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I need help understanding value betting

Is this the new hack of smart gambling?
showMeDaMoney
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I need help understanding value betting

Tue May 30, 2017 8:22 am

I've gone through the forum but I still dont quite understand which one is the value bet.

Lets take these 4 major bookies.
william
pinnacle
betfair
bet365

Then take into consideration the pinnacle lean
Which I think equates to the truest odds before the market move.

So which odd is the Value bet?

This match is also an arb with mixed rules between 365 and pinnacle

But the question I'm not sure, which one is value here?
If I had to take a guess based on watching the youtube video.

Konta at pinnacle is the value bet, is that how everyone sees it?
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Last edited by showMeDaMoney on Tue May 30, 2017 8:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
Alfa1234
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Tue May 30, 2017 9:56 am

in a nutshell and without going into any detail:

Pinnacle and Betfair odds reflect the true probability.

Any odd you can get that is better (higher) than the odds they have is a value bet.

In this case your Bet365 odd of 2.1 for Hsieh has value.  None of the others do.
showMeDaMoney
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Tue May 30, 2017 11:34 am

ahh thx for that, I finally starting to understand it.

Incidentally Su won the match.
So value would have won .

Never seen a double hand forehand and backhand in pro tennis before.
Has to be one of the shortest skirts also.

Triple first for everything !!!
NedlogViiibes
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Tue May 30, 2017 3:22 pm

A good way to see if you have an edge over the bookmakers is if you beat the closing line from Pinnacle/SBO.

Pinnacle reflects the "true" probability for each outcome on big markets on average through their closing odds. So the Hsieh bet isn't necessarily a valuebet, as you would have to compare it with the closing odds. From the information we have currently - it probably is.

Going into detail you need to beat the Pinnacle lines with 2% due to their margin.

Example:

You bet Man U to win at odds 2.20.
When the match starts. Pinnacle offers odds 2.00 on Man U.

2.00*1.02 = 2.04

To find out your expected return from this:

2.20/2.04*100 = 107.8  -> 7.8%
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Wed May 31, 2017 6:35 am

Thanks for your explanation, @NedlogViiibes
I'm understanding it all perfectly now.

One of my pet projects was to see a list of matches (that aren't draws) and to see which bookmaker was able to offer the least amount of $ for winners
and the most amount of $ for losers.

Pinnacle came out on top, I think 5 dimes could be another website that can determine which is value(betfair, pinnacle, 5 dimes)

Usually when I run it, 5 dimes and pinnacle are up there.
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Alfa1234
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Wed May 31, 2017 8:06 am

I don't think you really understand it yet if you think 5dimes can be a so called "base book".  5dimes is not "sharp", it's a soft book.  It does not matter which site has the best lines for losers, it matters which site has the odds that reflect the true probability of something happening.  Anything that pays out more than the true probability of that event would be value.

Let's say Pinnacle offers a tennis match and right before the start each player is at 1.96.  That means they both have a 50% chance of winning that game.  If you can find an odd that is over 2 somewhere, you now have a value bet as long term you will make money betting that odd. (let's say you found an odd of 2.1 and you bet that 100 times.  That would mean you would lose your bet 50 times and win it 50 times.  With a stake of 100 each time you would have lost 100 x 50 = 5000 but you would have won 100 x 50 x 2.1 = 10 500...giving you a total profit of 500 as your total stake was only 10 000).  There is ofcourse some variance to be expected, but your video should have taught you that 19 out of 20 times you can expect to be within the standard deviation results here...which means that 19 out of 20 times you will win between 40 and 60 of those bets.  As you would need 47 won bets to make a profit, you can see that over the long term, as your results will end up with a smaller deviation the more bets you place (you will get more and more towards a 50% win percentage long term) you will make money.

Why do Pinnacle and Betfair (and SBObet, perhaps even Maxbet to some extent for football) reflect the true probability odds (and ONLY them, NOT 5dimes or Bet365 or any other bookie you think may be sharp!)?
Because their odds are based upon the amount of money they receive on each side.  As soon as they start offering a market, bets start coming in...with each bet for a player the odd for that player drops a bit (and quite a bit for a max limit bet) so as more and more bets come in, an equilibrum (or balance) is found where the odds don't move much anymore with each bet.  Those odds have now been balanced by the 'weight of money'.  If Pinnacle opens a tennis match with 1 player at 1.85 and the other at 2.08..and a lot more bets come in for the player at 2.08 that means they priced him too high according to the market so the odds for that player will drop.  The market will slowly determine what the "best" price was untill they end up at something where a balance is found.  This could be 1.96 for player A and 1.96 for player B.  Betfair obviously works in the same way.

The closing odds have had the best adjustment as Pinnacle takes bets and adjusts odds untill right before the start of the game, and they have studied that their closing odds reflect almost completely correctly the true probability of something happening. Therefore, if you consistantly beat the Pinnacle closing line (-> you have found a higher odd than the Pinnacle odd was right before the start of the game) you have consistantly found value and will beat the market, so make a profit.

