Here we are going to presume you already have general understanding about betting, and it’s main elements- odds complying, types of odds, types of bets, etc.

At the beginning we are going to take as an example the old classic scenario with flipping a coin. It should be obvious  till now the chances of the coin, landing “heads” or “tails” are absolutely even, etc. 50%-  50%. In a game, where there is no middle man to organize the game, pay profits, and collects a commission, the odds you should obtain for  say betting on “tails” each time are exactly 2.0, so for betting any 1 pound, if successful you should take back your complete stake of a  pound, plus exactly the same amount of profits- another 1  pound, thus collecting a total of 2 pounds.

Now imagine that someone offers you odds of 2.15 every time you bet/again on “tails” . Do you think that this will be profitable in the long term? Of course, you bet it will be. If we have a big enough representative sample of enough flips/for the sake of this example say 10,000/ you should find out that the number of your wins is  basically even with the number of your losses. Thus winning 5,000 flips and losing again 5,000, you, at the end of this game will break even, should the odds given are 2.0. But what happens in another  situation, when you can obtain odds of 2.15 for example. After 5,000 losses and 5,000 wins your overall profit will stand at 750 pounds/ 5,750 pounds won minus 5,000 pounds lost/, exactly because each of your wins brings you more profit than each of your losses, although the likelihood of either outcome is absolutely the same. Now  “It’s not fair this way”  I can hear you saying, and it might not be, but it happens on frequent occasions in Sports-betting. And not because the bookmakers are stupid. Sometimes they just have different opinions from each other  about the likelihood of the same event happening, and there is nothing wrong with this. Also they might be compelled  to set a kind of an “unfair” price for a certain outcome, cause the weight of money on the other sides of the book “forces” them to adjust a certain price, in order to balance their book.

Now such situation, when you are given a higher price for a certain outcome than it’s real likelihood of happening you can call “value”  So this bet has a value in it and it’s worth taking, because betting in such a manner will make a winner out of you in the long term. So this is exactly what we call “value betting”.

As a smart bettor or investor you should always be on a look-out for some value betting. Of course before this, you should have obtained the ability to estimate or to judge the approximate likelihood of the betting event happening, and when you see a price that is higher than the  fair one, you should consider making a bet on this event. Of course this look-out for some value betting/investing/ is connected with a lot of shopping around of such prices, in many different bookmakers, but when you find it it’s going to worth the labor. By the way this is just another reason to have accounts with as many on-line bookmakers as possible, so you are going to be ready to take advance of such odds immediately, cause such prices usually don’t stay the same for very long time.

In other words if for the outcome of a sporting event you are in advance very sure that you won’t be able to find odds, greater than say 5.0, everything which is 5.5 and above should be considered as a value bet and should be taken, if possible.

We hope we have been useful for you with this article on your way of obtaining better odds than they really should be. Just do not underestimate this knowledge and ability if it happens to get to such a high level in Sports- betting, cause “value betting” could be an absolute paramount to your success, and in the long term WILL make a VERY HUGE difference in your profitability in Sports betting and investing.