Sports betting or poker?

[Beyond the Bets]

What requires more skill? It's a debate that's been started by CoversSports on Twitter today, and to me, it's a no brainer. I've played both and am far more consistent in one than the other.

I can always find a table with a couple of suckers and take their money. Or at least I usually can. Sometimes the cards are good and sometimes the cards are bad, but in the end, I have a far better chance of taking advantage of a brutal card player than I do a brutal bookmaker.

Seriously, how many awful bookmakers are there? Every book copies each others lines and all are cut from the same cloth. It's hard as heck to spot an advantage, and even when you do, it's all out of your hands.

But there is an advantage to be gained — and in both.

For me, though, it takes far more skill to be a winning sports bettor than a winning poker player.

[Insider]

The two games in a casino where you might actually have an edge is Poker and Sports betting. Poker is easier though. Even if you have an edge betting sports it's tough sledding.

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I can sit here all day and name you guys in their twenties who are millionaires because of online poker. I don't know many guys becoming millionaires betting sports. Some online poker players are making $100/hr and play 15 tables at once. No edges like that betting sports. Sports is tough sledding.

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I can sit here all day and name you guys in their twenties who are millionaires because of online poker. I don't know many guys becoming millionaires betting sports. Some online poker players are making $100/hr and play 15 tables at once. No edges like that betting sports. Sports is tough sledding.

[JSpauny]

I've been trying to come up with a good answer for this for a few minutes and can't really come up with much. Its a very difficult question. Kind of depends on how you define skill.

I do know this, sports betting is more difficult to do well at than poker. But something in my mind keeps telling me poker requires more skill.

I saw it on twitter and I think it sums up the skill argument better than I can. Basically it was, in poker you can affect the outcome of the hand during the hand, but in sports betting once you place your bet you can't affect the outcome at all.

I find it hard to call sports betting a "skill." I know it's something, but I'm not sure skill is the right word according to how I see skill. It's certainly not luck. It's not luck in either case.

Personally, I'd say poker requires more skill even though sports betting is harder. Doesn't really make sense all the way, but in my head I understand it. I do see both arguments though, and they're both pretty damn good.

[The Peoples Champ]

I see JS's point, and agree with it.

I think the biggest difference between the two is knowing, and how many opportunities you have, to pick you spots. In poker, I can fold away as many hands as I want, and lets be frank, most times if you are dealt 2,7/3,4/5,2/etc. etc., you can logically conclude that unless you are on the blind and only have to check or ante a bit it play, you kick away.

Sports isn't quite that easy. First off, the cards don't change in poker the way sports numbers do, obviously. Sure, the market has an effect in poker, as the guy sitting on trip Kings may make it unreasonable for me to call or raise him with an outside chance at a straight or flush the only reason I'm still in the hand. However, in sports betting, situations and statistics and spots that apply to sports betting far outweigh those of poker, giving more reasons to stay on a play, rather than logically staying out of it.

So, I guess, in conclusion, I find sports betting to be more difficult than poker because there is a lot higher potential for me to stay on something I don't feel completely confident in, and a lot fewer bets that present themselves as an obvious no-brainer get out or stay in. Is that fair?

[JSpauny]

Just had a good thought

Sports betting is more or less speculation. Where you guess at an outcome based on past results and such but don't have any say in the actual outcome.

I'm not sure speculation is a skill, but there are some who are better at it than others.

Poker is speculation as well, where you guess if your hand is better than anothers, but you can actually change the outcome during the hand.

I hope that makes sense as well typed out as it did in my head a minute ago.

P.S. I hope when I say guess people don't think I mean widly guess. I mean guess with a certain degree of confidence.

[Skating Tripods]

It depends on what kind of sports betting exactly we're talking about. I can make the argument that even after a hand of poker starts, you still have control of your money. If you bet an entire game in sports, you've got zero control once that game starts. Granted, you can hedge at halftime and things like that.

I would think that poker takes more luck because you have to evaluate on the fly whereas you can break down a sporting event for a while before you make your informed decision. Plus, you never know your starting hand. You always know the spread, the two teams, the injury situations, and whatever else with betting.

I guess I'd say sports betting takes more skill. You're not playing against other people. You're playing against the house and the number. Obviously there's an element of luck in the ball bouncing your way, so to speak, but you're able to adjust for that. You can't really adjust for some schmuck flopping flushes because he plays any two suited cards.

[KepowOb]

As a few other people have mentioned, I think the two are a bit different, and it becomes hard to compare one of them to the other. I also think some people are overlooking the skills it takes to be a long-term, winning poker player.

If you want to go sit down at some small stakes table (or online, at 10-20 tables) and grind away, most people should be able to make some sort of profit if they commit themselves to learning the basics of the game and playing well... but I used to play a lot of poker, and those who are really good at it, they have the ability to CRUSH regular players.

With that said, I think it takes less skill to be able to eek out a profit at poker (or to play like a robot, playing 20-tables at a time) than it does sports betting.

[Weebay]

If its an awful bookmaker I would say sports, but if not, then poker.