In this article we want to explore some of the ideas that you should rely on when it comes to beating the bookies. These are the pillars of taking on the professionals and if you find that your bets are going badly then bookmark this page and come back for the occasional refresher.

Betting with Value

First and foremost you need to get to grips with what ‘value betting’ is. We’ve written a few article on it before (here and here) and they are also articles that are certainly worth bookmarking too, to help remind yourself what you’re looking for in the various betting markets.

At its most basic, value betting is where you make a bet based on getting a better price than what the statistics should indicate. For example, if you’ve done your homework and calculated that in a match between, say, Chelsea and Liverpool then the chances of Over 2.5 goals is 50% then the fair odds should be at 2.0, if a bookie is offering odds above that then you have a value bet. Now, this is just a quick example, we’ve not even mentioned a bookie’s overround (something we’ve written about here but suffice to say that we’re basically looking for better odds that we normally should be getting. Now, it can be a bit of a headache to go through all the upcoming matches over a weekend and calculate the potential value for each game and this is why the Bet Dynamo Insights Page (http://bit.ly/30j1WYz) is worth its weight in gold. All the hard work is done for you and with the click of a mouse you can easily see which games have value based on comparing the odds available with the home/away records of the teams involved.

Betting with your Head

Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs. There’s at least one of those four teams that you probably have a strong dislike for. It might even be justified in your mind and you’ve come up with all sorts of excuses to hate what is essentially a brand. That’s fine, we all have our individual biases. But when it comes to betting we simply must remain as objective as we possibly can and bet with mathematically-backed logic rather than our feelings. This will even occasionally mean betting against our own teams but it’s a secret worth keeping when the bets win. They won’t all win, that’s the nature of value betting but if you learn what to do properly then the winnings from the wins will outweigh the losses over the long term.

Get to Know the Markets (and the Sports)

Now, you don’t necessarily have to know the usual Starting XI for all of the teams in the Colombian second division but if that’s a league you do want to bet on then it will pay off to be as familiar with the league as you can be. Of course, it’s easier to get to know the bigger leagues as more people follow them and there’s far more statistics available for the matches, more match reports and more previews. One thing to keep in mind though is that sometimes we can find better value in the smaller leagues exactly because less people bet on them and there’s less hype and even the bookies tend to just take their prices from other, bigger bookmakers.

Betting on Favourites

Don’t get sucked into the trap of betting on favourties, whether it’s betting on low-odds home favourites like Man City, Chelsea etc, or if its betting on odds-on bets for an Over 2.5 Goals bet. Many times, because the match is a ‘big’ one then more people will be piling money into the markets and this will drive the price down meaning that you’re getting no value whatsoever. Take your time to learn how to read the markets, there really is no rush as there are 1000s of football games to bet on every weekend and it’s better to make a bet with as much knowledge as you can rather than throw money away on an emotionally-based bet.

Hopefully some of the tips here will help you in your endeavor to Beat the Bookies!