How to find high-quality value bets

Many people may rush out and start looking for the best among the average bets that are likely to end up costing money if they are not careful.

Therefore, make sure you institute these quality control measures and only place bets under certain conditions.

First of all, you need to make sure that multiple odds are offered so that you have a good selection of odds to average. (The more, the better).

But you’ll also want to include other considerations:

Make sure the value bet isn’t on a complete stranger – don’t just look at the numbers, make sure you take into account what those numbers are telling you. Maybe you think you’ve found a great deal that no one else has. But if you take a closer look, you might find that it’s not about a favorite and an underdog, but about an experienced team and an inexperienced team. A silly example would be if an NFL team was going up against a high school basketball team! Teenage basketball players would have no chance of tying up the football team and going toe-to-toe with professional players. Obviously, you won’t see scenarios like that (or if you do, be sure to bet wisely!), but there will be times when a team has a value bet…possibly because it’s an outsider.

Keep an eye out for the big names: On the one hand, you should beware of teams you have never heard of before, but on the other hand, don’t go for the biggest and best team or the most famous team. When the favorite team plays, a lot more people bet and that is why bookmakers create reduced odds to compensate. As a result, the disparity between the two teams’ odds seems even greater…not because the odds are higher on the underdog, but because the odds are lower on the upside…meaning a false sense of worth. That’s not to say you shouldn’t be in it, but you should be careful.

Early Lengthening – Bookmakers keep in touch with what is happening in the game. It would be unwise, of course, to set odds months before a game and never check their accuracy. If a critical teammate were to get injured, that could impact the game and therefore should impact the odds. Therefore, bookmakers keep in touch with what is happening in the game and adjust their odds accordingly. As a value bet finder, you may notice that their odds are actually much higher than others and you can place your bet with them. However, bookmakers do not operate in a vacuum and if you had waited you would find that most bookmakers would have adjusted their odds accordingly. The precaution, then, is to avoid acting on the first impulse as soon as you see the most attractive odds. Try to determine when they were changed and the reasoning and if you can’t figure it out then wait a couple of days (if possible) and see what happens between the other bookmakers.

Be careful if the true value multiple is too high – it can be easy to get excited about this, but the most likely reason this could happen is that one bookmaker is using a different handicap system than another. Don’t let a number fool you into action…keep your feet on the ground and think about each action before you take it.