Saturday, June 16, 2012

ProLine bonus offer

I joined Atlantic Lotto ProLine a little while ago. I got this email from The Sporting News with a $5 wager coupon to join ProLine. So I set up an account for the freeroll. I randomly chose the over-under on two baseball games. I lost, oh well.

As part of the sign up I subscribed to email offers. There was a promotion from late May to June where if the player wagers $20 then ALC will put up a $5 bonus.

Now that sounds like a good deal. I just had a find a wager with over 80% equity and it would be profitable. For example if there is a 90% value wager (house gets 10% profit), then on a $25 wager the house pays out $22.50 and keeps $2.50 profit.

Now that would be profitable for me since only $20 of the $25 comes out of my pocket and ALC under the promo was putting up the other $5. so at 90% equity I would have an expected profit of $2.50 or 12.5%.

I looked into the over under on the NHL finals games and the NBA finals games as they were evenly priced on both sides so agreeable to a random selection scheme.

Alas I found that in the best case of this over-under combo ALC was only paying out $0.745 for every $1 wagered. So the player only has 74.5% equity. which means that even with the $5 ALC bonus that it was still an unprofitable bet for the player. that's pretty bad.

ALC is being stingy with their ProLine players and not paying winners as much as they should be. I understand that the house has to have some edge in order to be in business. but for comparison in football point spread Vegas follows the 11/10 rule. that is on an $11 wager the house will pay a winner $10. so in that case overall the house is paying out $0.9545 for every $1 players bet, so those players have 95.5% equity while the house only keeps 4.5%. by comparison ProLine holding back 25.5% for their own profit is not right by their players.

visit to Ottawa

I just got back from my second visit to Ottawa in around a month. it was with work both times. it's different to travel twice after no business travel at all the last four years. both visits were good. I was fortunate to catch Ottawa weather at its finest in the springtime. and Ottawa in spring is really quite pleasant. overall I'd describe Ottawa as quite nice, a place I could see myself living. it's not in the cards at this point. still if there's more business travel to Ottawa on the radar screen I would go along with it.