Betting Expertise

Value Betting Explained – How ‘Shrewd’ Gamblers Win

Posted on by Mike

With the growing popularity of our Fink Tank Football System, over recent weeks I have been fielding a few questions on just how it (and many other tipsters and systems) actually make money betting.

So I thought today would provide a great opportunity to explain the concept of ‘value betting’ a little bit more and just how shrewd punters get one over the bookies regularly by using it.

As a great example of the type of question punters are asking, below is an email I received last week:

” Hi, I am a little confused as to your system and perhaps you could please clarify a point.

In your example of Arsenal v Norwich you refer to an away win by Norwich at odds of 8.0, and to back it with Totesport having the best odds.

Why would I back Norwich to win the match, when with virtual certainty Norwich will lose the match against Arsenal ?”

Well, this is a very logical question for many when starting off betting and it all revolves around the concept of ‘value betting’

In short, value betting basically means the bet you are placing is available at odds you consider to be too big. Continue reading →

How To Get 11.09% Better Odds Football Betting

Posted on by Mike

One of the most important things you can ever do to help your betting profits, is to make sure you always, always get the very best odds that you can take on any bet placed.

It’s one reason that over the past year I have been highlighting what I call the ‘football odds conspiracy‘ that costs so many punters (and something the betting industry consistently turns a blind eye to). As that article outlines, the simple act of placing your football bets with a bookie such as Pinnacle Sports could increase your odds by as much as 25%.

I want to take this one step further today by illustrating how you can squeeze out even better football betting odds, by using a simple odds calculator. If betting on the Spurs – West Ham game in my example below, you can get 11.09% better odds through this simple method and it’s something repeated countless times every weekend. Let me show you how…

Find Your Own Best Odds – Quickly Continue reading →

Earn 20% Cashback With A Skrill Gambling ‘E-Wallet’

Posted on by Mike

In today’s column I want to share a top pro gambler tip on how to keep all of your betting activity as organised as possible…and also how you can save (and make) money in the process.

If you enjoy a bet then the chances are you have at least one, if not several different bookmaker accounts, which although the right thing to do (after all the more bookies you use, the better the odds you can get), does mean it can be a nightmare keeping on top of it all.

One of the big problems with having multiple bookie accounts is that it also can mean your bank account becomes cluttered with constant deposits and withdrawals (hopefully more of the latter!). It can also be a slow and sometimes costly exercise to constantly use your debit and credit cards for betting.

Keeping track of your betting performance also becomes that much harder when its muddled in with your Council Tax and Tesco food shopping bills…plus of course, potential issues when it comes to explaining your betting activity to outsiders.

Indeed, a few years ago, I had a heck of a job convincing my Mortgage company as to why there was so much money coming in from the likes of Ladbrokes and Bet365 in my bank account! Thankfully they saw more coming in than going out, but it was the final time I used my current account for betting I can tell you.

An Easy Solution For Gamblers

There is one easy solution to all of this for keen gamblers – which is in the form of digital wallets (or e-wallet) services such as those offered by companies such as Skrill (formerly known as Moneybookers). Continue reading →

Kevin Pullein: Raining Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics

Posted on by Mike

We have a special guest blog piece to share with you today from expert Scottish football tipster and scout – Greg Gordon, discussing the findings of a recent article by The Racing Post’s football guru – Kevin Pullein.

Greg has a proven record of making money from betting on Scottish Football dating back several seasons and is a renowned expert on the subject.  

Its Raining Lies Damn Lies And Statistics

One of my members has just sent me a copy of a Racing Post article by the Post’s ‘esteemed’ number-crunching columnist Kevin Pullein on the relationship between rain and goals in games.

Click the image below to view the original article in full.

Kevin Pullein Racing Post Rain Article

Sadly, like a lot of Mr Pullein’s grand generalisations it is likely to send many punters down the wrong track even though on closer inspection this rain analysis, if you’ll pardon the pun, really doesn’t hold much water.

Rather, I think this is a situation whereby Kevin Pullein, with lots of column inches to fill each week, has fallen in love with his findings and become determined to find a conclusion, whether a conclusion can be found or not. And that is always dangerous territory for betting judgements.

Through my work as a scout, I am only too well aware that in a football sense, wind is always a far greater impediment to goals than rain is. Continue reading →

Top 8 Betting Articles From 2013 So Far!

