---
title: 'Positive EV Betting Strategy Explained'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=eY2WLBvv0DE'
video_id: 'eY2WLBvv0DE'
date: 2026-07-14
duration_sec: 529
---

# Positive EV Betting Strategy Explained

> Source: [Positive EV Betting Strategy Explained](https://youtube.com/watch?v=eY2WLBvv0DE)

## Summary

Positive EV betting strategy is a profitable sports betting method based on expected value. This video explains how to calculate EV, find positive EV bets, and compares it to arbitrage betting, showing higher long-term profits despite short-term variance.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Positive EV Betting** [00:00] — Positive EV betting is the most profitable sports betting method. Anyone can do it with simple calculations.
- **What is Expected Value (EV)?** [00:27] — EV is a term from probability theory, representing the anticipated return on a bet. Used by quants in finance.
- **Calculating EV with Example** [00:54] — Using a football match example: odds of 2.8 for a draw give negative EV of -23.28%. A free EV calculator is available.
- **Finding Positive EV Bets** [01:56] — Positive EV odds exist daily. Use betting exchanges or sharp books like Pinnacle for accurate probabilities.
- **Sources of Positive EV** [02:44] — Slow updates and miscalculated odds create opportunities. Promotional offers can also yield positive EV.
- **Comparison with Arbitrage Betting** [03:11] — Positive EV betting yields higher profits than arbitrage. Example: £20 stake on over 2.5 goals at 3.0 gives EV of £10, while arbitrage yields only £2.50.
- **Advantages and Risks** [05:38] — Positive EV is more profitable long-term but has short-term variance. Arbitrage is risk-free but requires more bets and reduces EV.
- **Maximizing Profits** [06:43] — Only bet on positive EV bets and stake proportionally to the margin. Best opportunities in fast-changing odds and lower-quality events.
- **Tools for Finding Positive EV** [07:39] — OddsCham (US/Australia) and OddsMonkey (UK) identify mispriced odds. Personal favorite: high-speed markets like greyhounds.

### Conclusion

Positive EV betting offers superior long-term returns compared to arbitrage, but requires tolerance for short-term variance. Using tools and focusing on fast-changing odds can maximize profits.

