Sorry more value

No there aren't any.

Value Backers do not even have an opinion on what will win. Only on the probablity.

As for 'missing winners' , you get winners and losers however you choose your bets.

what i meant was there aren't any who would place that bet :)

A couple of points. (a) if I saw a 1/2 chance at 1/5, I would be having a look to see why my view was so different, and if I was satisfied with my assessment, I would lay it. (b) I don't think I've ever seen a 1/2 offered at 1/5 (maybe 2/5)

With dice, roulette, etc the value backer would obviously be right as the next game will be set up exactly as the previous and the true odds are the TRUE odds.
Sports are different though because, win or lose, you'll never be able to prove if your assessment of the odds were any good.
So, if you've assessed that one outcome has easily the best chance (66%) - wouldn't it be better to back it rather than rely on your blind faith in your odds assessment? Wouldn't you ever think..
'Hang on, why on earth am I not backing the one I fancy?!'
Or even worse..
'Hang on, why am I laying the one I fancy?!'

Wouldn't you say the reason why most punters lose is that they back "what they fancy".

I would say most punters lose because they haven't researched the bet

Backing ''what they fancy'' should have you finishing up level in an efficient market, less commission on winning bets, and the last bit is what beats most people.

commission beats most people. Yeah, right.

Backing ''what they fancy'' should have you finishing up level in an efficient market
Unless "they" have an ability to predict which is better than average.

Unless "they" have an ability to predict which is better than average.

Sometimes referred to as spotting value ?

Btw 'the one i fancy' is me being loose with vocab. My mistake.

I meant somebody who has studied and decided that one selection has easily the most chance of happening but then acts against it.

Please etc in certain matches you can only fancy the short priced favourite, but at what price do you back it ?

Admittedly the one you calculate to have the best chance will usually be the favourite. And yes there will be plenty of times when the price puts you off betting altogether.
But to predict the price you should bet at, you must already have formed an opinion on the most likely outcome.
If you go against that opinion you are doing so on blind faith of your pricing which can never be proven.

Sometimes referred to as spotting value ?

Not necessarily. Consider someone who bets on every single Premiership football match, with no regard to the price (he simply considers the offered price as "correct" or "average").

If he is better at predicting than average, then he will profit. He has not considered price at all, because he does not need to.

If someone considers the offered price as "correct" or "average". surely he can only win by seeing into the future ? If not, what skill does he have that others don't ?? one more thing, do you know of such a person ???

Betting on casino games eliminates skill. Betting on football involves skill.

The two are not the same. In the former, the probability of each outcome is calculable. I don't believe that is true of football.

^ I was talking more horses but yes any sport including football

Not convinced it's calculable either - or at least - anyone with that level of skill and judgement could arguably make more profit backing more winners with a bit of selective staking.

If someone considers the offered price as "correct" or "average". surely he can only win by seeing into the future ?

Only imo but if you think it sounds far fetched to predict outcomes of events, think about how unlikely it is that you can predict the true odds of say, a football match. Even after the event, you will still have absolutely no idea what the true odds should have been!

Of course there are no true odds on a sporting event such as a single football match but a calculation can be undertaken after considering likelyhood of success. Football compilers, professional and amateurs, do it all the time, and back their opinion.

But I believe both use "skill" in their respective methods. For the odds compilers/professional-value-seekers the "skill" is (probably) in the statistical analysis (or algorithm generation).

However they differ as follows: The compilers are interested in price. The "punter" accepts prices as average and instead is interested in strike rate.

Since profitability = strike rate * price, both must be valid methods. Punter is after a better strike rate, the compiler is after better prices.

In my opinion, obviously.

OK, good post.

Thanks for both opinons. While I agree that 'punting' and 'pricing' can both be effective, I was angling towards this...

If you can effectively predict price then it goes without saying that you could effectively predict outcome. So with all the 'guesswork' (imo) that comes with predicting price, surely punting is the way forward!

Regarding value, it is my belief that you can only have a strong opinion on the value of a bet if you have a statistical model that allows you to estimate the likelyhood of the differing events occuring based on previous similar situations. Further to this I also think that backing the value selection must still be in line with what you believe to be the likely winner of the event. Backing a selection because you feel it is the value selection when you are getting 20.0 about something that you believe to be 15.0 is all well and good, but there is a strong possibility that this could lead to long losing runs.

Of course the problem with designing a model to undertake this is a difficult task. There is more than one way to look at predicting the outcome of an event. I think football is a particularly difficult sport to do this, although others may disagree. There are much easier sporting events to predict the outcome of imo.

That was a bit rambling so to summarise:
1) You need a statistical model to really have an idea about the likelyhood (probability) of an event occuring.
2) An outcome may represent value, but in terms of backing if it doesn't stand much chance of occuring it could have a bad effect on your bankroll. While you wait for the value winners to come along.