Pinnacle

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

Play Blackjack

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

Soccer odds

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.

Bet on soccer at Pinnacle

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

Bet Now

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>


<p><span>The first thing to consider when betting on the outright winner of a golf tournament is the format of the competition. The two main golf formats are stroke play and match play and it is vital to understand the differences between the two before deciding where to place your money.</span></p>
<p><span>In stroke play, golfers accumulate strokes and the player with the fewest strokes wins. This means that a bad performance at one hole, such as seven on a par four, can effectively destroy a player’s chances to win.</span></p>
<p><span>In match play, on the other hand, each hole is played separately. The player with the fewest strokes on a hole wins the individual hole and the number of holes won in the match determines the overall winner. A bad performance at one hole is <g class="gr_ gr_64 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation replaceWithoutSep" id="64" data-gr-id="64">therefore</g> less important. If one player scores three, it is irrelevant whether the other took four shots or 24. </span></p>
<h4>The Ryder Cup format</h4>
<p><span>While the majority of golf contests are conducted as a stroke play over 72 holes, the Ryder Cup between Europe and the USA involves 28 match play competitions over 18 holes between players selected from the two teams of twelve.</span>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>While an unpredictable player is worse off against a consistent opponent in a singles match, in fourball matches, unpredictable players are the clear favourites over&nbsp;a team with a consistent track record.</blockquote>
<p><span>A particular feature of the Ryder Cup is that during the first two days, there are four fourball matches, in which two golf players of each side compete directly against each other. Each golfer plays their own ball throughout the game, with four balls in play at all times. The winner is determined by the comparing the lower scoring team members.</span></p>
<p><span>It is exactly because of this characteristic that betting on the Ryder Cup requires a different approach. Whereas inconsistent performance is a dreadful drawback in stroke play competitions, in this form of golf, statistics show that the more inconsistent the players, the more likely they are to win the tournament.&nbsp;</span></p>
<h4>The effect of consistency in golf</h4>
<p><span>In his book Taking Chances, John Haigh investigates how much of an advantage inconsistent performance can bring to a team. To measure his model, he takes that at any hole a player scores either eagle, birdie, par or bogey and introduces two players. Player A is highly consistent in his results whereas Player B more erratic. The below table shows their respective performance for each type of result.</span><br><br></p>
<div class="table-holder-article-content">
<div class="table-modal">
<div class="table-modal-head">
<div class="table-modal-head-inner"><span class="table-modal-close"></span></div>
</div>
<div class="table-modal-content">
<div class="article-table-content">
<table class=" article-table">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><span>&nbsp;</span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Eagle</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Birdie</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Par</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Bogey</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>Player A (consistent)</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>5%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>10%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>80%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>5%</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>Player B</strong></p>
<p><strong>(unpredictable)</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>10%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>20%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>40%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>30%</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span>Based on the above data, we can assess what will happen in a singles match between them by examining each combination of scores. What the maths suggest is that in 36% of the times the two players get the same score, the consistent player (A) wins about 35.5% of holes and the unpredictable player (B) wins about 28.5% of holes, which gives the consistent player (A) a small but consistent advantage over the unpredictable one.</span></p>
<h4>Why fourball matches favour unpredictable golfers</h4>
<p><span>How do things change, however, &nbsp;when two consistent players are paired against two unpredictable players? The distribution of the better score at any hole for each team is calculated in the below table:</span><br><br></p>
<div class="table-holder-article-content"><span class="table-expand"></span>
<div class="table-modal">
<div class="table-modal-head">
<div class="table-modal-head-inner">
<h2></h2>
<span class="table-modal-close"></span></div>
</div>
<div class="table-modal-content">
<div class="article-table-content">
<table class=" article-table">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><span>&nbsp;</span></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Eagle</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Birdie</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Par</strong></p>
</td>
<td>
<p><strong>Bogey</strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>2 consistent players (A)</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>9.75%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>18%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>72%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>0.25%</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><strong>2 unpredictable players</strong></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>19%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>32%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>40%</span></p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: center;">
<p><span>9%</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span>What becomes immediately apparent is the drastic decrease in the number of bogeys for the unpredictable players from 30% to just 9% and the 40% performance at par. </span></p>
<p>The calculations show that the unpredictable team wins 41% of holes, 36% will be shared while the consistent team wins only 23% of holes.</p>
<p>Whereas an unpredictable player is marginally worse off when playing against a consistent opponent in a singles match, when it comes to <g class="gr_ gr_50 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del" id="50" data-gr-id="50">team work</g>, unpredictable players are the clear favourites to win against a team with a consistent track record.</p>
<p><span>Get the <a href="https://www.pinnacle.com/en/odds/specials/golf/ryder-cup">best 2018 Ryder Cup odds</a>&nbsp;at Pinnacle, the ultimate bookmaker with the highest limits and lowest margins. </span></p>
<p><span>&nbsp;</span></p>

Ryder Cup Odds

With consistency being the number one quality when assessing the value of a player, the Ryder Cup and its format turn everything you knew about predicting winners on its head. Read on to find out why unpredictable golfers are more likely to be successful at the Ryder Cup than golfers with a consistent track record.