Value in higher odds?

Value can exist anywhere. The reliability of how you assess the probability of an event occuring is the issue imo.

You don't back just because the odds are high.....................................if you do so, WITHOUT HAVING AN EDGE in horse racing, then you will lose.

You might get a lucky run........but that is all in short run.

Higher odds doesn't automatically mean they're value, but, higher odds are more likely to hold value, as opposed to odds on, etc etc.

Imo, not worth it. If you're on about casino games then they'll never give you value (obviously) and if you're on about sports then you can't play a numbers game because the game is never set up the same. In sports you'll never know the true odds of anything so you can never know you're getting value.

Pleasegivemeanailedontip 24 Jan 19:40
Imo, not worth it. If you're on about casino games then they'll never give you value (obviously) and if you're on about sports then you can't play a numbers game because the game is never set up the same. In sports you'll never know the true odds of anything so you can never know you're getting value.

...............................................................................

So why are you on betfair?

Pleasegivemeanailedontip , you know you're getting value when you can consistently trade it off to lock in a profit. There is often value in sports markets on here if you know what you're looking for.

In sports you'll never know the true odds of anything so you can never know you're getting value.

:^0

Was just giving imo to original post question.
Imo riskier to go for high odds value bet as it's harder to predict odds than predict likely winner.
Yes, you need to be getting value to make money but it's hardly an exact science in sport.
After an event has finished you still don't know if the true odds of the winner were 50/1 on or 50/1 against. Even if your bank is £1m up you don't know if it could have been further up with more winners.

After an event has finished you still don't know if the true odds of the winner were 50/1 on or 50/1 against

The True Odds are ascertained from the publically available info before the event , so it is going to be pretty easy to distinguish between a 50/1 and a 1/50 .

True odds BEFORE a sporting event ?

I'll take some of that! Where is it?

Well no one thinks Arsenal are 50/1 to beat Villa , no one thinks they are 1/50 either

Yes it is hard to say precisely what the odds should be , i would be confident about my price , but others would take a different view . It's not about 1 bet or event though , if you are identifying value you will win over time.

as a rule of thumb ,outsiders on here offer better value .... clear favourites on here are more in line with bookmakers prices

tobers,you still have to use your judgement

but, higher odds are more likely to hold value, as opposed to odds on, etc etc.

This is incorrect. According to Betfair stats published last year, there was no price band in which a systematic edge existred for either side. The PC may have changed things.
Bookmaker prices, if they offered value at all, have historically only done so at very short prices, less than 1.3

Can't deny that if you're getting value you will win, but the contention is that you will never know or be able to prove your judgement. If you're talented enough to accurately predict prices and then you decide to back against what you have deduced the most likely winner......it's not for me, although truth be told my betfair balance isn't exactly a nest egg.

Backing the most likely winner will just lead to backing favs all the time , other than the occasions you think something else should be fav, regardless of the price .

Yes, except for regardless of price. I don't know the odds but like everyone else I'm still using some judgement and not backing when I don't think there's value.

The difference is I only back something I think will win when I think the price is too big instead of backing something I think is value regardless of whether it will win.

Would you back something that was 1,000/1 if you thought it should only be 500/1 ? No. Would you back something at 8/11 if you thought it should be 4/6 ? Yes

mitch88 28 Jan 16:20
Would you back something that was 1,000/1 if you thought it should only be 500/1 ?

Erm, yes.

The problem with that ^^^^^ is that it's almost impossible to predict, with any degree of accuracy, the difference between a 0.1% chance and a 0.2% chance, as both will hardly ever happen.

Deciding if something should be 4/6 (60% chance) instead of 8/11 (58%) is clearly far easier to work out.

Pleasegivemeanailedontip 26 Jan 23:04
Can't deny that if you're getting value you will win, but the contention is that you will never know or be able to prove your judgement. [...]


I agree with that, but you can deduce the likelihood that profit was made by skill rather than luck by analyzing someone's P/L. Of course, if you were to analyze 100,000 people's PL, there would be some with amazing wins and winning streaks that just got lucky.

However, if over a 2 year period you work out that the chance of achieving your result or better by luck is less than one in a million, and over the next 2 years you achieve similar success with a 1 in a million chance, then you have a PL that would occur by luck once in a Trillion. Although perhaps your calculations are wrong (like the finance expert that said the chance of the stock market crash in 2008 occurring was one in a billion) ;)

For example, let's say that someone makes money on 49 out of 50 markets and his average loss (occurring once) equals his average win, and works out the chance of this happening by luck is one in a 1000. If he manages to replicate this result over the next 50 markets, he can already establish with a high confidence interval, that what he is doing is working, and that there is likely to be something other than luck at work here.

Understanding why you make money (or at least thinking you understand) is very helpful. You need to be ready to stop or lower stakes as soon as the fundamentals start to break down, and be ready to reassess whether your ideas are sound.

Coming back to the original question, I believe value is everywhere.

Just an example as obviously the chance of :

winning 49 out of 50 markets and his average loss (occurring once) equaling his average win happening by luck alone is much lower than 1 in 1000.

Investor, you seem clued up and probably make more money out of this than I do. Found the above a bit difficult to get my head around but I think I can agree with it by saying..

3 ways to win are luck, strike rate or value (or any combination). I think you're arguing that predicting value can be proved to be more profitable than luck (I think I agree). I was arguing more that strike rate (predicting winners) is easier than predicting value.
Apologies if I've misunderstood your post.

You won't win money by strike rate if the prices are so skinny that you don't have any value.

Strike rate is a ludicrous concept. It's just a function of what odds you choose to bet at.

bushy 29 Jan 14:36
Strike rate is a ludicrous concept. It's just a function of what odds you choose to bet at.
.............................................................................

If everyone operated like robots you would be correct. Unfortunately this is not the case therefore making your comment utter nonsense. I can't be bothered explaining why. Just think it through.

I am assuming with strike rate that it is when there is a long term positive expectancy.

The Investor 28 Jan 20:46

Understanding why you make money (or at least thinking you understand) is very helpful. You need to be ready to stop or lower stakes as soon as the fundamentals start to break down, and be ready to reassess whether your ideas are sound.

Yes I couldn't agree more TI. I'm currently in a position that the strategy I've used consistently for the last 16 weeks has shown a profit every one of those weeks, varying from 1 to 50 points. But from last Thursday (now 9 days in a row) it's been hard to get anywhere at all to the extent that anything that could go wrong has gone wrong, or that's what it feels like at least. That said, last week was still no worse than a level week and I thought it was just a poor run but not unexpected, but this week looks like being a losing week depending on what happens over the weekend. Is 16 weeks long enough to say a strategy works (placing roughly 150 systematic bets per week) or could it be a correction in the market is occuring? Thought I'd ask for your experience as you appear pretty clued up.