Ultra low vig bookmakers

[colwem]

I'm new to sports betting and gambling in general so sorry if this is stupid or this is the wrong place to post this.

I just learned about vigorish and how bookmakers make their money in general. The vigorish is a commission for their service right? But it seems like bookmaking is an algorithm and can be done effectively by a computer. You just balance the current odds so that the next bet will always balance your book. So that no matter what happens you essentially give all the money you got in to the winners minus your commission. It's just math. Right? So why do we need a bookmaker? Can't we just set up some service that essentially provides free bookmaking? The vig would be very very low. Just enough to cover the cost of bandwidth, electricity and equipment? We would set it up so that the service is very low bandwidth and power intensive. If this could be done gambling would no longer be such a losing bet. It would be nearly 50/50 or more like 49.999/50.001. As it is the best you can get is more like 48/52 or something like that.

Is there something I'm missing? Are their costs of making book that I don't know about? Like taxes or commission from payment services? Maybe this is actually what some bookmakers are doing and they are only getting profit from ads or something and their vig is actually just the cost of each transaction?

Would this allow a situation for someone to scam the system? Like arbitrage or something (though I don't see how that would actually hurt). Are there other services that bookmakers offer that actually attract betters?

Again I couldn't find a forum called "Betting theory for beginners" which is where I should post this so I posted it here, Sorry.

[jcljack25]

You forgot the cost to break someone's leg if they dont pay.

[HoulihansTX]

Vig is the only way a book makes money.

It is their only incentive for taking action.

[colwem]

Right breaking legs is expensive so this will be a pay upfront kind of deal.

In this scheme it's a community run site. The gamblers themselves run the thing. It's only objective is to provide the best odds to it's users and not LOSE money. It has no interest in making money. It's kind of like open source software. If something is simple enough and it's demanded by enough users volunteers will make the product for free. In this case volunteers gamblers would set up and run the site for free. It makes sense because there are so so many passionate gamblers who would love to have a system that generated better odds. **** I'd do it if it doesn't turn out to be a bureaucratic and logistic nightmare.

[A's Fan]

sounds like a great idea we could call it matchbook

[colwem]

Yeah I just looked it up. The best odds available today are from Pinnacle and 5Dimes at 96.95 and 95.13 average payout according to oddportal.com

It has to be possible to offer a better payout than that. Thats a vig of 1.5% - 2%.

[HoulihansTX]

Yea technically what you are talking about is an exchange.

Look up Matchbook, and Betfair.

[colwem]

Thanks A's Fan! I didn't know about matchbook. It seems like this idea already exists or at least pretty close. This is what I meant when I said I don't have that much experience. It seems like it's still a little different than what I was going for though.

I guess that brings me to another question. If matchbook exists why do bookmakers still exist?