What’s Value Bet and How To Make Money from It

What’s Value Bet?

Value Bet is all about placing bets that have a better chance of winning than implied odds set by bookmakers, which is the essence of consistent winning for the long term. 

“The House Always Wins” is the standard saying in the gambling industry. It’s simply based on the fact that the bookmakers/casinos set a marginal edge over the players.

This means that the betting site’s payout to customers is always smaller than the actual chance of the event happening.

As a result, they will make guaranteed money in the long term even if they lose in an occasional huge jackpot. Why? Because they own a mathematical edge, called House Edge in Casino & Over-round in Sports Betting.

Value Bet, on the contrary, is the player’s ability to identify such a mathematical edge against a bookmaker or another user on the betting exchange.

Simply put, in Sports Betting, when the selection’s probability of happening is less than it should be, namely Under-round condition, then it offers value.

For full detail about this subject, go Beat the Bookmakers By Knowing How They Make Money. 

In summary, the advantage play we use is all about taking bookie’s edge away from them and giving ourselves the edge by identifying the value bet.

Mathematical Edge – Expected Value (EV) For Sports Betting

We gauge the edge of sports betting in the form of EV (Expected Value) for every opportunity, which is calculated as;

EV = (Winning Amount x Winning Probability) – (Losing Amount x Losing Probability)

Winning or Losing Amount = (Stake x Decimal Odds) – Stake

Winning or Losing Probability = (1 / Decimal Odds) x 100%

Let’s use a popular & simple coin toss example. The true decimal odds of the coin toss should be 2.0 because the probability of head or tail is 50%. Then;

EV = (£100 x 1.0 x 50%) – (£100 x 1.0 x 50%) = £0

But assuming you get 2.2 odds and bet £100 on it, then;

EV = (£100 x 1.2 x 50%) – (£100 x 1.0 x 50%) = £10

The result indicates that you will make an average profit of £10 for every £100 bet.

Because in this case, the implied probability of 45.5% (1/2.2) is lower than the true probability of 50%, means Under-round, thus you will constantly win in the long-term, which is a Value Bet.

How to Find Value Bet 

There are 2 ways to locate the value bet;

• A: Do your own research and assess your probability vs the bookmaker’s odds
• B: Utilize expert’s findings

A) Your Own Research

Imagine who can estimate the exact % of Real Madrid beating Barcelona in the next El Clasico? 

Unlike casinos where pure mathematics dictates, sports betting’s probability can only be estimated by observation of a team/player’s past performance, and other influencing factors.

Therefore, if you have in-depth knowledge of a specific sports category and if you can find the bookmaker’s mispriced, then you may place a value bet.

However, bookies have a huge database to create odds, so unless you have a lot of time & massive commitments, it’s difficult to locate the mispriced odds.

Besides, as explained later, you need to place a lot of bets to achieve consistently win in the long run because value bet is based on LLN (Law Of Large Numbers), this may need to be your full time job.

B) Use Expert Information

With that said, this approach is what smart punters usually take. You can select from the following methods;

Value Bet Finder/Software

Value bet finder is the software that automatically locates sports events where bookies provide inaccurate prices in the bettor’s favour, namely Overvalued Odds. 

There are 2 highly reputable value bet finders of RebelBetting & Trademate Sports. 

Suggest taking a look at;

•   Quick Profile: Value Betting Software – Ultimate List & Review  
•   Practice: RebelBetting Value Betting (1 Month Free) – Double Your Capital Within 3 Months
•   Practice: Trademate US Sports Software 5,000 Bets Results  

Human Tipsters

A tipster or Handicapper is an expert who regularly provides information (tips) on the likely winner of a race or sports event. 

There are thousands of such experts online, but unfortunately, almost all of them are not true experts but just self-claim experts, which means not successful. Yes, the toughest thing is how to locate the true successful expert.

Therefore, SBC (Smart Betting Club) comes in. SBC is not a tipster but probably the most trustable tipster proofing & rating service supported by a frequent quotes by media. Many members report over £10,000 in profit last year from SBC service.

Suggest taking a look at;

•   Full Review: SBC –  Inside Analysis Of Ultimate Tipster Rating Service
•   Practice: Smart Bet – Winning Formulas for Global Punters 

But, their primary region is UK & Europe.

Combination of Human & Software

There is an excellent system for players all over the world. 
Zcode system comprises Computer Automated Tips based on huge database & Human Expert Tips. All of their tips are publicized on the private site & forum, thus being verified by thousands of members.
The tips are produced based on the analysis of over 800 parameters and their rating on all different strategies enables the members to choose the best-fit tactics from 120+ available systems.

Suggest taking a look at;

•   Full Review: ZCode Full Inside Analysis / Founder Interview / Secret Of Winners Worldwide
•   Practice: ZCode System 2021 Updates & Proven Model To Start

Actually, their records are verified publicly all the way back to 1999 by back-testing and also forward testing, of which significantly large databases prove authentic & reliable numbers.
BTW, their quoting prices are based on Pinnacle which is the best sportsbook for value bettors, just FYI. 