## Transcript

Positive EV betting strategy is the most&nbsp; profitable sports betting method around anyone&nbsp;&nbsp; can do it calculations are simple and I can prove&nbsp; it because I've made fortunes using it myself I'll&nbsp;&nbsp; break the strategy down in layman's terms explain&nbsp; where it's most profitable why it beats other&nbsp;&nbsp;
strategies and share a real example by the end of&nbsp; this video it works regardless of the sports book&nbsp;&nbsp; or where you are in the world so what exactly&nbsp; is positive EV betting strategy EV is short for&nbsp;&nbsp;
expected value which is the term originating from&nbsp; probability Theory it signifies the anticipated&nbsp;&nbsp; return on a bet or a trade quantitative analysts&nbsp; in the financial sector often use it as a metric&nbsp;&nbsp;
for value now in sports betting calculating the&nbsp; BET's expected value is simple it's the cumulative&nbsp;&nbsp; total of every possible outcomes payoffs&nbsp; multiplied by its likelihood of winning let's take&nbsp;&nbsp;
a football match between West Ham and Chelsea as&nbsp; an example if the Betfair Sportsbook offers odds&nbsp;&nbsp; of 2.8 for the draw you profit by one pound 80 for&nbsp; every one pound steak assuming that the match ends&nbsp;&nbsp;
in the drawer of course however if either team&nbsp; wins you lose your one pound stake so the EV for&nbsp;&nbsp; this bet is calculated by the probability of the&nbsp; draw multiplied by 1.8 added to the probability of&nbsp;&nbsp;
the match ending in either team winning multiplied&nbsp; by negative one so in this instance it means that&nbsp;&nbsp; the draw rods have a negative expected value of 23&nbsp; Pence or 23.28 now I know some people don't like&nbsp;&nbsp;
doing the maths so there's a free EV calculator&nbsp; online here that will do it all for you just&nbsp;&nbsp; like this one so when you work out the EV for the&nbsp; majority of bets on a sports book their value is&nbsp;&nbsp; negative because of course includes the house&nbsp; Edge ensure the bigger the negative EV figure&nbsp;&nbsp;
the more they're ripping you up however plus EV&nbsp; odds are available every single day I'll show you&nbsp;&nbsp; where I went shortly but as an illustration&nbsp; if the draw in our example was priced at 4.0&nbsp;&nbsp;
it would become a positive EV bet the simplest&nbsp; method to determine a BET's probability in sports&nbsp;&nbsp; betting is by Consulting the betting exchanges&nbsp; or short books like Pinnacle betting exchanges&nbsp;&nbsp; make their money from commissions on winnings&nbsp; after the event has been settled so it's a free&nbsp;&nbsp;
market where prices are controlled by supply and&nbsp; demand with no margin plus the sharpest mines in&nbsp;&nbsp; sports betting play big on the exchanges their&nbsp; cumulative knowledge makes pricing incredibly&nbsp;&nbsp;
accurate especially when it's close to the event&nbsp; start so if you've heard of the wisdom of crowds&nbsp;&nbsp; or law of large numbers effectively this is&nbsp; what I'm talking about here making money with&nbsp;&nbsp; positive EV betting is reliant on slow updates&nbsp; and miscalculated odds now don't worry this&nbsp;&nbsp;
isn't a matched betting or Arbitrage video but&nbsp; promotional offers can create positive EV bet&nbsp;&nbsp; bookmakers regularly offer short-term positive&nbsp; bonuses in an attempt to hook in long-term&nbsp;&nbsp;
losers and degenerates if you're going to use&nbsp; them make sure you do it effectively there's a&nbsp;&nbsp; separate video on that Linked In description down&nbsp; below now to be profitable we need to focus our&nbsp;&nbsp; sports betting on positive EV bets only let's&nbsp; delve into a theoretical scenario to illustrate&nbsp;&nbsp;
how positive EV betting performs in contrast&nbsp; to Arbitrage betting for example the results&nbsp;&nbsp; might surprise some of you so let's assume we've&nbsp; got an under over 2.5 goals Market on a football&nbsp;&nbsp;
match where both outcomes are equal there's a 50&nbsp; chance of either outcome happening they're evenly&nbsp;&nbsp; matched this means that the fair odds would be&nbsp; 2.0 in decimals evens in fractions or plus 100&nbsp;&nbsp;
in American odds however for argument's sake let's&nbsp; say there's an odds discrepancy with the over 2.5&nbsp;&nbsp; goals priced at 3.0 whereas the under 2.5 goals&nbsp; a price of 1.8 if we're using positive EV betting&nbsp;&nbsp;
strategy it's staking 20 pound then the focus&nbsp; would be on the over 2.5 goals bet because this&nbsp;&nbsp; is where the plus EV selection is at 3.0 we would&nbsp; need to place our 20 pound stake on overs at 3.0&nbsp;&nbsp;
and totally disregard the alternate betting line&nbsp; now if the BET wins we secure 40 pounds profit&nbsp;&nbsp; and if it doesn't we lose our 20 pound state&nbsp; to understand the expected value of this bet&nbsp;&nbsp;
we multiply the probability of Happening by the&nbsp; potential payout so 50 multiplied by 40 pounds&nbsp;&nbsp; plus 50 multiplied by negative 20 pounds is equal&nbsp; to 20 pounds minus 10 pounds giving us a positive&nbsp;&nbsp;
