- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 9:18 am , 17/01 by
Caan.
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Áine
I’ve been reading up a lot about betting over christmas and I keep coming across the term value ! How do you know what is value when betting ? what is there to judge off ?
jay321
Aine, I have replied but I put a link in forgetting they’re not allowed so guess it’s gone to moderator to have link removed. Lengthy reply so I’ll let them do their thing rather than trying to rewrite what I waffled on about
Profile 42
Hi Aine,
Value is a subjective term to you’ll always see people arguing about it! Betting at value is when you make something 3/1 but the odds are actually 4/1. It is when you make something smaller in odds than the actual odds. That’s why so many people argue. You could make something 2/1 but they make it 4/1. 3/1 would be value to you but not to them.
Fine, I’ll try again!…
1/Decimal Odds=Probability of winning match
So for example
1/1.5=0.67=67% chance of winning
1/2.0=0.5=50% chance of winning
1/3.0=0.33=33% chance of winning
If there is any point that you consider the chance of winning the match/game is higher than the odds suggest then you have value.
The difficulty is accurately calculating the true chance of winning the set/game. Motivation, fatigue, historical stats, current form/stats, weather, injuries, which side of bed they got out of, the argument they had last night about leaving their pants on the floor all pay a part.
Many traders/punters go for a basic judgement and say something along the lines of “Man U/Federer is at 2.0 so market is saying they have/he has a 50% chance of winning. I think they definitely have a better chance than that so that’s value so I’ll have a bet/trade”.
Others calculate what the true odds should be by various models often calculated by stats often by using excel although could be done manually (these still wouldn’t take into account pant arguments/bed exits 😉 ) and bet using Kelly Criterion (search if unsure).
((There is an article on SMarkets explaining value betting, but think that’s why my last post wasn’t posted so google ‘betting at value’ and look for SMarkets (3 down at mo). The paragraph that’s titled ‘Think in probabilities, not favourites and underdogs’ is short but important!))
The trouble with models is they take a lot of time to create and test (the one I created took 12months to create and a further 6months testing until I fully trusted it, but then I did go super detailed), and they are not usually shared as they’d lose value as the offered bets would be snapped up by other people leaving fewer opportunities.
Don’t be put off though, although the route I took was more complicated as it was the mathematical/statistical/head scratching sleepless night route, a better knowledge of a sport/players would enable you to find value without a 12month relationship with excel.
Also do not (drives me mental hearing people say this and even more mental when they sell spreadsheets saying “back when price hits 2.0” without saying score/time etc perimiters!!!) confuse value with time decay increase! If a team starts at 1.5 then doesn’t score for first half their price will increase but this is not necessarily value. They now have less time to win, that is why the price is higher as they have less chance to score. However, if there is stats that suggest the team has a habit of scoring late etc then could be value. I say could be as the market odds will still have to be higher than the true odds that you have calculated for that time in the match to be value.
Like I say, don’t be put off, this can be as complicated or as easy as you want it to be depending on sport knowledge, stats interpretation, excel skills etc.
Just to avoid confusion I meant ‘match/game’ not ‘set/game’ above. I was doing tennis research at same time as writing above and I’m male so multitasking is impossible.
(although if trading taking value into account then ‘set/game/point/time/any event’ could be calculated).
Also 100/decimal odds gives probability as a percentage without going to decimal first but is best to calculate as decimal because makes life easier using those calculations later in excel for other figures you might like to use.
Caan
Some decent answers above, but I couldn’t help but chuckle at the thread title…
Q: How do you know if you’re betting at value?
A: You’ll get limited/restricted quite quickly.
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