I promise to keep this as simple as possible. First, let's start with the basics. What do those odds that you see (like +125 or -140) really mean? As you probably know, any odds with a "+" sign means you will win more than you risk, and a "-" sign means you'll win less. Of course, the former is less likely to win. Let's turn those odds into percentages.
Here's how to change odds into percentages. For odds with a "+", you take 100 divided by 100 + the number. So for +150 the percent chance of winning is 100/ (100 + 150). That comes out to 100/250 which is .4 or 40%. So +150 odds mean you have a 40% chance of winning. +200 becomes 100/300 which is 33%.
For odds with a "-" it's only slightly different. Take the odds number divided by 100 + the number. For example, -150 becomes 150 / (100+150). That equals 150/250 which is 60%. This matches up with the +150 we did above. 60% + 40% = 100%. -200 would be 200/300 which equals 66%. Again, that matches with the 33% of +300.
Ok, so now that we have that down, let's discuss what we're actually trying to do to make money. Just like trading options, or anything else, the goal is to have a true winning percentage that's better than what you're getting from the market. For instance, you'd love to get +150 (40%) odds on something that you're really +100 (50%) to win. Doing trades like that over and over again results in guaranteed long-term money.
The whole point of using a service like OddsJam (linked below) is to find the spots where markets are mispriced. Let's say we find this situation like I did today:
You can see FanDuel has the Over at +220. But this is way out of line with everyone else. The others are all around +125 for the over and -165 for the under. They're basically saying fair value is about 145 (halfway between 125 and 165). Let's see how we do here. we're getting +220 when fair value is probably around +145, which is 100/245, or 41%.
Now let's find out how profitable this is. Imagine we did this bet 100 times for $100 each time. We should win 41 of those times, since 41% is fair value. 41 times we win $220 each time (since we're getting +220), 59 times we lose $100 each time, since that's how much we risked and we lost. 41 * 220 is $9020. After 100 times, we totaled $9020 in winnings and lost $5900. Total profit is $3120. Divide that by 100 (since we played 100 times) and you get $31.20 per bet! That's a whopping 30% return. Just an insanely good bet.
To be fair, there aren't too many bets that are quite that good. But you can routinely get 10-20 percent returns. It's really an incredible opportunity. If you're reading this, then I'm sure you're no stranger to risk. This is certainly worth the risk.
Again, the key to all of this is getting the data on every market for every bet. It's way too big a job to do yourself, and you'll have to pay for it. I use OddsJam and I love it. They give a free trial and offer a 3 month money back guarantee. I can't see any reason not to try it. It takes some getting used to, but I can certainly help with that if you want it. Click the link below and get started. You won't regret it if you like to trade.
