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What Are Blackjack Side Bets?Side bets are bonus bets placed on a round of Blackjack on outcomes beyond whether the player or dealer will win. The majority are staked at the start of the round before the cards have been dealt alongside regular bets and many have fixed odds that usually offer greater payouts than the simple 2:1 rewarded for beating the dealer.Play Blackjack at Pinnacle Casino

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Side bets provide an exciting way to make Blackjack games more interesting whilst offering you a greater number of ways to win. So what are side bets, what side bets are available and are they worth it? Read on to find out.

Blackjack Side Bets Explained

Finding a niche market in betting can often lead to value. This can be anything from specialist knowledge of handball betting to extensive experience in betting on Japanese baseball. Providing you know more than the bookmaker, there is money to be made.  &lt;Bet on soccer at Pinnacle&gt; They also make for interesting and potentially profitable bets, as they can be a little more reliable

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A corner is one of the most inexplicably exciting events in soccer. Only around three per cent of them lead to a goal, but you can guarantee that the attacking team’s fans will roar their approval and encouragement if their team are awarded one. Read on to find out how you can benefit from betting on corners.

Corners betting in soccer: Value in a lesser-known market

Poisson Distribution is a mathematical concept for translating mean averages into a probability for variable outcomes across a distribution. For example, if we know Manchester City average 1.7 goals per game, so by putting the Poisson Distribution formula tells us that this average equates to Manchester City&nbsp;scoring 0 goals 18.3% of the time, 1 goal 31% of the time, 2 goals 26.4% of the time and 3 goals 15% of the time.

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Poisson Distribution: Predict the score in soccer betting

What is Expected Value?The amount a player can expect to win or lose if they were to place a bet on the same odds many times over, calculated through a simple equation multiplying your probability of winning with the amount you could win per bet, and subtracting the probability of losing multiplied by the amount lost per bet.A simple example of Expected Value (EV) put into practice -&nbsp;if you were

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The Expected Value of a bet shows us how much we can expect to win (on average) per bet, and as such is the most valuable calculation a bettor can make when comparing bookmakers' odds. How can you calculate Expected Value in sports betting in order to predict your winnings? Read on to find out.

How to Calculate Expected Value

<p>We have a team of editors and writers at Pinnacle, as well as a collection of external contributors, ranging from university lecturers and renowned authors, to ex-traders and esteemed sports experts. Collectively, the Pinnacle team and external contributors produce the educational content within Betting Resources.</p>


<h3>1. Lack of big data</h3>
<p>Let’s start with a crash course on <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-strategy/how-bookmakers-make-money">how bookmakers set the odds</a>. Betting companies employ a team of people, called traders or odds compilers who calculate the statistical probabilities of outcomes based on past results. Although this common practice works in sports where every second of action is monitored and registered by various <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/educational/inside-a-sports-hedge-fund">parties interested in sports data</a>, it is easier said than done for politics betting.</p>
<p>Before 2016, when was the last time Donald Trump campaigned for the US Presidency or the British people were asked to decide whether they want to leave the EU? Exactly. This is why normal rules don’t apply in politics betting. The below chart shows the proof is in the pudding - it analyses the implied probability of Trump and Clinton to win the 2016&nbsp;US elections based on Pinnacle’s odds.<br><br><strong>Betting markets&nbsp;vs. Reality</strong></p>
<img width="720" height="360" alt="implied-probability-inarticle_720.jpg" src="/sites/default/files/media-image/implied-probability-inarticle_720.jpg" loading="lazy"><br>
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<p>It wasn’t until the vote counting was under way for the betting odds to get in sync with reality, which brings us to the second reason why bookmakers fail in political predictions.</p>
<h3>2. Inaccurate polling</h3>
<p>When bookmakers don't have enough data, they inevitably rely on gauging the public opinion. This is where polling comes into play. Polling has previously proven a reliable guide in political voting, however, confidence in survey results could not be lower at the moment. The Brexit-Trump shock results brought home a point - people poll in one way and act in another. Wondering why that is?</p>
<p>To paraphrase Mark Twain: “There are lies, damn lies and polls.” Statistics don't lie, people do. The truth about lying, according to social science research, is that lying in surveys could be the result of social desirability <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-psychology/hindsight-bias-in-sports-betting">bias</a>. In plain English, when people are asked to give an opinion on sensitive topics, they are prone to giving misleading information out of the fear of what they will look like if they say the truth. But even when they do give truthful answers, polling can still miss the mark. How come? Indecision plays a big part.</p>
<h3>3. The undecided ones</h3>
<p>Statisticians are aware of the social desirability bias and take all measures available to minimise this effect. If predicting the extent to which people lie is somewhat possible though, based on rates of lying in previous surveys, there is one thing that even the best statisticians in the world cannot account for -&nbsp;the undecided voters.</p>
<p>In head-to-head elections that are close and the winner is decided at the very last moment, pre-election polls are as good as worthless. The ones who will determine the winner are the ones who have not made up their mind yet, which makes statisticians useless and the betting odds irrelevant, or depending on your point of view, a valuable opportunity for betting profits. The higher the uncertainty, the bigger the odds fluctuation and the more opportunities there are for the bettors to place their bets at favourable prices. So, if the polls cannot gauge the undecided ones, who do they really gauge?</p>
<h3>4. Skin in the game</h3>
<p>Welcome to a crash course in <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-strategy/how-bookmakers-make-money">how the bookies set the odds</a>, part two. Once they set the opening odds, the players bet on the markets they believe offers them good value, causing the bookmakers to constantly adjust the odds in order to maintain a balanced book and avoid exposure on one side - also known as following the money.</p>
<p>While surveys measure the opinion of people who are involved in voting, the odds reflect the betting activity (i.e. what people who want to make money think). That is a completely different ball game. Let's take for example the upcoming <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/odds/specials/politics/french-election">French elections</a>. While the number of French citizens&nbsp;registered&nbsp;for voting is about 43 million, the number of people who bet on who will win the French elections&nbsp;can be as big as the adult population of earth with access to the internet or a betting shop. <br><br>And last but not least, sex comes into play.</p>
<h3>5. The prostitute factor</h3>
<p>When Cristiano Ronaldo is on the pitch, the only thing that can drastically change his odds of scoring is an injury. Political candidates, however, can see their ratings go from top to flop as fast it takes for a sex scandal to spread across Twitter. From the Profumo affair that rocked the British Establishment during the Cold War and contributed to the defeat of the Conservative party in 1964 to the most recent Clinton-Lewinsky affair, sex scandals in politics have the potential to turn the betting markets upside-down.</p>
<p>Now that you know why bookmakers struggle to get the odds for political outcomes right, do you think you can beat the bookie? Get unbeatable odds on the <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/odds/specials/politics/french-election">French</a> and <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/odds/specials/politics/german-election">German elections</a> at Pinnacle, the only bookmaker who <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-strategy/why-do-bookmakers-close-limit-betting-accounts">welcomes winners</a>.</p>

In 2016, bookmakers largely misjudged the chances of President Trump and Brexit occuring. In 2017, France, Germany and the Netherlands are going to the polls in a round of elections that is set to cause an earthquake at the core of the EU as we know it. With political betting more popular than ever among Pinnacle’s bettors, don’t place a bet on politics before reading the five reasons why bookmakers fail in political predictions.