Complete Guide
in Value Betting
Let’s tackle the topic of the safest long term sports betting strategy that there is – Value betting.
In this guide I will explain the following points:
- What exactly is value betting and value bets?
- How value betting works?
- Where to find these value bets?
- I will also introduce you to concepts like expected value and variance?
- What profits can we expect from this strategy?
- How to choose the right betting amounts?
Complete Guide in Value Betting in video format
What is value betting
A value bet is a bet in which the likelihood of a specific outcome is greater than the odds provided by the bookmaker. Or, in other words, value betting is placing bets that have a higher possibility of winning than the bookmaker’s odds imply. This means that in the long run, you will have an advantage over the bookmaker and you will be winning more than investing in this method of playing.
A coin toss example might help here.
If you toss a coin, you can only have two outcomes: heads or tails. And, the probability of either of the two outcomes is 50%. In sports betting, this corresponds to odds of 2.00 for either of the 2 outcomes.
You may use the following formula for calculating these odds:
Odds = 1/probability in decimals.
In this case, this is 1/0.5= 2.00
So, a value bet would be if the bookmaker offers you the odds of 2.10 on Heads and odds of 2.00 on Tails. And, value betting would mean betting on Heads with the odds of 2.10.
Odds of coin toss example
How bookies make money
Usually margin of odds that bookies set are under the true possibility, so most of the time they win long term.
For example let’s imagine that true possibility for team A to win the match is 80% which converts directly to decimal odds of 1.25. Instead of giving clients odds of 1.25 to bet on they give odds of 1.15, which corresponds to 87% chance of the team A to win and that is 7% higher chance than the actual probability of that happening.
Example of how bookies make money
How we can make money
How we can beat the bookies then? Well we can win by doing the exact opposite and looking for odds better than the true probability.
Often time’s bookies because of various reasons put out odds that are actually of odds that are over true possibility. Usually it is because of lack of knowledge on the match or due to different market situations where they may put out odds to compete with other bookies or maybe they want to cover some risk that they have by putting out higher odds on an outcome.
For example Team A has a 67% chance of winning which corresponds to odds of 1.5. But a bookie is offering odds of 1.65 that converts to 60% chance for team A to win. If we bet on this match 100$ and win, we will gain a 165$ instead of 150$ which is 15$ of additional winnings.
Example of how we can make money
How to find Value bets
Finding value in sports betting is more difficult than detecting value in a coin flip. In sports, a regular person cannot know the exact probability for a specific outcome of a match.
However, some bookmakers have shown to be highly skilled at calculating odds that accurately reflect the probability of a certain outcome.
And, there are softwares, such as the Rebelbetting software, that can calculate the “true odds” for each particular match by analyzing these skilled bookmaker’s odds while taking betting bias and market efficiency into account, as well. And, this also means that this software will understand when other bookies’ odds are off and a positive expected value occurs. Those are the value bets you should be taking advantage of.
How much money can you make this way
Well, creators of Rebelbetting are claiming that according to the results of their average members that are using the software, they are able to generate a monthly ROI (return of investment) that is over 30% and that there is on average over 3% profit per each bet.
What is Expected Value and Variance
Let me give you some explanation behind these claims.
It is essential to view value betting as a long-term profit strategy in which the number of bets that you will make is very important. This is because a value bet doesn’t mean that it is the most likely outcome to happen. Instead, it means that the money the bookmaker has promised to pay you back in case of a win is greater than it should be for the company to profit on these sort of bets. Hence, you will both win and lose over time, but when you win, you will always get a slightly bigger payout which will accumulate over time.
Expected value and variance short term
Having said this, it means that in value betting in order to beat the variance, you should invest as many bets as your time and finances allow you. The number of bets required to achieve statistical significance is far greater than most people imagine. You might need to place even a couple of thousand bets before one can say with certainty that you are coming closer to the expected value and making money.
Expected value and variance long term
How to choose the bet amount
How to choose the right bet amount for your value bets? Well if you want to maximize your winnings – the bigger, the better regardless of who or which team is playing.
If you want to play safe look to set your bet amount to 2-3% of your total bankroll, doing so will decrease the swinging of your bankroll. Let’s say your bankroll is 2000$, that would mean that you need to place around 40-60$ on every value bet.
But if you are comfortable with having couple of streaks where you will lose your bets and you are resilient to such stress, then you should probably aim for around 5% so around 100$ bets or even higher.
Summary
That is all you need to know to get started in value betting. Let’s summarize the main takeaways to begin value betting:
- Bet only on odds that are better than the true probability.
- Use apps, such as the Rebelbetting to find a lot of these value bets, link for exclusive deal on this app will be in the description below this video
- Bet on as many value bets as possible given your bankroll and available time
- Choose Bet size anywhere from 2-3% for more stable betting or up to 5% of your bankroll if you want to maximize result.
Bonus Tips
1. The best odds to take are usually from 1.20 to 10.00, when you start out, since they usually give you higher value and are likely to be the ones which win.
What I mean by this is for example there is a value bet with 5% value but it is with odds of 500.00. Even though 5% value is a great bet to take, the chances of you actually winning this bet is only 0.2%, which is highly unlikely and taking such bets can be exhausting, since you would lose a lot of them before winning one of them.
That is why it is better to choose odds of higher implied probability, so that you don’t get discouraged having extended streaks of not winning a bet, before you win one and see that you have still overall made profit in long term.
2. And the second bonus tip is that in order to get the best value bets, you will need to make accounts in multiple bookmakers. For starters I would recommend making accounts in these 2 bookmakers: Pinnacle and William Hill.
Pinnacle is great because it welcomes all players, including ones that use advanced betting strategies such as arbitrage betting and value betting. You will never have to worry about being limited in your betting.
William Hill on the other hand is great for frequently finding value bets, because of their broad selection of sports leagues and matches.
- They do not restrict winners
- Rebelbetting users are welcome
- Have the highest odds
