crowd. Mistakes can be made but not relatively, losses can also be made but not like the general public. Am aware that everyone looses bet, but some gamblers are more rewarded because of their ability make the right prediction in most cases. More also, winning a bet is everyone desire, and winning big is what the smart gamblers target, though sometimes or just occasionally they might gamble on small odds, but in most cases they bet to win big, and gain a life changing rewards.

[bangjoe]

The basic principle emphasizes risk to reward, Soros's phrase that I heard when studying investing, which is basically in gambling but we have done a lot of research results and you feel confident with the results and then you allocate a lot of money as a bet on your game based on the results of previous research and analysis.

Neat in the world of football gambling for example, I completely agree with what yahooo said, it is very difficult to predict, and how often the results of our predictions come to fruition, maybe you also know from your own betting history right?, so on the application of the method described there should not be a term of fun like I did on football betting, to add excitement and other dopamine from betting, because should focus more on risk and reward.