5 Best Bets Anyone Can Make in Sports Betting

[00:00] These are the sports bets that sports books want  you to make. Why? Because they're most profitable   for them and often worst value for you. So, in  this video, I'm counting down the five best sports  

[00:12] bets anyone can make and why they give you a  much better chance of coming out on top. Starting   with the fifth. So, for a moment, I want you to  forget bet builders and flashy markets. Instead,   look for markets where there are just two  possible outcomes. Think things like both  

[00:27] teams to score or over under 2.5 goals. And here's  why. Every sports book builds a margin into every   market. Now, generally speaking, the simpler  market, the smaller that margin tends to be,  

[00:40] especially if it's a popular market, like over  under 2.5 goals. That means more of your stake   is actually going towards your bet rather than the  bookmakaker's back pocket margin, and advantage.  

[00:52] Let me show you how to spot that margin yourself  in under 30 seconds. So, here we've got a both   teams to score example. And to be honest, it's  not too badly priced, but you can see both teams  

[01:04] to scored is priced at 1.9 for yes and also 1.9  for no. Now, both of those options have a 52.63%   implied chance of happening when you convert  the odds to their implied probability. Now,  

[01:19] what does this mean? This means that there's  just a 2.6% margin on either of those bets.   It's obviously incredibly small. It means you're  not getting clipped hard on prices like you would   on something like Shots on Target. So, you don't  need to calculate the pricing for every market  

[01:36] forever. But just understand what you're looking  for here. As a rule of thumb, simple, popular,   two outcome markets are often one of the best  places to start. Let's move on next to my fourth  

[01:48] best bet on the list because you'll start to  notice a pattern as this goes on. Now, my fourth   best bet is one almost everyone has placed at some  point. But the difference to this bet isn't just   the bet itself because timing matters just as much  as the bet itself. You see, one of the best things  

[02:06] you can do, if possible, is avoid betting days  or weeks into the future before kickoff. Instead,   wait until around an hour before the event  starts. Why? Because by then, the lineups are  

[02:18] confirmed, the weather is known, and most major  uncertainty has disappeared. And on top of that,   the sports books are forced to compete with other  brands, meaning their prices become better and   more efficient, particularly on those top level  markets. Now, the most popular market of all,  

[02:35] match odds. And this is a good market to bet into  because it's so competitive. The margin is often   surprisingly small. For example, if match odds are  priced at 1.7 for the home team, 3.9 for the draw,  

[02:48] and 5.1 for the away team, that would mean  their respective probabilities are 58.82%,   25.64%, and 19.61%. Add them all together and  you get a combined figure of 104.07%. So, what  

[03:07] does this mean? Well, there's a 100% chance of the  event happening or it would have been cancelled.   So there's a remaining 4.07% margin across all  three of those outcomes, which is the bookies   margin. So if you remember the pattern I mentioned  previously, popular markets force sports books to  

[03:21] compete harder for your business, which means less  margin, more value that stays with the bettor.   Now, next up, we stop reducing the bookmakaker's  edge and start eliminating it all together and   going one step further. My third best bet isn't  actually a single market. is taking advantage  

[03:38] of the right sports book promotions in a slightly  different way to what you might expect. Think odds   boosts, free bets, bet and gets, extra places,  two-ups. But here's the catch. Most promotions  

[03:50] are designed to get you betting more. Obviously,  the best ones though actually give you an edge   and some advantage in that promotion. That's not  all of them. That's where expected value comes in.  

[04:02] Now, simply put, expected value asks one question.  Am I getting a better price for this than it   should be? Now, to answer that, we need to compare  the sportsbook odds to an exchange typically  

[04:14] because an exchange is the closest thing we have  to a true market price. That's because the whole   thing is driven by supply and demand by thousands  and millions of different users. So, if we take a   look at this example here with correct scores,  the exchange price is 34.0 for a 2-nil score  

[04:31] line. That's 33 to1 in fractional odds. However,  if we then move over to the exact same bet and   look at the sportsbook price, it's priced at 23.0  or 22:1 in fractional odds. It's a very bad value  

[04:44] bet. However, a price boost on this particular  bet might be something like 50 to1 for a limited   stake and a limited time as part of a promotion.  You've probably seen that sort of thing promoted   online before via social media and wherever else.  And that's where the maths actually swing in your  

[05:00] favor because you're getting a bigger price than  it's true actual probability. So the same thinking   applies to other free bets and promotions. As  you may have seen in some of the betting strategy   promotion is good value. The trick is knowing  which ones genuinely improve your position. Now,  

[05:20] personally, I'd advise services like Outplayed or  OddsMonkey to help you do that. There's a link in   the description down below. Please go and check  it out. And now we've reached a point where we're   not just reducing the bookmakaker's edge, you're  starting to find bets where you have the advantage  

[05:33] on your side. So next up, my second best bet  is where things get really interesting. Because   this time you're not just relying on a promotion.  We're thinking about value in a pure sense. Every  

[05:45] book maker makes pricing mistakes. After all, they  price thousands of markets every day of the week,   365 days of the year. It's just not possible for  them to get everything right. Also, sometimes new  

[05:57] information arrives and prices should change, but  they don't move quick enough. And that is where   opportunity repeatedly appears. The easiest  way to spot it, there's a full video about it   linked in description down below also. So, check  that out after. Now, as a simple illustration,  

[06:12] if an exchange price is 2.0, that means there's  a 50% chance of that actually happening. However,   if you find that the bookmaker had priced it at  2.20, 20. That means that they believe there's a   45.5% chance of that actually happening.  Now, if the true chance is actually 50%,  

[06:29] like the exchange says, and is correct, then  you're getting paid out as if it's only 45.5%,   which means that is an additional margin that goes  in your back pocket over a longer period of time.   It's known as positive expected value. Now, it  doesn't mean that the bet wins every single time  

[06:43] in the short term. Nobody could do that. Nobody  knows what the future holds in the short term.   However, it means that over hundreds of bets,  the maths is working for you instead of the book   maker. The downside, finding these opportunities  consistently takes time and effort, which brings  

[06:59] us to the number one bet on my list. My number  one bet isn't actually a specific market. It's   finding the best available price for your bet.  Instead of betting against a book maker, you want   to take a look exchanges because you're betting  against other people and that means that there's  

[07:15] no built-in bookmaker margin. Plus, people on  the other side of the bet often might get things   wrong. The exchange simply charges commission on  each winning bet only. Typically 5% or 2% with  

[07:27] some of the bigger mainstream brands, but you can  also get 0% if you're looking in the right places.   Now, here's why that matters. If the bookmaker  prices 3.7 and the exchange prices it at 4.0, it's  

[07:39] the same outcome, better odds, and more value,  but with zero commission, which is incredibly   close to the true market price. And sometimes  the exchange has the best price available,   making it a plus EV bet, too. And that's where  you can find genuine positive expected value. And  

[07:55] that's why this is my number one bet on this list.  But there's more. It's possible to consistently   beat the odds with the right strategy and stack  the odds in our favor. And that's exactly what   we'll cover in this next video here in the  end screen. Please don't forget to check it