Frequently Asked
Questions
1. Who
owns this website?
This website Smartgambler, our horse racing
website Pro-Punter
and our poker website The
Holdem Lounge are all owned by OZmium Pty Ltd,
a privately owned company based in Melbourne, Australia.
For a short profile of our owner and
other information,
visit our corporate website.
2. What
is your main business? What do you do? 
OZmium provides free information aimed
at helping sports bettors and horse racing punters
to gain a statistical edge over the bookmakers and
become long term winning bettors. We also provide
all sorts of free betting aids like probability calculators
for various games and sports, tables showing the best
casino games to bet on, etc.
Over the years we recruited handicappers
from all over the world to work for us in pursuit
of an edge in various types of sports betting. Handicappers
were judged by whether they could demonstrate an edge
against the bookies over a statistically meaningful
number of bets. The sports we provided handicapping
for changed from time to time as a good handicapper
in a new sport became available, or one had to leave.
Nowadays we have moved away from selling betting information
and our income is derived from advertising hosted
on our sites and residual affilate commission payments.
3. Which of
the sports you handicapped over the years was the
best to bet on?
There is no definitive answer to this.
Our results from the different sports varied from
year to year. Our AFL football and our horse racing
groups had the most members, but this perhaps mainly
reflected the popularity of those sports in Australia
where we are based. Tennis was also quite popular
for a while.
Horse racing is hard to win at consistently
because of the relatively larger take by the bookies,
who sometimes run their books to greater than 125%,
compared to around 5% or even less on most other sports.
However, in racing, because of the large fields and
long odds available which increases complexity, there
is a greater difference in the skill level of punters
and therefore greater potential to exercise skill
to overcome the bookies theoretical edge. You just
need to be much better relatively than the
next person to win consistently.
Tennis has traditionally been a good
sport to bet on for various reasons. Many punters
lack in-depth knowledge of any but the highest profile
players and even some of the bookies seem to regularly
get it wrong. There are lots of variables in tennis
including motivational factors, injuries, court surfaces,
weather conditions, fatigue and so forth, so it lends
itself to skilful analysis. However, bookies are much
more accurate now than they used to be.
AFL football was quite profitable for
us early on, but less so in later years. The market
seems to attract a certain percentage of emotional
money, which is not smart money. The bookies tend
to be pretty accurate these days, but weight of money
occasionally causes some strange lines which can be
exploited.
Golf provided us with excellent long
term profits, but it requires great discipline and
patience because many of the bets are on long shots
(taking one individual against the field) and there
can be long losing runs followed by a big winner.
In this respect it is even more demanding of a strong
character than horse racing. Like tennis, we have
had some excellent golf handicappers, but they are
hard to hang on to.
In
the final analysis, all major sports are beatable
with sufficient skill, and that's what we are here
to promote. The best idea usually is to choose the
sports you most enjoy following. That way, winning
money is not the only source of enjoyment!
4. You seem
to promote a lot of online casinos and other gambling
products. Do you genuinely endorse them all?
No. Most of them are paid advertisements
and we don't endorse them any more than a newspaper
endorses the commercials it carries. We just provide
real estate for them to hang out their signs.
5. Do you
have any job opportunities in your company?
We're not really a big employer. Our
business model is to automate things and try to minimise
overheads and create semi passive income streams where
possible. When necessary we use consultants, not salaried
employees.
6. Would
you consider selling any of your websites or forums?
Yes,
we are open to new business partners and/or stakeholders
and would also entertain offers for our websites at
the right price.
If you have a question that may be
appropriate to post in this section, please e-mail
our managing director, Guy West.
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