Amount of bets to place

As many bets as possible is the way to go, bet more not less.

My point is though that I hear people saying "Man Utd should win tonight I reckon but they're a bit short at that price so ne obet for me..." Shouldn't you therefore be laying at that price?? If you really do think it's a cert then you are contradicting yourself otherwise you should be laying it imo.

Disagree. There's a range in which, for 99.99% of gamblers, every match is "no bet". Anyone who thinks they can calculate odds to the point where they back at 1.23 but lay at 1.22 either has the greatest pricing formulae/strategy in the world or is kidding themselves. If I make something a 1.25 shot, I'm going to want a fair bit more before backing it, and want to lay at a fair amount lower. Otherwise, where's my edge? I'm just gambling for the sake of gambling. If you have zero allowance for a margin of error, then when the errors creep in, there's going to be a problem.

Do people who bet at level stakes with an edge form an opinion on all games and therefore bet on everything? Do you find this works out better than picking and choosing?

You can form an opinion on every game without betting on every game. The opinion may well be that the market has it framed closely enough to your tissue/ratings/prices to make it no bet (as above). There will always be stronger and weaker bets.

Thanks Treble_Underscore that helps a lot actually and makes perfect sense because like you say being that accurate is not possible and so the value you need has to be substantial enough to make up for any errors.

Just out of interest Treble_Underscore, roughly how many ticks or percentage in price on average does the price need to be greater than your ratings for you to bet?

It depends on the price, and, since the advent of premium charge, what I am trying to achieve scrooge.

For example, in this day and age, if having a strategy that is deemed "over-profitable" by big blue and thus paying pc, a strategy that earns 1-2% ROI in very liquid markets like the premiership is very valuable and therefore much more worthwhile to implement. Even when it goes through little corrections and it loses some money, its money off a PC bill.

In the "old days" I was looking for a 10% edge as a minimum to place a bet - but this is the sort of strategy that prevents losing runs. These days, I would play with an edge as low as 1-2%, thanks to PC.

Good luck.

Your above post, T-U, whilst correct, does somewhat contradict your previous one. The difference between 1.22 and 1.23 is enough margin to beat commission. And of course, a strategy that has a -1% ROI is still valuable to a PC payer. Another consideration is knowledge of where the price will go in-play. If you are fairly sure that the market will over (or under) react to, for example, an early goal then there can be added value to taking a pre-off position at just the right side of parity.

Blue eyes 04 Jan 16:02
Your above post, T-U, whilst correct, does somewhat contradict your previous one. The difference between 1.22 and 1.23 is enough margin to beat commission. And of course, a strategy that has a -1% ROI is still valuable to a PC payer. Another consideration is knowledge of where the price will go in-play. If you are fairly sure that the market will over (or under) react to, for example, an early goal then there can be added value to taking a pre-off position at just the right side of parity.

Quite correct. The first post was replying to someone, it would seem, who is asking a lot of questions and basically finding feet - NOT someone with PC concerns.

The 2 goals require 2 entirely different mindsets. -1% ROI, would depend on SD to be honest (for me - also I think its easy enough to find strategies in the 1% ROI bracket for volume required to allay my personal PC concerns). I expect 0.5-1.5% strategies to be more viable, since they are going to spend a lot of time losing anyway, plus in the sort of volume I am talking about in the second post, the difference between 1% and -1% is a non-minimal amount of money.

Your considerations about in-play are entirely correct.

I used to sit down and go through all the games (NHL, NFL, Premier League) to find a value bet.

Now, as someone put it, I flipped the switch to all games are "no bet" till I find the play for that game. It starts with 1X2 but these prices are more than likely short of value so alot of games elimated.

Using the MAN U is too short example, at that point, I tend to look at the opponent rather than Man U. From there, I assess O/U HT/FT and even correct score (a flutter) rather than taking 1.25.

It is often easier to look at the opponent than the team "that is going to win".

For NHL, the options are simpler so evaluating the possibilities so a team that might be 1.33 on WL can often offer value on 1X2 or -1.5. Again, researching the opponent rather than the team at 1.33 is often the way for me.

For staking, I am working with a new parameter for 2010 and will give it two months to see how it goes. Essentially a MAX RISK / MAX GAIN approach as parameters. Right now the paramaters for wagering are set at MAX RISK of 3% / MAX GAIN of 2.5%. Bets are then toggled within there.

Essentially, if a team is at evens, the bet would be 2.5% giving the potential return of 2.5%. A team selected at 1.75 would mean a wager of 3% with a return of around 2.2%.

Going longer at 3/1 (4.0) would mean risking around 1.8% to gain 2.5%

Laying at 4.0 would mean risking 3% to gain 1%.

As I said, early days and though I have run it over two years worth of bets, my approach has evolved the past year. This also gets toggled down on some sports that I am improving on (i.e. Tennis) but am still learning the form, etc.

That's really interesting Shapeshifter it sounds like you are on track here just got to prove your ratings and selections by testing then like you say.

It's funny cos if anyone would have told me taht this is how you gamble properly when I first started I probably would have never bothered but now I have read up so much I feel it's only right I continue plus the rewards can be very lucrative when you get it right :)

I've always tried to follow the rules of elimating some factors to allow you to focus on the research rather than what the result will bring or cost.

The main thing is to cap the top ends but, as stated, there is no minimum once a parameter is hit.

This allows me to also look at taking minor positions on some events without it impacting heavily.

I'm hoping this will smooth out the losses and create steady gains.