Personal Experiment in Gambling 4D, TOTO and Big Sweep (Singapore Pools)

A few months ago, I started this experiment of gambling 4D, TOTO and Big Sweep. The purpose was mainly to understand the process of gambling and understand what are the odds of winning. This post is mainly for educational purposes and not to encourage gambling. One can gamble if they have excess cash. Although it is hard to define what is excess cash which to me I define it as money that one is willing and able to lose without losing sleep at night.

*Disclaimer: For those who know me, I am not a gambler in the first place so even after the experiment has ended, I have not gambled 4D, TOTO or Big Sweep ever since. 

For those who do not know, Singapore Pools is a legalized platform for one to gamble in Singapore with the various gambling options such as TOTO, 4D, Soccer, F1, Motorsports, horse-racing and Big Sweep. The objective of gambling is to make a guess or prediction such that if it is correct, you will be rewarded for it. And it was only in November 2016 that one can place bets online without having to go down to the shop physically. For more information of this, you can refer to the news article "What you need to know about the new online betting rules in Singapore" by The Newpaper.


The Experiment
For this experiment, since I do not have the time to go down to the Singapore Pools outlet often to place bets, I went for the online method. In order to place bets online, you would still need to physically head down to one of their outlets and purchase a top-up scratch card. The top-up scratch card will contain a code for you to insert into the website to add credit to your online wallet.

At the counter, indicate to the staff that you would like to purchase a top-up card for online gambling. It comes in the denomination of $50, $100, and $200. Since it was for an experiment, I went for the cheapest option of $50. 

With the details on the top-up scratch card, fill in the details on the Top-up cards options under deposit tab on the Singapore Pools website as shown below. The other methods to top up include eNets and Bank Transfer. However, these options require one to pay some fees whereas the Top-up cards method had no fees involved. 

After you have submitted the code for depositing of credits into your wallet, you will be able to see the transaction history the top up amount and also the new amount at the balance. With that, I was all set to gamble online.

The gambling options available online included all except Big Sweep since Big Sweep had serial numbers and can only be purchased offline. Other than that, most of the gambling options that are done at the outlet can be done online too. 

With so many options to choose from, I eventually decided on gambling in 4D and TOTO as even though the odds of winning are lower than predicting the results for Sports and Racing, the rewards were much higher. Below is the comparison table that I did for TOTO, 4D and Big Sweep.

And to ensure that everything was tracked correctly, I created an excel sheet to record my transactions and the bets made which I have screenshot it below for anyone who is interested. It simply records down the bet amount, date of the bet made and other details of the bet.

During the initial phase, I opted for 4D as the gambling option but eventually switched to TOTO as it was not showing results. Lo and behold, I managed to win a bet in TOTO with the prize money of $10. However, as all gambling outcome, everything was eventually "donated" to Singapore Pools.

Learning Points
Through this simple experiment, it showed me that it is possible to "win" in gambling although this "win" is not sustainable in the long run and everything could end up returned to Singapore Pools. It is hard to win although you would have definitely heard stories of people who became instant millionaires with TOTO. 

Do you gamble and if you do gamble, what is the biggest win that you have ever gotten so far? Go ahead to comment about it and don't forget to subscribe via email or like our Facebook page for the latest updates!