Also do not forget to take Juice into account.  If Pinnacle offers 1.9 and 1.9 for 2 teams, there is no value in finding an odd of 1.98 for 1 of those teams...you are beating the closing line but not the juice!  1.9 and 1.9 reflects there is a 50% probability (chance) of each player winning so you would need an odd of higher than 2 for it to be a value odd.


Because odds change all the time untill right before the start of the game, it's best to only bet value not too long before the start of the game.  If you find a value odd 3 days before the start there is a high probability your odd will not have value anymore at the start of the game...although one could argue there is an equal chance the odd will actually have more value as the odd on Pinnacle could also drop.  However, expect more variance in your results the more bets you place on games that still have 24hours to go before the start.  The expected end value should, imho, remain the same although others may argue against that.

Hope that's all clear...it covers the basics explanation of value and value betting.
Last edited by Alfa1234 on Wed May 31, 2017 8:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Wed May 31, 2017 11:38 am

one more thing that seems ppl take for granted. the advertised 2% margin on pinny lines is true only for a minor number of events.the biggest football league/matches, in general, big betting events.
NedlogViiibes
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Wed May 31, 2017 1:39 pm

testez wrote: one more thing that seems ppl take for granted. the advertised 2% margin on pinny lines is true only for a minor number of events.the biggest football league/matches, in general, big betting events.
Which is also the events where you can be certain, that they reflect the true probability on average ;)
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Wed May 31, 2017 4:22 pm

NedlogViiibes wrote:
testez wrote: one more thing that seems ppl take for granted. the advertised 2% margin on pinny lines is true only for a minor number of events.the biggest football league/matches, in general, big betting events.
Which is also the events where you can be certain, that they reflect the true probability on average ;)
on most sports/events yes, i wasnt denying that.
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Thu Jun 01, 2017 4:01 am

Thanks for that excellent explanation @Alfa1234, yes I'm wrong to mention 5 dimes as a possible lean.
As I'm not sure how they calculate their odds.

The only thing left is to give it a shot.
I might try 50 value bets at like 2% of my bank roll and see what happens.

I'll report back once I've finished.
Alfa1234
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Thu Jun 01, 2017 8:06 am

The above should have taught you that 50 is waaaaay too small a sample size to give accurate results.  You are simply gambling with a very small edge that way but there's a very big chance you'll end up at a loss.
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Thu Jun 01, 2017 8:23 am

showMeDaMoney wrote: Thanks for that excellent explanation @Alfa1234, yes I'm wrong to mention 5 dimes as a possible lean.
As I'm not sure how they calculate their odds.

The only thing left is to give it a shot.
I might try 50 value bets at like 2% of my bank roll and see what happens.

I'll report back once I've finished.
no no no.please, no. didnt you say you've read the valuebetting threads?i thought you did.
showMeDaMoney
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Thu Jun 01, 2017 9:59 am

loool, what do you mean?

;D

Have to be honest, I read quite a few, perhaps I should have read more.
but after reading this thread its all come together.

I've actually started but decided to try with 0.5% of my bank roll.
I'll try 100 and see what happens.
Alfa1234
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:33 am

If you are really going to try...please, make some rules for yourself first.

- First of all: forget about smaller markets like local basketball, volleyball and ITF/challenger tournaments.  Pinnacle/Betfair do NOT have accurate odds and DO NOT reflect the true probability in these games.  You need bigger games with lots of volume.
- 2.  Set some max and minium odds you want to take.  The higher the odds you take, the bigger the variance you'll see.  If Pinnacle has odds of 7 and you find an odd of 25 somewhere, this is huge value however you can still easily lose 20bets like these in a row and end up losing a good chunk of your roll.
- 3 adjust your stake according to Kelly criterium and the odds you take.  A value bet of odds 2.5 where Pinnacle has 2.0 should have a much higher stake than a value bet where you find 4.0 and Pinnacle has 3.5.
- 4 please, don't do it unless you have a clear plan and understand all of the above like the back of your hand.  You'll end up losing a lot of money, get frustrated, will start increasing your stake to chase losses and lose a lot more money.  I know your are anxious to give it a go...but just don't.  On top of that there is nothing going on right now besides tennis.
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Re: I need help understanding value betting

Thu Jun 01, 2017 11:03 am

showMeDaMoney wrote: loool, what do you mean?

;D

Have to be honest, I read quite a few, perhaps I should have read more.
but after reading this thread its all come together.

I've actually started but decided to try with 0.5% of my bank roll.
I'll try 100 and see what happens.
I don't think he was talking about your staking, but the variance involved in 50 bets. You need much more than that to see a clear picture (100 is not enough either).

Pay attention to Alfa's posts here. Good info in them :)

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