Best odds

One thing that I mention a lot on this site is that it is imperative to place your bets where you get the best odds. I keep trying to get everyone to understand than a small difference in the odds makes a huge difference in the long run. Slightly higher odds can dramatically increase your chances of becoming a successful sports bettor.

On this page, we are going to take an in-depth look and try to explain why higher odds are so important.

Making money as a sports bettor

It is easy to think that sports bettor makes a lot of money by being skilled at picking the bets that they place. That they only place bets when they know they are going to win. They know the sport well enough to turn betting into an art. This is sort of true but not in the way you think.

There are no sports bettors that are skilled enough to only place winning bets. A professional punter expects to lose a lot. Most will lose almost half of the bets they place. Some will lose even more than that, some will lose less. The goal of a skilled bettor is not to only place winning bids, the goal is to win more money than you lose.

The way you achieve this is by only betting on events where the odds are set in such a way that you think that they offer you an edge. That the odds are in your favor. The punter knows that he might lose this bet but that he will make money over time placing 100 identical bets. He only bet on events where he knows the odds are in his favor in the long run.

To be able to find events to bet on that offer odds that are in your favor you need to know a lot about the sport in question. Enough to be able to see that the odds set by the sports book does not reflect the true likely hood of a certain outcome. This takes skill and patience but can be achieved.

Return on bet

Most successfully bettors do not have a very high return on investment once all their losses have been deducted from their winnings. The might win USD1.05 for every USD1 they bet. They only get a small average return on every bet and need to turn over a lot of money to be able to make a living from their betting.

The margins a successful bettor operates with is usually on average rather small. When you know this, it is easier to understand why it is so important to always place your bets where you get the best odds. Even slightly better odds can have a huge impact on your profits.

Let assume that you win on average USD1.05 for every USD1 you bet after losses. If you are able to improve the odds you are getting on all bets by 1% then this is going to increase your average return to USD 1.06 or 6%. This single percent will allow you to increase the total profit each month by 20%. If the total value of your bet is 50 000 every month than you would earn USD 2500 with a 5% ROI. If you are able to increase this by one percentage point to 6% then you would earn USD 3000. USD 500 more.

A single percentage point can be even more important if you’re on the cusp of breaking even and turning a profit.

It is usually possible to improve the odds you are getting by more than 1% by comparing odds and place the bets where you get the best odds. It is not unusual that the difference between the odds on different websites is 5% or more.

5% makes a huge difference for your chances to win money.

Finding the best odds

Finding the best odds is very easy. You no longer have to go to different websites to compare odds. There are websites that aggregate data from many sports book and allow you to compare odds on the fly. Make sure to chose an odds comparison website that aggregate data from a large selection on the different sports book. The more the better.

Sometimes you can find better odds at none English speaking sites. Taking a look at websites in other languages is a good idea if you know a second language god enough to be able to place bets in that language. Most sports books are international companies and will offer the same odds on all markets. There are some smaller national ones. These that might provide you with better odds if you check.