What is Value Betting? The Ultimate Guide

If you’ve been sports betting for a while, have spent some time around regular gamblers, either in person or perhaps in the form of online betting communities, then you’ve probably heard the terms “Value” or “Value Betting” banded around plenty.

What does this mean? What is value betting? Is it important? Do you need to be a value bettor to be successful at sports betting? In this article, we’ll answer all of these questions and look at exactly what value is in a sports betting context.

What is Value Betting?

So, what does value mean in betting? In principle, value in betting is the same as it is in the real world. A bet represents value to the bettor if they believe the odds should be smaller than they are. If a bettor places a bet at 3.00 but believes the true price should be 2.50, then they’ve obtained value.

Think of it like shopping for a product. Lots of people want to buy something for less than the going rate so that they obtain a bargain. Taking better odds than you believe you should be able to get represents value, just as buying a new car for less than the going rate does.

You will find that lots of people describe a value bet as a bet where you obtain the true odds. Realistically, they’re talking about the perceived true odds, and everybody will perceive things in the same way, which is fine.

If your perception of a value bet is a certain selection at odds of 3.00 because you believe that the “true” odds should be 2.50, then you’ve taken value. What’s key is that you’re applying the principles of finding value to your game, which over time, gives you a better chance of success.

Bookmakers with the Best Value Betting Odds

Positive and negative

It’s also important to note that as well as a positive value, which is where you take a bigger price than you think should be available, there’s a negative value too.

For example, if you do your own calculations, price up an event and conclude that a certain bet should be priced at 2.00, but you take odds of 1.90, what you’ve done is accept negative value, or if you prefer a bet that represents a lack of value. Do this often enough, and you’ll lose money, there are no two ways about it.

When it comes to value betting, your goals should be to find bets that represent positive value, bets that are priced at odds greater than you believe they should be.

Finding value

Understanding the principles of value is a key piece of the puzzle, but there’s more that you need to do.

The best sports bettors not only understand what value is, but they’re able to identify and exploit value. Finding value bets is a critical part of becoming a successful long-term sports bettor, or even a whale, perhaps.

Focus less on predicting outcomes

Now, this may seem counterproductive, but being able to predict what’s going to happen isn’t the most important skill when it comes to sports betting. In fact, it’s not that important at all.

Far too many bettors are concerned with being right rather than identifying value bets. Being right about the outcome of a race, a game, and an event in a sports betting sense is a skill that is overvalued.

When you try to predict outcomes as your main sports betting approach, you will naturally be drawn to picks with the lowest odds, many of which will be overbet and thus will not represent value.

Beat the line regularly

One way of knowing that you’re on the right track is to beat the closing line on a regular basis. What does this mean? Well, if you’re betting at certain odds, and the closing odds, e.g. the final odds available before the event takes place, are smaller than the ones you’ve obtained, then you’ve beaten the line.

The best value bettors regularly beat the line, and it is beating the line that acts as a kind of measure of their performance. If you beat the closing line consistently, then you’re doing something right, and your chances of long-term profit increase.

Pricing up

To find value, you ultimately need to form your own prices. This is how you can conclude whether certain odds are worth taking from a value point of view.

Pricing up an event accurately is not easy, but if you want to have a go, then be sure to price to 100%.

For example, if you’re pricing up a two-way market, such as the Moneyline in an NHL game, you need to price to 100%, this means that the prices of each team must equate to percentages that together equal 100%.

Here’s an example:

• Vancouver Canucks – 2.50 (40% implied probability)
• Seattle Kraken – 1.67 (60% implied probability)

It’s important to learn the implied probability behind sports betting odds, as this will help you to identify bets that represent positive value.

Pricing up an event won’t be for everyone, and there are other ways. You can use the odds of other sharp bettors and compare them with the odds available at sportsbooks to try and identify positive value bets.