Value Bet – Law Of Large Numbers

Unlike Matched Betting or Sports Arbitrage where you hedge risk, value bet has downswings and variance risk.

Importantly, you have to understand the difference between EV and actual return. EV is theoretical but the actual return is affected by Variance. Variance is the difference from the mean.

Say the probability of appearing 1 in the dice roll is 1/6 or 33.33%. But if you roll just 3 times there is a chance that you see 1 in all 3 times that is 100%, the difference is the variance, i.e. fluctuation.

So, referring to the previous coinflip example, you earn an average of £10 when you bet £100 for the long term. The long-term mean more number bets where LLN (Law of Large Numbers) applies.

The variance will have more impact on your results when you have a small sample size of bets. The below image depicts how it works.

Your value betting value (profits) will not be in a straight line as EV but be affected by variance betting (both losing streaks & winning streaks).

The success of the value bet method is based on LLN (Law of Large Numbers) means you need to place a lot of bets to get the Expected Value by mitigating the effect of variances. 

The previously mentioned Trademate Sports Software 5,000 Bets Results clearly demonstrates how it works with a real example.

Value Bet – Money Management

Stake Size – Kelly Criterion

Even with the clear edge on the coin toss at 2.2 odds, there is still a 50% chance that the bettor loses. This is when a staking strategy becomes important as bankrolls can be decimated by over staking, even on bets that offer value.

Therefore you need to be very disciplined to stick to the determined formula rather than a haphazard approach being affected by emotion.

We use the so-called Kelly Criterion, which calculates the optimal stake for maximum growth of your bankroll, proportional to the perceived value of the bet. Simply, it’s a mathematical formula to calculate the ideal stake amount for any particular bet based on the EV, which applies to the bettor’s betting bank.

How To Calculate

The Kelly Criterion formula is: (bp – q) / b = f 

b = the Decimal odds -1 p = the probability of success q = the probability of failure (i.e. 1-p) f = the stake amount Let me use a coin toss again as an example of Kelly Criterion; Assuming you are betting on a coin to land on heads at 2.00.

But, if the coin is biased and has a 52% chance of ending up on heads. In this case: p= 0.52 q = 1 – 0.52 = 0.48 b = 2 – 1 = 1 f = (0.52 x 1 – 0.48) / 1 = 0.04

Therefore the Kelly Criterion would recommend you bet 4%. A positive percentage implies an edge in favor of your bankroll, so your funds grow exponentially.

In short, using 100% of Kelly leads to higher variance and steeper draw-downs under the condition of constantly changing odds. Lowering the Kelly stake sizing, together with having a set max bet size, is a good way to manage this risk.

The value bets finder such as Trademate sports set 30-50% as the default setting which of course you can change.

The point is you don’t need to calculate to determine your stake size for every bet but the value bets software will automatically suggest you the optimal stake.

However, as the video shows if you have huge open bets you may want to adjust a bit – see How To Adjust Your Bankroll While Betting To Reduce Variance.

How Much Money Can You Make from Value Bet?

You may want to take a look at How To Make A Living Sports Betting – Full Assessment of 3 Methods where you will get a good insight into how much income you may earn from our advantage gambling.

It actually depends on the level of your commitment though, when it comes to value betting, as another benchmark, let me use the stat from RebelBetting Value Betting software.

RebelBetting says;

Gathering various feedback from our members as well as available data found in forums etc looks like 10% – 20% is a reasonable return using value bets software.

For your own prediction, you can use RebelBetting Value Bet Calculator for Earning Prediction by playing around with the number of bets per day, average stake size, the number of days you bet per month, etc (these are the factors of your commitment level) as shown in the above image.

Value Bet – Issue & Solutions

Soft Bookmaker

Keeping betting on value is a professional act, and bookies especially Soft Bookies don’t like it because they know they will lose to us without fail in their business model. BTW, what’s a SOFT bookie?

Broadly speaking, there are 2 types of bookies of Soft & Sharp bookies, Just in case, you are not familiar with it, take a look at Beat The Bookies – Secret Of Odds.

However, very quickly, we can characterize each bookie as;

• Soft bookies: Targeting Casual Punters – Run a lot of promotion / Odds adjustment is relatively slow / Impose account restriction (gubbing)
• Sharp bookies: Targeting Professional Punters – Highly competitive odds / High staking limit / Never impose account restriction

You may also want to take a look at the List of 35 World Worst Betting Sites That Quickly Restrict Your Account. Why do they do it?

Let me quote Richard Flint, chief executive of Sky Bet;

In short,  it may be just a matter of time before soft bookies clamp down on your account of value betting by limiting your maximum stakes.

Avoid Bookmaker’s Radar

Although I said it would be a matter of time, there are many ways to delay or even completely avoid such account restriction/closing.

Despite the fact that a few nasty cases exist All bets are off! IT worker tells how British bookies froze his account because he was winning TOO MUCH, as the CEO of Sky Bet said they don’t close the account just because you keep winning.

The key is your betting behaviour such as “consistently beating the starting price of their selections ” which is a typical case for value bettors.

Each bookmaker has its own unique monitoring criteria to assess your betting activities though we already identified key assessment elements and have prepared the following 2 guides;

We believe the above 2 guides will help you keep exploiting unfair bookies, means will enable you to make money on the side reliably for the long term.

