Are you looking to start winning at betting on a long-term basis, I dont mean landing a big win on an acca now and again I’m talking about making more money than you lose from betting over an extended period of time, if so, read on, this guide will inform you of everything you need to know from which bets to place through to how to define value and what bookmakers mentality truly is on winning bettors.
6 Months Profit & Loss From My Bet365 Account
The Secret To Winning at Betting
Winning at betting and beating the bookmakers is that classic age-old question, I’m sure you have heard all the classics from people who haven’t managed to become profitable at betting “the house always wins” is usually the main go-to statement.
But in truth, those people claiming that winning at betting and beating the bookmakers is impossible are likely to be placing bets using gut feeling and emotion and essentially looking in the completely wrong direction when it comes to becoming profitable at betting.
So the secret to winning at betting is this…
To win at betting you must place bets based on maths and probability and not based on gut feeling and emotion.
You should also avoid listening to any of the mainstream media punditry who may have a plethora of knowledge when it comes to horse racing or football but that doesn’t necessarily translate to them having the knowledge as to when and where to place a value bet.
Finally, winning at betting is very much a numbers game and it’s not based on each individual bet that you place (contrary to the way the UK mainstream media promotes it).
You could easily go on a 5-10 bet losing streak but still come out as profitable at the end of the month because the betting strategy that you are implementing has a positive expectancy.
Video Tutorial
What is Value in Betting?
Value, this word is thrown around so much in the betting industry but most people have little to no perception of the definition of value when it comes to placing bets or how to find valuable bets either.
Winning at betting and making more money than you lose at betting is all about taking value, if you do this with every bet that you place over the long run you will be profitable based on the maths.
Value in betting is defined as betting on an outcome with higher odds than the true odds of that outcome occurring.
For example, if Manchester United’s true price to win a football match was evens or 1/1 which is 2.0 in decimal odds, if you could manage to place a bet on Manchester United at 2.2 or 6/5 this would be a good value bet because you have got better odds than the true odds on that particular outcome.
It’s important to note that bookmakers will make this process incredibly difficult as they are doing the inverse of this by offering customers shorter odds than what the true odds are which is ultimately how they make money as they do this on every single market they have.
For example, if Manchester United’s true price was 2.0 they would be likely to offer out a price of 1.9, this is not value and you should not place a bet irrespective of your thoughts on Man Utd picking up the win as it is below the true odds of 2.0.
So of course this means that you need to be able to identify the true odds of an outcome occurring in order to understand what odds you need to bet at to take value, I will show you define this later in the article.
It’s important to note that most people find it hard to understand that regardless of whether you win or lose this bet you’ve taken value, and doing this over the long run on every bet that you place will result in you being a profitable bettor.
Do Bookmakers Like Value Bettors?
The short answer is no, this is due to you being bad for their business as ultimately you will cost them money and they won’t be able to make money from you with each month that goes by.
Bookmakers don’t like long-term winners, this fact isn’t promoted by any of the media channels which promote bookmakers or any of the tipsters that receive commissions from losing bets of people that they refer to the bookmakers.
On top of this, the dark secret of the betting industry is the fact that bookmakers will literally stop you from using their website or restrict the amount of money you are allowed to place on your bets if and when they identify you as a value bettor.
Bet365 restricting my account for being a profitable bettor (click to enlarge).
There are certain activities you can partake in which will throw bookmakers off your scent such as mug betting but ultimately preventing the inevitable is impossible.
So of course, if you are going to do this and you are going to start winning at betting, it is important to bear in mind that you are going to need to have various bookmaker accounts as over time each of these accounts will slowly start to become restricted.
Any money that you win value betting is of course 100% yours to keep whether your restricted or not restricted.
How To Find Value Bets
To find value your attention needs to shift from bookmakers over to betting exchanges, a betting exchange is essentially a stock market for betting odds.
On a betting exchange, you aren’t limited to placing back bets you can also place lay bets (betting on outcomes not to occur), this concept results in users buying and selling odds or backing and laying as it is termed within the industry.
What is commonly found on a betting exchange is if more people are backing an outcome than laying an outcome, so more people are backing a horse than laying the horse, the price on that horse will shorten and steam down and on the opposite side of that if more people are laying an outcome than backing an outcome the price will tend to drift or move out.
As you would expect, prices are moving around all the time on betting exchanges and when more money is traded on a market on the exchange and the closer to the start of the event you get the more efficient the prices become, specifically on the first few runners in a horse race where the most interest lies.
Betting markets do have inefficiencies predominately due to human psychology but over the long run it’s widely excepted that the markets are highly efficient, this means that they are fairly priced and a fair representation of chance.
With this knowledge, we can use the betting exchange Betfair as a template and as a way of defining the true chance of outcomes occurring.
As the prices become more efficient as more money gets traded and the closer to the event that you get, this is where we will be looking to take advantage of a value bet with a bookmaker.
Take a look at the below image, as you can see the price on the runner Rare Connor is 7.5 with the bookmaker Bet365.
If we look at the second image taken from the betting exchange Betfair the price is 7.2 on the same runner.
To place a value bet with the bookmaker you need to place a back bet with the bookmaker at a higher price than what the price is on the exchange, you also need to do this as close to the start of the event as physically possible.
If you do this with every single horse racing bet you place or every single football bet you place, over the long run it’s almost a certainty that you will make more money than you lose from betting, yes you’ll win and yes you’ll lose but your wins will outweigh your losses.
As touched on earlier, bookmakers will not make this easy, they will constantly be looking to price their markets shorter than the betting exchange as the prices on the exchange are a true reflection of the chance and odds, you will need to be quick and snappy when placing your bet with the bookmaker before they wipe the value and offer out their usual non-value prices.
Winning each individual bet that you place is an irrelevance when you are taking value, think of value betting as a robotic system based entirely on maths, this, of course, is the complete opposite to recreational punting which is not based on maths which sees participants place bets on their emotions or gut feelings on certain outcomes occurring, this style of betting has no edge and doesn’t have a positive expectancy.
It’s advised to use software when value betting to identify opportunities and to alert you instantly as appose to locating them yourself manually.
The matched betting provider OddsMonkey has a designated oddsmatcher which can scrape bookmakers and betting exchanges and can do the work for you.
