Find Value in Betting Odds
The easiest way to profit from sports betting is to find value in the odds. In reality, it's the only way to make money consistently and regularly. Your chances of long-term success are almost zero if you don't bet for value. That's what there is to it.
The majority of sports bettors are unaware of this. Rather than betting for value, they choose to gamble on the most likely result.
Many people have no understanding that winning betting isn't about picking as many winners as possible. Instead, it's about identifying where the odds are in your favour so that you can put your money down with conviction. It would be best if you considered the idea of value to be successful.
In the section, we go over exactly what value is. We also show you how to spot value in the sports betting markets and advise on how to do so. You will INSTANTLY boost your odds of making money from sports betting by carefully researching what we have to say here and actually applying what you learn.
What is Value in Sports Betting?
Value can be positive or negative in the context of sports betting. Unless the probability of a team winning is greater than the probability reflected in the odds, the team has a positive value.
To put it another way, a team has a positive value when the odds indicate it is far more likely to win. If a team has a negative value, it means it has a lower chance of winning than the odds speak. You'll need to find positive value to make money.
The implied probability is the probability reflected by the odds. We'll go over that in more detail later, but first, we'll use a simple example to explain the concept of value.
Let's take breaks from sports betting for a moment and consider the following.
We all know that a coin toss will lead to one of two outcomes. It'll either be heads or tails. Each result has an equal probability of occurring: 50% chance of heads and a 50% chance of tails. Consider the following scenario: Someone offers you the chance to gamble on the result of a coin toss at the following odds: Heads 3.00 & Tails 1.50
A 1000 bet on heads would return 3000 if it were accurate at these odds. If you bet 1000 on tails, you'll get 1500 if you win.
Would you bet on heads or tails?
We're pretty sure you'd put your money on heads. It's a done deal. You have a 50% chance of winning either way, but the potential profit for heads is significantly higher. Who wouldn't prefer to win 3000 rather than 1500?
Here, a bet on heads has a positive return. What justification do we have for this? Since it has a higher chance of winning than the implied probability of the odds.
We can now go over how to measure implied probability. This is actually very easy, especially when working with decimal odds. Everything you have to do is use this formula (1/odds)*100.
The implied probability of odds as a percentage can be calculated using this formula. As you can see, it's very straightforward. Let's add this formula to the above example's odds for Heads.
At 3.00 odds, Head implied probability is (1 / 3.00) x 100 = 33.33%
This indicates that the implied probability of winning a bet on Heads is 33.33%, and we already know that the real probability of winning a bet on Head's is 50%.
We know that betting on Head at 3.00 has a positive value because 50% is greater than 33.33%.
Let's use the same formula to calculate the probability of getting Tails. (1 / 1.5) x 100 = 67%
A bet on Tails winning has an actual probability of 50%, which is LESS than the implied probability of the corresponding odds. As a result, a bet on tails at 1.5 has a negative value.
Now that you know how to figure out if a bet has a positive or negative value, there's one more thing to consider.
In the long run, wagers with a positive value should be profitable.
This is exactly why understanding the idea of value is important. You must be able to recognise bets with positive meaning because it is these bets that will make you money in the end.
Of course, they aren't guaranteed to win every time, but the odds are essentially in your favour.
Betting consistently when the odds are in your favour Can result in a profit in the long run.
Please keep in mind that there are no guarantees that you can win 50 times out of 100. However, based on the related probability, that is the theoretical expectation. Working based on probability is our best choice because we can't predict the future.
We hope you've considered everything so far to be fairly straightforward. We intentionally kept the coin toss example simple to make it easy to understand the fundamental concept of value. Unfortunately, as we extend the term to sports betting, things get a bit more complicated.