Posted on by Mike

In this week’s column, we have rounded up the most popular blog articles from the first 7 months of the year so far…

1. The Bookie Tricks To Watch Out For!
Bookmakers love to pretend to be on your side, although the reality is often quite different…After all – they only make a profit when you lose! So to help you understand them better, here is a list of 6 bookie ‘tricks’ to watch out for.

2. Yet More Bookie Tricks Uncovered & Why They Hate Us!
The second part of our ‘bookie tricks’ series with even more secrets revealed…plus why they hate us at the Smart Betting Club.

3. How To Find Winners (And Avoid Losers)
Betting successfully is about being skilful not just lucky (although a bit of luck is always welcome!) and it’s the same for tipsters. Check out the results of our tipster ‘luck simulator’.

4. The Diamond Racing Tipster With 290.1% Bank Growth
Extracts from our review of the GT Tips service and how it achieved nearly 3 times betting bank growth in a 2 year period.

5. Rocket Scientists Look Away – Football Betting Made Easy
The deliciously easy to follow football tipster and their 2 very profitable football systems. Combined, both systems have made over 550 pts profit from 4300 bets.

6. Interview With Pro Gambler Peter Green
An exclusive interview with profitable gambler – Peter Green and how he went from mug punter to perennial winner by following the right tipsters.

7. Are You A Victim Of The Betting Odds Conspiracy?
Most punters don realise they are victims of a betting conspiracy where they bet with the wrong bookmakers and miss out on the best odds. Find out how you can change this…

8. The Best & Worst Racing Bookmakers
Check out the results from our Independent Bookie Guide, where we reveal the top 7 and worst 3 racing bookmakers out there.

Enjoy These – Pick Up The Monthly SBC Magazine

If you enjoyed these articles, you may want to consider joining the Smart Betting Club, as we publish a full 30+ page magazine full of tipster reviews, articles and interviews each month.

Not only this but as a new member you also gain access to our full back catalogue, which dates back to May 2006! This contains hundreds of reviews of tipster services, systems and ratings products as well as interviews with betting experts and how-to guides.

Join The Smart Betting Club

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6 Tips For Next Football Manager Betting

Posted on by Mike

The traditional football season may effectively come to an end this weekend with the Champions League final,  but there is one betting market just starting to hot up – Next manager betting.

At the time of writing, 4 Premier League clubs in Everton, Man City, Chelsea and Stoke are looking for new managers, whilst rumours continue to swirl about those in charge at Wigan, Arsenal, Fulham, Newcastle & Swansea. Before we know it, nearly half the clubs in the entire top flight could be changing manager, and that’s before we consider other high profile clubs abroad such as Real Madrid and PSG.

…And for the shrewd gambler, this means only one thing. Potential winnings to be made in the extremely volatile Next Football Manager markets.

Likewise for those that are unprepared, these markets can be the ruin of you, so knowing the “who”, “what” and “where” about betting on next managers is key.

So to help you with this, I have put together an updated 6 point guide to help steer you in the right direction for betting on next manager markets. Continue reading →

Are You A Victim Of The Betting Odds Conspiracy?

Posted on by Mike

As punters these days we can bet on pretty much anything we like from the existence of Aliens being proven (33/1 to happen this year) to the winner of the Eurovision song contest, where nearly £1million has been matched at Betfair already! (It’s safe to say that Terry Wogan’s wig will be trending this weekend too!)

There is however one thing that binds us all together as punters: Bookmakers.

Love or hate them, there is no getting away from the fact we simply can’t bet without them. Yet choosing the right bookmaker to bet with is critical and can make a massive difference to your profits…(and sometimes whether we make a profit or not in the first place!).

Yet our own research at the Smart Betting Club indicates that the majority of punters are actually betting with the wrong bookmakers!

This finding is based on the stats from our 2 independent bookmaker guides (#1 on Football and #2 on Horse Racing), where we found that when it comes to the worst bookmakers…. Continue reading →

Double Up To Double Your Betting Profits

Posted on by Mike

Over the years there have been many famous double acts… Laurel & Hardy, Torville & Dean, Shearer & Sheringham and not forgetting of course – Howard Webb & Manchester United!

