Michael Adkins 
Although luck plays a huge part in gambling, savvy players can still make money by identifying value bets – something professional tipsters do for a living!
Calculating the true probability of any event will give you a sense of whether odds are fair.
Shop Around
There are countless sportsbooks competing for your business and they regularly adjust their odds, sometimes making small pricing mistakes you can take advantage of by shopping around.
Value betting operates under the principle that selection prices must be less than their expected chance of winning and higher than bookmakers’ expected profit (EV). Understanding odds will allow you to discover these opportunities more effectively.
Odds should represent the odds of something happening and are determined by bookmakers based on probability; however, their prices can differ based on how much money comes in to sportsbooks and their willingness to adjust prices aggressively.
Professional sports gamblers use line shopping to maximize profits on wins while minimizing losses on defeats. The optimal times to do this are right after release of new lines and just before kickoff. NFL odds tend to have less variance; NBA scores typically have hundreds of points and therefore fluctuating odds that offer plenty of betting opportunities; bettors who take time to look could find an edge between busting out, hitting Over/Under goals or winning bets!
Know Your Team
Odds on bets represent the chances that an event will happen, calculated using probability calculations as well as bookmaker business models and market behaviors that cause prices to fluctuate over time. Thus, it is vitally important to gain an understanding of how odds are established before beginning betting.
Finding value means betting on events with greater chances of victory than what bookmakers’ odds predict. This doesn’t necessarily mean selecting the most likely victor; in many instances you could even back against or back the underdog instead!
To spot an attractive bet, it’s essential that you understand a team’s composition and current form. This information will allow you to estimate their chances of victory and calculate odds accordingly; once complete, take a look at current market prices to assess whether they offer good value.
However, doing this successfully requires experience and isn’t straightforward. Furthermore, cognitive bias – in which your beliefs about team’s chances can cause you to underestimate or overestimate them – must also be avoided in order to avoid loss due to negative expected value bets. Market volatility also can impact odds significantly and turn a profitable bet into one with negative expected value.
Know Your Lines
Odds for matches or events reflect the probability that an outcome will occur; however, these odds are not always an accurate reflection of actual chances that something will take place due to bookmakers setting their odds so as to guarantee themselves profit no matter what occurs – creating opportunities for bettors looking for value by evaluating these odds against their own estimation of probability.
Knowing how odds work is also crucial, including their calculation and what factors influence them. Understanding this will allow you to identify potential value bets and exploit them accordingly. A value bet may not always win, or yield profits immediately; but over time if consistently identified and placed consistently your profits will grow over time.
Last but not least, it is crucial that bettors shop the lines. This is an effective strategy for many bettors who aim to increase their chances of finding value by getting the best odds possible. A sports betting calculator may also come in handy in comparing implied probabilities with legitimate sites to see if there is any additional value.
Know Your Odds
An essential aspect of value betting lies in understanding what each event’s odds mean and calculating its true probability and comparing this against bookmaker odds. When this real probability exceeds implied probabilities in their odds, you have identified a value bet; long term, this strategy may yield profit; however, losing runs should still be expected from time to time.
Finding value requires shopping around and exploring various betting markets – be they online or offline. In doing this, a comprehensive understanding of both sport and team you are betting on should be applied, in addition to keeping records of line movements and your bets for analysis purposes and for improving strategies over time.
Professional tipsters who specialize in one market or sport and act as the “oracle” for that event may also help locate underpriced selections and provide greater value than market odds. Another strategy involves using betting exchanges for laying, which allow you to set your own odds, thus increasing the chance of finding value bets that correspond with calculated probabilities and match them more precisely; key to successful laying lies in being able to spot underpriced selections before the market forms with bookmakers.
