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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

Dominic is a lecturer in actuarial science and insurance risk at The University of Malta. He is an actuary by training and his research focuses on risk with special emphasis on betting markets, financial derivatives, ruin and insurtech. Dominic's application of mathematical strategies to specific sports has proven to be an invaluable tool for bettors.

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The Poisson distribution is typically used as a model for goals scored or for goal differences in football. Other distributions provide a better fit. For example, it seems that the bivariate Poisson distribution is the most popular in the trading world – although it has some significant limitations. In any case, Poisson distribution provides a good starting point.
<h4>How to calculate expected goals</h4>
The article <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/soccer/how-to-calculate-poisson-distribution">Poisson Distribution: Predict a soccer betting winner</a> provides a step-by-step method on how to apply the Poisson distribution to predict goals scored per team. The technically inclined may wish to read the more academic approach by <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9574.1982.tb00782.x/abstract">Maher</a>.
In essence, for each team playing a match, one needs to calculate their predicted average goals to be scored.&nbsp; This is dependent on the average goals scored in the past, their relative attack strength at home/away (that is a 103% would mean that this team scores 3% more at home than a typical team) and the opposing team defence strength.
<blockquote>For two teams that are expected to score 1.25 goals per match, the chance of a draw is 27% while that of a win for either team is 36.5%.</blockquote>
Although short tournaments, such as the Euro, may not have the intricacies of dealing with home and away goals since practically all teams are playing away, they are harder to deal with mainly due to the <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-strategy/taking-advantage-of-errors-and-inaccuracies-in-models">parameter error</a>.&nbsp;
National teams play less frequently than club teams. Moreover a tournament held over a few days may be more affected by the immediate performance, rather than the performance over months. In <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/euro-2016/unpredictability-in-euro-2016">Unpredictability in Euro 2016</a>, I suggested that it is more likely to see Wales win the Euro than what Leicester City actually achieved mainly due to random fluctuation.<o:p></o:p>
Hence, we would need to guess, or make presumptions, about the expected goals to be scored per team. In this article I will show how a small fluctuation may greatly affect the final results. In modelling parlance, this would be an exercise of stress testing our model.<o:p></o:p>
<h4 class="DefaultStyle">Base rate of 1.25 goals per match</h4>
Let’s start off with two teams that are expected to score 1.25 goals per match. In this case, the chance of a draw is 27% while that of a win for either team is 36.5% To get the gist of how these values were obtained, refer to the aforementioned article on <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/soccer/how-to-calculate-poisson-distribution">Poisson Distribution</a>. <o:p></o:p>
What if the goal rate was wrong by just 0.1? Well, if one team has a 1.35 goal rate, their chances of winning would increase by 2.6% to 39.1%, while the chance of a draw drops marginally by 0.6%.&nbsp; <o:p></o:p>
This is assuming the average goal rate for the opposing team stays at 1.25 goals per game. The effects of a 0.1 drop in goal rate are similar, being a decrease of 2.8% chance of winning the match.<o:p></o:p>
<h4 class="DefaultStyle">Base rate of 2 goals per match</h4>
If both teams are high scoring, one would expect a draw to be more unlikely. For example in the case of an average rate of 2 goals to be scored, a draw is only 20% likely.<o:p></o:p>
<blockquote>The difference in a the chances of a draw between using parameters of 2 and 1.25 expected goals per match is from 20% to 27% - an equivalent odd from 5.00 to 3.70.</blockquote>
If one team has a 0.1 higher rate (2.1 goals) or 0.1 lower , the effects on a draw are minimal at a maximum of 1% discrepancy. However, the probabilities of winning or losing changes by 2%. We see more fluctuations at a lower expected rate, partially because 0.1 difference is a larger percentile (8%) in the 1.25 as a parameter than 2 (5%).<o:p></o:p>
One can observe that small changes barely have an effect. &nbsp;The interesting part is if the parameter estimate is more off-track. Consider that the difference in a draw between using parameters of 2 and 1.25 is from 20% to 27% - an equivalent odd from 5.00 to 3.70. <o:p></o:p>
If there is one lesson to be learned here is to examine how a small change in your parameter value may affect results, before blindly trusting results.&nbsp;<o:p></o:p>

See the latest <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/?leagueid=5264" target="_blank">Euro 2016 odds</a>, including method of victory, Asian handicap markets, clean sheet wins much more under the left-hand side menu&nbsp;Bet Options/Specials!
See the latest <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/?leagueid=5264" target="_blank">Euro 2016 odds</a>, including method of victory, Asian handicap markets, clean sheet wins and much more under the left-hand side menu&nbsp;Specials!

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The Poisson distribution is typically used as a starting point to derive initial odds. But in short tournaments, like the Euro, where such parameters are hard to obtain, the limitations of otherwise reliable statistical tools become more apparent. Read on to find out how to protect your money from statistical limitations.