Betting – How to Find Value and Understand the Odds

Betting is putting money behind an outcome of your choosing and getting paid if that outcome occurs. There are many different ways to bet including straight bets, spread bets and parlays. The key to betting is finding value and understanding the odds. Odds are displayed in various formats and you need to be familiar with the conversions between these and the conversion of odds into implied probabilities in order to make a well educated bet.

Identifying betting value takes time and effort but it is vital to making a profit over the long term. All bettors should aim to find positive expected value (EV) with every bet they place. This can be achieved by calculating the true probability of an event occurring and then comparing that to the odds offered by the bookmaker.

A bet that is placed on the total score of a game is known as a Totals bet. This involves predicting whether the two teams involved will combine for more (over) or fewer (under) runs, goals, points and so on than the total amount posted by oddsmakers.

The best way to understand the betting markets is to specialise in a specific sport or league. This way you can focus on studying the form and identifying potential winners. The best horse racing punters for example will only bet on a handful of races a week and only bet on horses that have genuine value. This approach will take time and there will be weeks where you lose but it is important to be patient and stick with it.