Professional Betting - The Search for Value
Every punter is looking for the secret of winning lots of money.
Well the big secret, the Holy Grail of betting is "Value".
But what exactly is Value when it comes to betting? Value is getting odds that are higher than the competitors true chance of winning.
So why is this so important? If you can get Value in the odds when you place your bet then, over time, you will win more than you lose.
For example, assume you have one hundred events and in those events the true odds of the favorite is even money (2.
00).
Then those favorites should win 50% of those events.
However, you would not win any money.
Half the time you would win and the other half you would lose.
At odds of even money (2.
00) You would win the same amount as you lost, in effect you would break even.
Let's take the same scenario, but this time we manage to get odds of say 2.
20 instead of even money (2.
00).
If the competitors true chance of winning stays the same at 50% then this time when we win we win 1.
2 (2.
20 - 1.
00) times our stake but when we lose, we still only lose our stake.
This would give us a 20% profit over time.
Unfortunately With betting, Value, like beauty is usually in the eye of the beholder.
What is a Value bet to one punter is not a Value bet to another.
Both punters have different views on the same event.
Neither is right and neither is wrong, just different.
So how can we spot true value? The secret is Betfair.
Betfair is one of the most efficient markets in the world.
When you get tens of thousands of punters all putting in their penny's worth of thoughts you end up with a very accurate picture of the true odds of a competitor.
This is especially true of the shorter priced competitors.
The longer priced competitors have a lot less money riding on them so the odds for these are not quite so accurate.
So now that we know the importance of Value betting and we know pretty accurately what a competitors true odds are, how do we manage to get odds which are higher than the true odds to get a Value bet, especially as Betfairs odds are normally 10% higher than the high street bookmakers? Well this is where we need to start thinking outside the box and coming up with creative ways of betting that perhaps you have not thought of before.
Well the big secret, the Holy Grail of betting is "Value".
But what exactly is Value when it comes to betting? Value is getting odds that are higher than the competitors true chance of winning.
So why is this so important? If you can get Value in the odds when you place your bet then, over time, you will win more than you lose.
For example, assume you have one hundred events and in those events the true odds of the favorite is even money (2.
00).
Then those favorites should win 50% of those events.
However, you would not win any money.
Half the time you would win and the other half you would lose.
At odds of even money (2.
00) You would win the same amount as you lost, in effect you would break even.
Let's take the same scenario, but this time we manage to get odds of say 2.
20 instead of even money (2.
00).
If the competitors true chance of winning stays the same at 50% then this time when we win we win 1.
2 (2.
20 - 1.
00) times our stake but when we lose, we still only lose our stake.
This would give us a 20% profit over time.
Unfortunately With betting, Value, like beauty is usually in the eye of the beholder.
What is a Value bet to one punter is not a Value bet to another.
Both punters have different views on the same event.
Neither is right and neither is wrong, just different.
So how can we spot true value? The secret is Betfair.
Betfair is one of the most efficient markets in the world.
When you get tens of thousands of punters all putting in their penny's worth of thoughts you end up with a very accurate picture of the true odds of a competitor.
This is especially true of the shorter priced competitors.
The longer priced competitors have a lot less money riding on them so the odds for these are not quite so accurate.
So now that we know the importance of Value betting and we know pretty accurately what a competitors true odds are, how do we manage to get odds which are higher than the true odds to get a Value bet, especially as Betfairs odds are normally 10% higher than the high street bookmakers? Well this is where we need to start thinking outside the box and coming up with creative ways of betting that perhaps you have not thought of before.
Source...