[soVeryTired]

In one sense, winning bets. If you lose, you lose: your money is gone either way. If you win, the fact that the probabilities sum to about 1.05 means you win less than you would have in a fair game. The state just takes a cut of that extra 0.05.

[jakelazaroff]

The probabilities sum to less than 1, not greater than 1, right?

[soVeryTired]

If it's a win / lose outcome and both win and lose have a probability of 1/100, I'll make 99x my stake by betting on both win and lose at the same time.

If both outcomes have a probability of 0.999 (summing to almost 2), I'll barely make any money if I'm right, and lose my money if I'm wrong.

So when probabilities sum to less than 1, it's good for the gambler, and when they sum to more than 1 it's bad for them (and good for the bookkeeper).