Comprehensive Guide To Understanding Betting Odds

• August 06,2024
• -
• Oscar Holt

Comprehensive Guide To Understanding Betting Odds

All bets a punter places - as long as they’re interested in winning and making a profit - are value bets. To understand this concept, visualize how the betting process works. Bookmakers assess future sports events, generating their probabilities for various outcomes. Outcomes include anything from which team wins to how many cautions (yellow cards) are in a soccer match. They then post betting prices based on their perception of the probabilities. When punters see these betting prices (also known as odds), they can immediately see what the bookmaker believes about the probability of outcomes occurring. This probability is known as implied probability. A punter has his own belief about a product’s probability, which is known as the actual probability.

Value Bets: What Are They?

A value bet is any wager where the actual probability of an outcome is greater than the bookmaker’s implied probability. Now since every punter makes a wager on the basis that they’ve been able to gauge possibilities better than their bookie, every bet is essentially a value bet. The catch is that some punters can spot value bets better than others. A good value bet has two features:

• High chances of proving successful, i.e., of the prediction proving to be true.

• High potential profit for the punter.

Below are two proven ways of landing value bets in modern sports betting.

Specialize In Your Sport

This point is especially true for those who wish to earn a consistent income from sports betting. It’s essential to understand the sport you’re betting on inside out. Those who are fans of a particular sport have a definite advantage because following that sport comes more naturally to them.

Remember, modern marks are not just about the teams and athletes. There are also clubs, coaches, management, and plenty of subplots that can affect performance on the pitch. It may be impossible to follow a whole sport in detail because that’s too broad. Good punters keep up with the goings-on in the leagues they want to bet. That way, they can easily spot value bets! Equipped with a wealth of information, they are more likely to be able to see beyond what the bookmaker and his odds-setters see. It gives them a powerful weapon to beat the bookie and rake in the profits.

Shop Around For Value

It’s important to understand that bookmakers have various motivations and data points when setting up their betting prices. They don’t just rely on probabilities. Some have business overheads that may require them to keep more money to themselves, resulting in a low RTP (Return to Player) percentage. For this reason, there are sometimes considerable price discrepancies, with some bookies offering much more profitable odds.

Other times, bookies use different data to compute odds, with some sportsbooks either under or overestimating the likelihood of specific outcomes. It can lead to discrepancies in betting odds. Also, there are unique situations - especially around huge sports events like the Superbowl or the World Cup - where a bookmaker may offer highly boosted betting odds as part of a promotion. Ultimately, the reason for these high odds doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the probability implied by the high odds is much lower than what the punter considers to be the actual probability of the outcome, which constitutes a value bet. Punters must look around and compare what different bookies offer to ensure they don’t miss out on these tempting opportunities.