In betting, pairing two good bets as a double act can be a great way to increase your returns, but there is obviously some extra risk. For those not aware, with a double bet, you need both bets to win instead of betting on single outcomes. As this is less likely to happen, the odds are much bigger than betting on singles. Allow me to explain in a bit more detail.

Lets take a couple of football fixtures from this weekend as an example to help showcase how it all works in practice:

So, if you think that Aston Villa to beat Fulham and Wolves to beat Huddersfield are both 50/50 shots, then the odds in theory should be 2.0 (evens).

If you are able to get anything above 2.0 (evens) on those matches, then you’ve got a value bet and should make a profit in theory.

A quick check at the odds available at the bookies shows that both Wolves and Aston Villa are available at around 2.20 (6/5).

My options if I wanted to back both are as follows:

  • 2 Single Bets: Back Wolves & Aston Villa at 2.20 as 2 single bets. Potential profit if both win: 2.40 points.
  • 1 Double Bet: Back Wolves & Aston Villa at 2.20 as 1 double bet. Potential profit if both win: 3.84 points

If you continue to back enough 50/50 shots at 2.20 then your long term profit will be a 10% Return on Investment (£10 won for every £100 staked).

As a comparison,  if you placed those exact same bets just as doubles, your return on investment rockets to 21% (£21 won for every £100 staked).

Would You Swap Bigger Profits For A Lower Strike Rate? Continue reading →

From 'Fun Betting' To 'Pro Betting' In 5 Easy Steps

Posted on by Mike

If you are anything like me, then chances are you first started betting as a bit of fun. Perhaps by backing your favourite sports team or having a bet in the Grand National at work.

I started off as a teenager by doing the pools with my gambling-happy Granny, helping her to select the best football bets every Saturday morning with a bacon butty and a cup of tea. Once I was old enough to bet myself, I then started doing weekly accas at the local bookies. Most of the time they lost (and always seemed to be just 1 result that let me down!) but when they did win it was fantastically rewarding…and it hooked me to find out more.

I got a major kick from backing my own judgement, taking on the bookie and felt a real sense of achievement when I got it right and made some cold hard cash!

This was all very well and good…apart from just 1 problem. I didn’t get it right often enough and I quickly found that I was losing money regularly from my betting.  Losing money week in week out just wasn’t fun anymore and more importantly, wasn’t sustainable.

Needed To Make My Betting More Professional

I quickly realised that if I wanted to change this, I needed to learn everything I could about the industry and go from ‘fun betting’ to ‘pro betting’.

Thankfully I learnt by my early mistakes and now on the back of my own success betting, over the past 7 years I have been able to set-up and grow the Smart Betting Club as a way of helping others like me ‘graduate’ from betting for fun…to betting for money.

If you are in a similar position and keen to take your betting up a notch or ten, I have put together my 5 Easy Steps on going from Fun Betting to Pro Betting… Continue reading →

From ‘Fun Betting’ To ‘Pro Betting’ In 5 Easy Steps

Posted on by Mike

If you are anything like me, then chances are you first started betting as a bit of fun. Perhaps by backing your favourite sports team or having a bet in the Grand National at work.

I started off as a teenager by doing the pools with my gambling-happy Granny, helping her to select the best football bets every Saturday morning with a bacon butty and a cup of tea. Once I was old enough to bet myself, I then started doing weekly accas at the local bookies. Most of the time they lost (and always seemed to be just 1 result that let me down!) but when they did win it was fantastically rewarding…and it hooked me to find out more.

I got a major kick from backing my own judgement, taking on the bookie and felt a real sense of achievement when I got it right and made some cold hard cash!

This was all very well and good…apart from just 1 problem. I didn’t get it right often enough and I quickly found that I was losing money regularly from my betting.  Losing money week in week out just wasn’t fun anymore and more importantly, wasn’t sustainable.

Needed To Make My Betting More Professional

I quickly realised that if I wanted to change this, I needed to learn everything I could about the industry and go from ‘fun betting’ to ‘pro betting’.

Thankfully I learnt by my early mistakes and now on the back of my own success betting, over the past 7 years I have been able to set-up and grow the Smart Betting Club as a way of helping others like me ‘graduate’ from betting for fun…to betting for money.

If you are in a similar position and keen to take your betting up a notch or ten, I have put together my 5 Easy Steps on going from Fun Betting to Pro Betting… Continue reading →