Matched betting is a type of wagering where you put money on a winning horse or a winning team in a sporting event. The bet is typically settled when the odds are adjusted after the conclusion of the match.
If you’re new to the concept, it might be a little bit difficult to know how long you can maintain a successful matched betting system. Even experienced gamblers can have their doubts when it comes to predicting the results of a sporting event. After all, it’s not easy to know how the other team will play, what individual players will do, or how a match will end. Fortunately, there are several tried and tested methods that can be used to identify the viability of your bet, and we’ll discuss a few of them here. If you’re looking to get started with matched betting, continue reading.
Odds Analysis
One of the simplest and most reliable ways to verify the success of a matched betting system is to analyze the odds presented in the marketplace before and after the event. In practice, this can be done by setting up a spreadsheet where you can track the original odds before the event, and compare those to the odds afterward. It’s important to remember that odds change over time due to various reasons, including the fact that more people are placing bets on the outcome of a particular event, as well as the house edge built into almost every betting system. For example, in the US sports betting market, there is usually a 0.5% to 1% house advantage.
If you discover that the odds have not shifted substantially in your favor after the match, or if the original pre-event odds were especially favorable, you should probably consider taking a look at your betting system. It might be that a handful of unlikely events conspired to send the odds your way, and you’ll need to determine if this was a fluke, or if you can truly claim that your system is profitable. In any case, the odds analysis provides a good blueprint for how to proceed with your wager.
Win/Place/Show Odds
Another popular method amongst bettors is to examine the Win/Place/Show odds, which are the odds assigned to each outcome of a horse race. These odds can be found on the back of the horse-race card, and in some cases, might be listed in the newspaper as well. Win odds represent the amount that you would win, place odds are what you would pay to win, and show odds are what you would pay to place. For example, a 10 Win bet on a horse that finishes first in the race would earn you 10x the normal return, while a $2 Place bet would cost you $2x the normal return. In other words, the Win/Place/Show odds can be used to quickly identify the most lucrative wagers available in the marketplace for a particular event.
By combining the information found on the back of a horse-race card with that found in the newspaper, we can gain a pretty good understanding of the odds for that race. For instance, if we examine the odds for the 2020 Kentucky Derby (which was won by Audible), we can see that the Win odds were 9/5, the Place odds were 11/4, and the Show odds were 17/2. In other words, for every $100 that you bet on Audible, you would win $9 on a Win bet, $11 on a Place bet, and $17 on a Show bet.
Heat Index
The Heat Index is a tool that was developed by VegasInSport.com, and it’s used to determine the absolute best odds available for any given event. Developed by sports betting experts, the Heat Index is a ranking of all the sporting events, based on several equally weighted categories. These categories include: total points scored (over/under), total matches won (over/under), half points scored (over/under), and the amount of money wagered. For example, the 2020 MLS Regular Season had a ranking of 22 out of 82 sporting events due to its relatively low total scores and low amount of wagering. As an added bonus, for each category that an event had a low score in, the Heat Index also ranks the event based on how its score compares to the other events in the same category. For example, the 2020 MLS Regular Season had a low score for “total matches won”, so comparing it to other events in the same category reveals how successful it was compared to the rest of the events in that category.
Over/Under Analysis
Once you’ve identified the most lucrative wagers available for a particular event, it’s a good idea to look into the other major categories as well. One of the simplest ways to do this is to examine the Over/Under analysis, which provides the average amount of money that people are willing to wager on an outcome, using the listed odds. Looking into the Over/Under analysis for a particular event can give us a general idea of the volatility of the event, as well as the betting public’s confidence in the outcome. For example, in the 2020 NFL Season, there were 1,826 bets placed on the Over outcome (the number of points that a team will score), while only 677 bets were placed on the Under outcome (the number of points that a team will score). In other words, there was a 592% over/under payout in favor of the Over outcome, and this means that the betting public thinks highly enough of the Over outcome to willingly wager $100 on it, 69 times out of 100.
As you can see, there are several ways in which we can examine the results of a sporting event in order to determine the viability of our bet. Even experienced gamblers can have their doubts when it comes to predicting the results of a sporting event, but by using these simple analysis tools, we can at least have some confidence that our doubts are unfounded. Whether you’re taking a look at the odds, the Win/Place/Show odds, or the Over/Under analysis, these tools can help you determine the correct odds to use when placing your wagers.