Sports Bet Guidance 2864548

The Way To identify value in your bets? That's the big question. My friend, Alex Napier who operates the most effective Bet Soccer website, has asked me to write this article to explain how bookmakers' percentages are calculated and just how they provide a guide to assessment of value within the odds on offer. He has asked me to look at soccer betting, where, because of the few possible outcomes (three choices - win, lose or draw) the odds offered are short in any event.

A perfectly "balanced book" where the odds offered exactly reflect the chance of each team winning or the draw would produce an overall of 100.00%. Theoretically the bookmaker will profit through the total percentage on the match less 100.00%. Within the above table bookmaker 1 should profit by 11.89% of turnover on the match and homepage bookmaker 2 by 11.23%. At first sight there will not seem to be much between them but whenever we compare the theoretical profit of each the margin on the bookmaker 1 odds (i.e. 111.89 - 100.00 = 11.89%) is 5.84% higher than the 11.23% margin on the bookmaker 2 odds! Where the odds on offer produce a theoretical profit for the bookmaker the book is said to be "over round". The bookmaker 1 book is over round by 11.89% and the bookmaker 2 book by 11.23%.

Where the odds on offer total less than 100.00%, which never actually occurs with the odds provided by any individual bookmaker as they'd in theory be sure to lose on the event, they may be "under round" . The losing percentage would be 100.00% less the total odds percentage. Not surprisingly this does not happen. Individual bookmakers do not offer odds on the possible outcomes that might provide them with a loss. What does happen, although very infrequently, is the fact that the odds provided by a selection of bookmakers can vary to the extent that you could find a combination where those for the 3 possible outcomes are under round. Therefore you may bet on all three possibilities - win, lose and draw - and provided you allocate your total stake in the correct proportion you could make a profit of the percentage by which you can bet at under round odds.

Identifying value

From the above data it's pretty obvious that the 4 - 1 offered by bookmaker 1 in respect of the home team winning will be the best price, there isn't any difference in the odds offered for the draw but bookmaker 2 offers the top odds for the away win. The question then arises, which is the best value? Obviously the 20.00% offered by bookmaker 1 on the home win will be the lowest percentage so could be the best value, but this is too simplistic. There has to be a yardstick to measure the odds against. That is your own assessment or your advised assessment of the opportunity of each outcome. If you give each possibility your own percentage rating you can compare this with the bookmaker odds percentage to establish where the value lies. How you study the prospects of each outcome is just not for this article. It deserves more comprehensive treatment than may be given here where we are coping with bookmakers' margins and value bets.

Assuming that the true reflection of the chances on the aforementioned match were home win 20% (bookmaker 1 had that about right and bookmaker 2 was under priced), a 20% chance of a draw (although these were the bookmakers offering the most effective odds on the draw they were still under priced) and a 60% chance of an away win (where bookmaker 2 quotes a price that gives a lower percentage chance so offers value) consideration should be given to an away win bet with bookmaker 2.

Stake allocation

There may be occasions when it truly is necessary to allocate your stake between different outcomes. This could be the case where a selection of bookmakers odds produce an under round opportunity or where there is a strong reason to include 2 of the 3 possible outcomes so it's essential to allocate the stake between them. Within the illustration below the odds have been exaggerated. It is extremely seldom in reality that an under round opportunity arises however the illustration is an excellent one to show how to use percentages.

It really is generally obvious which bookmaker is or bookmakers are offering the best odds. All you may need do is compare them. Identifying value is yet another matter. Due to this you may need to calculate the odds percentages to compare with your own, or your advised, perception or assessment of the probability of each outcome. By comparing the available percentages with your assessment you can identify where the value lies and make your selections accordingly - and perhaps now and again identify a no lose position where a selection of the odds provided by the various bookmakers produce an under round position! Disciplined usage of percentages should form a major part of your strategy in identifying value within the odds offered and leading to your betting profits.