This book was published many years ago in Taiwan, with the title "The Game Rules Not Told by Sports Betting and Lottery Bookmakers," issued by Business Weekly Publishing. As a memento of my departure from the sports betting industry, I penned down this book, hoping to enlighten people on the lesser-known rules within the industry, and to offer a fresh perspective on how operators of sports betting manage this game to make money. Currently, there are numerous articles teaching people how to win money on online sportsbooks, yet few discuss how these platforms win money from the public.
The response to the publication was stronger than I had anticipated. Over the years, many readers have written to me, expressing their love for the book and raising various questions hoping for answers. As time has passed, the physical copies of this book have sold out in bookstores, making it difficult for interested readers to find a copy.
Fortunately, with the rise of e-books, I have been able to re-list the electronic version of this book in online stores. Additionally, I have updated some sections and included discussions from letters exchanged with readers over the years, hoping to provide further insight.
This book specifically delves into sports betting, simply put, gambling related to sports, such as the Taiwan Sports Lottery issued by the government, legally permitted online sportsbooks, or illegal underground betting websites, etc. Some might think of common sports betting apps on smartphones, which are essentially extensions of online platforms, and thus we regard apps and websites as the same. Many might also think of placing bets over the phone, which essentially is having someone place bets on a website on your behalf. Hence, when we talk about sports betting here, in real-life terms, it refers to sports lotteries you see on the streets, betting sites, a variety of online sportsbooks, mobile apps, etc.
However, this book isn't about teaching you how to bet on websites, how to place a bet, there are plenty of books like that everywhere. On the contrary, we discuss how online sportsbooks are established, how do they make money? What are the economic rules behind? Who are the players involved? And how do they grow and flourish, enticing batch after batch of players to continuously invest time and money in this game, eventually losing everything.
In other words, I want to tell you some things that online sportsbooks won't tell you, and hope that after reading, you'll realize that betting should only be for entertainment. The phrase "a little gambling is amusing" holds, treating it as spending money on watching a movie is fine, but considering gambling as a profession, or hoping to get rich from it is mere fantasy. In the game of betting, the ones making money will never be the players, so for the sake of you and your family, please stay away from illegal betting, and treat legal betting with a leisurely attitude, without hoping to make money from this game.
If you have close friends or family obsessed with online gambling, you can give them this book to read. As long as they understand how online sportsbooks operate behind the scenes, they naturally won't gamble again. The best way to quit something is to first understand what it essentially is. They think they can win only because they are unaware of the rules behind these platforms, once they know, no one would want to keep losing, handing over money to online sportsbooks for nothing.
