Submitted by rsteel on
Value in sports betting is the equivalent to location in business. Both are essential to profit long term.
If you “like” a particular team but you bet in to a bad line (over-priced) you will NOT make money over the long haul. Value betting/handicapping is betting the right team at the right price. You cannot have one without the other. If you have no edge in a given game then your optimal bet size is ZERO. Sports bettors continually lose money because they do not know how to pass. They bet on games that are properly priced. Our biggest advantage over the sports book is they virtually have to post a line on all games. We get to cheery pick and bet on only the games where we feel we have an edge.
The toughest concept that most sports bettors have difficulty wrapping their heads around is we are NOT picking a winner of individual games. No one can do that. No one that I am aware of has a crystal ball that works or tomorrow’s newspaper. What we are doing is finding value that if this game was played under the same conditions 100 times at the price we are betting we would win enough times to make money.