The good part of Value Betting can be relatively fewer limitations as the Canadian member of Rebelbetting said as;

Focus On Sharp Sportsbooks

Even if you get restricted all your soft bookies, don’t worry, sharp bookmakers are your permanent buddy. You can keep winning there, suggest checking the List of the World’s Best Online Bookies That Never Restrict Your Account.

Or, you can also use World 19 Best Offshore Betting Sites Offers because we never heard of account restrictions related to the offshore sportsbooks we list in this guide. 

Sharp bookies are often in Asia / Caribbean regions, and if you reside in the country/jurisdiction where those bookies don’t accept, you can use Bet Brokers – see Honest Opinion About Bet Broker & How To Use Them Safely & Smartly for the full details.

Incidentally, many international players complain that they have only a few bookmakers accessible in their countries. Well, in order to address this issue, cryptocurrency betting represented by Bitcoin has become a major stream among them because it can circumvent some geographical restrictions, besides, the crypto betting sites hardly impose account restrictions, so suggest you go through;

Lastly, let me quote Richard Flint again;

And after BetVictor, Betfair (you may want to use Betfair Alternatives) Sportsbook, and William Hill’s online operations, they actually offer Minimum Bet Guarantee, which is a good step in the right direction and one that could encourage more operators to follow suit. Not bad news for value bettors.

Value Bet – Conclusion

Advantage Gambling 

We can define Value Bet as a bet priced for less than it’s worth, and it is the fundamental of profit that nobody can beat. And pursuing value bets is an advantage gambling (or advantage play).

Many people automatically believe in “Betting = Gambling”. No, It’s Not Correct, gambling is playing games of chance for money.

We Do Betting But We Don’t Count On Chance. Instead, we do 6 Advantage Plays based on mathematical edge to beat the bookies, casinos & bingo.

We can rake bookies’ numerous bonuses in real cash without (sports betting via matched betting) or with very limited (casino & bingo) risk, and via Sports Arbitrage / Value Bets On Proven Software, Tipsters (handicappers) & Systems we lock-in profit or consistently earn extra income for long-term.

Advantage Gambling Progression Tactics

We GEM recommend Progression Approach for Advantage Plays, which means startup with Guaranteed Income (Betting With Hedge), namely Matched Betting & Sports Arbitrage, then move into Betting Without Hedge which is a value bet.

Matched Betting may come first because even if your account is restricted, the restriction is usually so-called Gubbing which is banned from only promotional offers.

This means you still have large chances to bet without a stake limit, which is well fit for Value Bets. However, if you exploit sports arbitrage, your account could face stake restrictions, which limit your earning possibilities in value bets.

So, eventually, it’s up to you though, let me briefly summarize the comparison between Sports Arbitrage & Value Bets as follows; Basics

• Sports arbitrage is betting on all outcomes of the match while Value betting is taking advantage of a single incorrect odds. So, you place one bet in Value Bet, while in Sports Arbitrage you need to place two or three bets.
• Sports Arbitrage comes with theoretical No-Risk while Value Bet faces risks of losing with variance.
• The average value percentage (ROI% per bet) is higher for value bets than arbitrage bets.
• In Sports Arbitrage, you will need more complicated money management with 10+ bookies by distributing & tying your capital among them, on the other hand, Value Betting requires much fewer bookies.
• Value Bets opportunities occur more often than Sports Arbitrage bets because there only have to be deviations in odds on one outcome of the game.
• Bookmakers tend to spot Arbitrage bettors easier than Value Bettors because it requires the market to be too high on all sides of the game.

Sports Arbitrage Risk

• The potential risk is that the other odds change after the first bet placement, leaving one side uncovered.
• Palpable errors & voided bets will leave the outcome uncovered elements that would leave you exposed on one side of the arbitrage.

Value Betting Risk

• There is an inherent risk and variance because you only bet one side of the match, you will often lose the bet. It is variance.
• This means in value betting, you will experience downswings thus you must be prepared to lose several matches in a row without freaking out.

Summary Comparison

• Value betting takes less time and is less complicated with fewer start-up banks. You will achieve higher profits with higher ROI & more opportunities but face variance that requires your higher losing tolerance. You can expect less account limit, which means a longer earning period possibly a lifetime.
• Sports Arbitrage is theoretically No-Risk betting so-called Sure Bet. Thus you don’t need to worry about any losing bets. But it requires a more complicated betting process & money management and could be short-lived by easily facing bookies’ account limits.

Simply put, if you are ready to accept variance, you should go for Value Betting rather than Sports Arbitrage.

Your earnings will last longer without being limited by the bookmakers because you will look more like a casual punter. As a matter of fact, it’s easier to focus on the largest leagues and bet smaller stakes, which is what you do in value bet, simple as that.

Hope these will help with your Consistent Long-Term Betting Earnings.

If you have any inquiries or need any help from us, please contact us anytime (don’t worry, we will not charge you any fee, everything is free here).

Good Luck!!

Joshua Walker (bio) 

Editor – Global Extra Money (GEM)