Sports Value Betting

Did you know 95% of gamblers will actually lose money long term when betting on fixed odds sport events? All major sportsbooks hire great risk analysts to calculate the risk of events happening and then offer worse odds on their site, which in turn will lock them in long term profits, if off course the risk analyst is correct.

But, remember risk analysts are sometimes wrong. Blunders in this market can literally cost a sportsbook millions of pounds. Famous mistakes include offering odds of 200/1 on a previous double world champion of winning the ski jumping world championship. Now of course you cannot monitor every single bet every published but if you are knowledgeable in a field you could come out on top.

There are numerous ways you can go about gaining a knowledge in a certain sporting field, you could read through the papers and look at top journalist predictions you could even look at past events and calculate a team/individuals form or alternatively you could look around the popular sportsbetting forums and try to extract as much information in the run up to events as possible, although this is riskier then more orthodox strategy as sometimes the information is complete rubbish and isn't worth taking in to account, although you will occasionally find some gems of information hidden away in sportsbetting forums.

Value Betting In Practice

Lets say for arguments sake, Manchester United are playing Hull at Old Trafford. Typical odds may look like this; 5/2 on a Man United win while Hull may be at 4/1 at some bookmakers. Now a “losing” gambler, would probably look at this and say “Hull have no chance of winning, who's bet on them” whilst a good observant value bettor would probably have some money on a Hull victory, because the odds are very good and he may also look at past records and the recent form.

Now this was a very simplified example, but if you want to be a good winning sports bettor there is much more to look in to then simply looking at who has the best chance of winning and sticking a bet on them.