Value Bets And How To Find Them

What value bets are is a question every bettor should ask themselves because without them there will be no consistent profit.

Spend a few minutes now learning how to spot value bets and increase your betting bank in the long term.

The weight of money (WOM) on any event will influence the odds offered by bookmakers and on the exchanges.

The odds should fairly accurately reflect a horse’s chance of winning and to convert the odds into a percentage use the calculation:

Divide 1 by the decimal odds and multiply by 100 eg 1 / 4.5 = 0.22 x 100 = 22%

A horse with a price of 4.5 (9/2) has a 22% chance of winning.

From these calculations we know that the favourite has the best chance of winning and statistics tell us that the favourite will win 1 in every 3 races.

So we now know that the general betting public dictates the odds and gives us an accurate assessment of a horse’s chance of winning the race.

From this it is tempting to assume that if we always back the favourite we will end up in pocket – unfortunately this is not the case as backing the favourite is not often a value bet.

Finding value bets requires patience and caution – an example of such a bet is if the favourite has been over bet due to being owned by a famous footballer or TV personality. Footballers are renowned for getting involved with horse racing.

If we suspect Joe Public may have made an error with the favourite’s odds a close look at the other horses may turn up a reason to oppose the favourite.

Examples: the horse has conditions not seen before, such as first time blinkers, running over a new trip or ground conditions.

Pro Bettors Approach To Value Bets

1. They use advanced mathematical formulae

2. They use in depth form study combined with systems and analysis

The first approach harnesses the vast number crunching power of the computer and will even borrow the tools employed by neural networks to highlight anomalies in past races.

When such conditions resurface in a race and the public fail to take account of this then a value bet becomes apparent.

The second approach begins the process with traditional form study, proven systems and strategies but takes this up to another level.

They are looking for certain horses that have been shown to perform well under certain conditions. In doing so, the form studiers are able to unearth value by pointing up errors of pricing by the general public and bookmakers.

As mentioned previously the betting public will determine the likely chance of the favourite to win a race and over time the percentage of favourites winning their race has been shown to be 35%.

However statistics reveal that actually only 32% win their race and this is the primary reason why it is not possible to make a consistent profit from blindly backing the favourite.

So just to break even our selected favourites need to be winning at least 35% of the time; assuming we are not using the exchanges which will take out another 5% .

If we can better the 35% average by finding bets with value then we will begin to consistently make money.

Whatever bettor type you are it is important to keep an open mind and be willingly to embrace new ideas and technologies to help stay ahead of the crowd.

One also needs to see the big picture as it evolves long term. There will always be losing streaks, which will almost certainly out number the winning ones.

Stay focused and try not to chop and change with different strategies but rather refine the existing ones you have found profitable.

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Above policies updated 15 March 2018