What is implied probability, how to find implied probability and how can it help you beat the bookies

Making a long-term profit from betting is all about finding value in your bets and there is no better way to find value than by beating the implied probability.

What is implied probability and how to find it?

Implied probability is the percentage chance that the bookies believe something has to occur in a betting market. Implied probability is found by converting fractional or decimal odds into a percentage. For example, a very easy conversion would be something which is odds of evens/2.00 would be 50%.

However, it gets tricky when the odds are longer and you have to use a bit of maths to find the percentage. Here are the formulas you need to use to find the implied probability for any bet. The example odds we will use are 2/1(3.00).

Using Decimal Odds: (1/ decimal odds) X 100 = Implied Probability

2/1 example: (1/3.00) X 100 = 33.3%

Using Fractional Odds: denominator / (denominator + numerator) X 100 = Implied Probability

2/1 example: 1 / (1 +2) X 100 = 33.3%

What to watch out for when using implied probability

You have to take into account the fact that the bookies will always give themselves an edge when it comes to implied probability. The simplest way to explain this would be on the coin toss betting market for the Super Bowl.

Of course a coin toss has a 50% chance of being heads or tails but by using our earlier model you would see that the bookies make the implied probability of 50.7%. They do this in order to give themselves the advantage as it would be almost impossible for the betting companies to make money if they offered the true odds.

Bear this in mind when you are placing a bet and using implied probability as a betting system that the bookies will shift the odds so it is best off to add at least one percent to your implied probability to eliminate the bookmakers advantage.

How to use implied probability

Once you understand what implied probability is you need to pick out a bet that has value, a value bet is a wager that has a higher likelihood than the implied probability the bookies give.

One of the best ways to find value bets that beat implied probability is using BetDynamo’s industry-leading Insights.

Though these insights aren’t the exact likelihood for something to happen they give you the amount of times that a certain event has happened this season which can certainly help you craft your own true probability that will beat the bookies odds.

You want to find a bet with a true probability as far ahead of the implied probability as possible.

This Swiss Super League game between Luzern and Sion is a great example of a value bet in the Over 2.5 goals market.

With BetDynamo’s Insights you can see that Over 2.5 goals has occurred 77.78% of the time in games involving the two teams this season. This isn’t an exact calculation of true probability rather than just what has happened this season and you have to take other external factors into account such as injuries, recent form and play styles.

However, the 77.78% which BetDynamo’s insights has provided is still a great indicator into what might happen and is a great starting point when trying to calculate true probability and with neither team having key injuries to their attacking players actual figure should be around that point.

Using our calculation from earlier we can find out that odds of 8/13 represent and implied value of 62.1% or 63.1% if you want to add a percentage point to remove the bookies edge.

With our true probability coming in at around 77% you can see that the bet is good value as the difference between the two numbers is around 14% in the punters favour which is the type of thing you should be looking for.