As another alternative to forming your own prices, you can use Betfair prices as a sort of wisdom-of-the-crowd method of pricing up. The idea is that large crowds are collectively smarter than individuals, and by that notion, all the best betting minds in the world are involved in the forming of Betfair markets, so the Betfair starting price is likely to be more or less the “true price.”

What you can do is form your own ideas of the price of a selection, and then shortly before the event, take into consideration the Betfair odds. If there’s a disparity between the Betfair odds and the odds available at the sportsbooks, a disparity that says the sportsbook odds should be shorter, then you’ve identified a value bet.

Taking the best price

Another thing that value bettors do is shop around for the best price. In the long run, regularly taking the top-of-the-market price will aid your chances of success.

So, once you’ve decided that something is a good bet at a certain price, then don’t just settle for the first acceptable odds that you find. Sure, based on your calculations, the first price may represent a positive value, but what if even bigger odds are available? Why wouldn’t you search for that possibility?

Again, think of it as a shopper searching for a certain product. If you know the product that you want is available at many retailers, you’d want to find the retailer with the best price. Otherwise, you run the risk of paying more than you need to.

At the end of the day, you should be looking to take the best price as much as possible. The difference may often be small, but over time, those small differences can be costly, they could even be the difference between turning a profit and making a loss.

As an alternative to forming your own prices, you can use Betfair prices as a sort of wisdom-of-the-crowd method of pricing up. The idea is that large crowds are collectively smarter than individuals, and by that notion, all the best betting minds in the world are involved in the forming of Betfair markets, so the Betfair starting price is likely to be more or less the “true price.”

What you can do is form your own ideas of the price of a selection, and then shortly before the event, take into consideration the Betfair odds. If there’s a disparity between the Betfair odds and the odds available at the sportsbooks, a disparity that says the sportsbook odds should be shorter, then you’ve identified a value bet.

Value betting strategies

You can take varying approaches to value betting, but here are two different ways to do it:

Odds Strategy

This is where the market odds help you to find value bets. Fortunately for the value bettor, sports betting markets aren’t efficient. In other words, sportsbooks get it wrong sometimes, which means there’s an opportunity to find value bets.

Look at the ‘sharp’ bookmakers. These are the bookmakers who are known for being efficient, and their odds are usually close to the true odds. You can use BetOnline Canada for this purpose, as touched on above.

Compare the BetOnline odds and sharp book odds with the odds available at ‘soft’ books, which are bookmakers that perhaps price things more generously or aren’t always right next to the true odds, to find bets that represent positive value.

Analysis strategy

An analysis strategy relies on your ability to assess the sport or sports you’re choosing to bet on.

This is where you need to put the work in, and it’s a good idea to specialize. You can’t be an expert on everything, so focus on one sport or even one niche within a sport.

For example, you could decide to specialize in the ‘Total Goals’ market in soccer or ‘Spread’ in the NFL. Whatever your niche, make sure that you know it inside it, know everything there is to know about performing the correct analysis and identifying viable betting options in that niche.

By doing the necessary analysis work within your niche, you should be able to accurately price up betting markets, thus identifying what you believe to be the true odds. Using your own odds, you can identify bets at sportsbooks that represent positive value.

Final words on Value Betting

In summary, value betting, or rather being able to identify bets that represent positive value, is a key part of the sports bettors’ armoury. Few things are more important, in fact.

At the end of the day, maybe sports betting is just fun for you. Many bettors simply want to invest a few spare dollars every now and then for the fun of it. If they win, great, but they’re not expecting to make money long-term, and that’s fine. If that’s you, then value betting needn’t concern you.

However, if you’re looking to take sports betting seriously, then you need to be someone who bets because they’ve identified positive value. Value bettors can make a viable second income or even make sports betting their career.

Whichever sport or whichever sports you bet on, whatever your niche is, whatever you angle, identifying and exploiting positive value needs to act as the foundations on which your approach is built. Without value betting, you will, probably sooner rather than later, lose money and your chance of long-term sports betting success will be slim.

Value Betting FAQ