What is value betting and why it works to beat the bookmakers

Value betting is essentially about finding value in the odds offered by a bookmaker. But what exactly does this mean and how can one find value bets?

The best thing to do is to start out with the example of a coin flip.

The probability of heads and tails is equal at 50% (p = 0.5).

Odds is just a different way of writing probability with the relationship between them being that odds = 1 / probability.

E.g. the odds of heads occurring is 1 / 0.5 = 2.0.

In a fair world bookmakers would offer their customers the true odds of the coin flip. 2.0 on heads and 2.0 on tails.

However they are a business and as all businesses they need to make a profit.

The bookies make their money by applying a margin on each side of the coin flip.

So in practice you would find the odds of e.g. 1.9 on heads and 1.9 on tails if you visited the bookie’s website.

However. the true odds is still 2.0 on each outcome.

The formula for calculating the bookmakers margin is  (1 / 1.9 + 1/1.9)-1 = 0,0526 = 5,26%.

In order to beat the bookmaker and be profitable, one would need to have an advantage over the bookie which is large enough to overcome their margin.

If we could get e.g. 2.10 in odds on heads in the coin flip, when we know that the true odds of heads is 2.00, we would have a value bet or an edge against the bookmaker of 2.10 / 2.00) - 1 = 0,05 = 5%. 

Estimating the true probability or odds of a team winning a football match is not nearly as easy that of a coin flip where we know the true odds. In practice all of the bookies are trying to predict the true odds of a team winning any given game.

And if you visit an odds comparison website you can see that different bookmakers offer different odds on the same team winning the same game, for example Manchester United vs Manchester City.

This is great news for us as sports bettors because it implies that there exists inefficiencies in the market which we can exploit. Or in other words, it is actually possible for us to find cases where we can get 2.10 on a game where the true odds of the team winning is 2.0. 

This is the fundamental principle that Trademate Sports was built.

Trademate is a software which identifies value bets, the cases where you have an edge against the bookies, because they have mispriced the odds they are offering relative to the true odds. In total their customers have placed more than 1,4M bets with a total net profit of more than €1,5M and an avg. ROI of 1.5% against the bookmakers.

All of this is being done automatically, so you can focus on placing the edges at the bookies.

You can read more about what they do and why it works on their website.

You can try Trademate for yourself for 7 days for free

And if you want to subscribe to their service after, then you can get a 17% discount and the first month for €99 if you are a member of Bettingfamily.

Just write to them on the customer chat on their website with the code “Bettingfamiliy” and they'll add it to your account.