Good topic. But it is a give and take scenario.
On one hand you have more info, but in terms of betting, Info, stats, numbers, are way overrated. The more people think they know, the less they actually do know.
Because when they reach a break point, people think they know more than everyone else, then they either start looking for "sucker" lines, or looking for lines that do not make sense, and wondering why. If they know a guy was out drinking all night and partying they might assume he will have a bad game. So they bet against his team. But what if the guy always does it, and he is used to it, and they do not know that? Ignorance is sometimes bliss.
Goes with stats too. If they look up and see that a certain team is 1-15 against another team in a certan situation, they might blindly play against the losing team. Not taking anythig else into consideration. And it is compounded if they look deeper and see other thingsthat point to the better team winning. Then they think they have some bit of knowledge or have found something that no one else knows. Truest me anything you find on the net is known by a million or more other people. And Most books know it too. So thinking there is value" in the knowledge is folly in most cases.
If anything it has probaby been a windfall for the bookie. More and more clients, equals more and more losers plain and simple. Some guys might win here and there, but just enough to make them think they can win or at least keep even.
All gambling for the most part is a huge cycle for a vast majority of people. Even poker. Guys win and win and win, but what you do not see is the losing ad losing and losing. I see guys daily at the pokerroom. One day they might make a grand or two. Others they might drop a grand or two or more. Even me. I play daily. I win and I lose. If you play with the same guys over and over, and are of equal skill eventually you end up just passing the money around the table.
And depending on how they do the drops the winners usually get the worst of it over the losers. In most case where I play they have a $7/hr drop rather than a rake from each pot. But it is an unwritten rule that a certain potsize winner, generally $250 or more pays thwe drop for the table. So if there are 10 guys there, this guy just "lost" more than 25% of his pot, on a pot that is exactly 250. We do adjsut under certain circumstances, but pretyy hard fast rule And in the more basic rake system, the winner loses as well, since he won, and the money is taken from the pot.
Basically more gamblers is better for anyone taking bets period. So the internet has created miliions if not 10s of milions of gambler in just the past couple years. Maybe not created wholeheartedly, but certainly eased the trasnsition.