EV of 10 pounds for this bet again here's an EV&nbsp; calculator confirming the numbers but by way of&nbsp;&nbsp; comparison if we were to rerun the simulation&nbsp; approaching it as an Arbitrage better it would&nbsp;&nbsp;
look a little bit like this the arbitrage bettor&nbsp; would split the stakes placing seven pounds 50&nbsp;&nbsp; on overs at 3.0 and 12 pounds 50 on unders at 1.8&nbsp; when you look at the respective payouts of either&nbsp;&nbsp;
of those lines if it should win it leaves a total&nbsp; profit of two pounds 50. once the initial 20 pound&nbsp;&nbsp; stake has been deducted significantly less than&nbsp; when using the positive EV betting strategy now&nbsp;&nbsp;
if that's confused you you might want to watch&nbsp; that last minute or so again and look at those&nbsp;&nbsp; calculations so there's no question positive EV&nbsp; betting is a lot more profitable than Arbitrage&nbsp;&nbsp; although the obvious downfall is the short-term&nbsp; variance it results an unfortunate run of bad&nbsp;&nbsp;
variants with results can be a little bit testing&nbsp; if you haven't got the nerve for it although long&nbsp;&nbsp; term the numbers don't light and I can prove&nbsp; it with my own profits as you'll see in just&nbsp;&nbsp; a second aside from the short-term variation in&nbsp; results there are several other beneficial factors&nbsp;&nbsp;
to consider when comparing positive EV betting&nbsp; and Arbitrage sure Arbitrage betting offers a&nbsp;&nbsp; risk-free Avenue where you profit every single&nbsp; time regardless of the outcome but it's worth&nbsp;&nbsp;
considering that twice the amount of bets need to&nbsp; be placed and the second hedge bet often reduces&nbsp;&nbsp; the overall expected value you can hedge weave&nbsp; a better exchange where the odds are on offer&nbsp;&nbsp; are likely to represent a neutral EV figure&nbsp; although there's Commission on your exchange&nbsp;&nbsp;
winnings The Only Exception being if you can get&nbsp; 0 commission via a service like odds monkey the&nbsp;&nbsp; most favorable options depend on your own risk app&nbsp; type but factually speaking positive EV betting&nbsp;&nbsp;
strategy is the optimal approach when viewed&nbsp; in the context of long-term frequent betting&nbsp;&nbsp; as I've said the return is just so much better&nbsp; now there's a couple of ways to maximize your&nbsp;&nbsp; profits and reduce risk with positive EV strategy&nbsp; I'll show you some solid examples in a second but&nbsp;&nbsp;
first the shortcut to enhancing your profits and&nbsp; reducing risk the first golden rule is to only bet&nbsp;&nbsp; on positive EV best and when you do stay in line&nbsp; with the Positive EV margin the bigger the value&nbsp;&nbsp;
margin the bigger we should state so where can&nbsp; you find plus EV bets easily there are multiple&nbsp;&nbsp; places every day typically the best opportunities&nbsp; are around the speed at which odds change and the&nbsp;&nbsp;
lower quality betting events where pricing is&nbsp; harder for the bookmakers to quantify and keep&nbsp;&nbsp; track of an example of lower quality might be the&nbsp; foreign low quality football leads and ancillary&nbsp;&nbsp; markets like under servers goals corners and&nbsp; cards an example of speed at which odds change&nbsp;&nbsp;
might be the horse racing markers or Greyhound&nbsp; betting again Lower quality racing throws up the&nbsp;&nbsp; best opportunities for such price discrepancies&nbsp; especially in the final minutes counting down&nbsp;&nbsp; to the post personally I prefer to focus on&nbsp; the fast changing odds now there are several&nbsp;&nbsp;
software tools that can help you do this although&nbsp; there are two main options first you have tools&nbsp;&nbsp; that identify Miss price betting odds if you're&nbsp; in the United States or Australia odd sham will&nbsp;&nbsp; help you out and if you're in the UK odds monkey&nbsp; is best now unfortunately wherever you are the&nbsp;&nbsp;
platforms can't fully automate the process for you&nbsp; the sports books just wouldn't allow it they hate&nbsp;&nbsp; people using sophisticated tools like this after&nbsp; all plus EV betting has a mathematical advantage&nbsp;&nbsp;
over the house and they know it however the&nbsp; tools can show you exactly where positive EV&nbsp;&nbsp; opportunities exist in real time here's a couple&nbsp; of positive EV bets highlighted by oddsjam on the&nbsp;&nbsp; screen and a bunch of others Gods monkey now the&nbsp; second option is my personal favorite you'll need&nbsp;&nbsp;
to be quicker when doing it although the positive&nbsp; expected values are far higher when using this&nbsp;&nbsp; method particularly on high speed better markets&nbsp; like the Greyhounds now I share my personal bet&nbsp;&nbsp; in history with over 6 000 pound profit from one&nbsp; account and explain the full strategy here in the&nbsp;&nbsp;
end screen so please go and check out that video&nbsp; now thanks for watching I'll see you next time
