Apparently we are pleased to stake our money on everything from bullock racing to a bullfight. The consulting firm H2 Gambling Capital released statistics recently which reveal that the average UK adult or even the US adult will lose around US$400 gambling per year. But they are nowhere near the Australians (the most prolific bettors) who shall lose more than $1,400 for every adult this coming year.

All these losses add up and popular sports betting markets like English Premier League soccer, NFL football, NBA basketball, NHL hockey, and MLB baseball turn over billions of dollars on a yearly basis. And, as in other billion dollar industries, the competition for your custom is fierce. Online bookmaking operations today are slick, sophisticated, and making a killing. They employ expert staff to set appropriate starting prices and use complex statistical models to manage their risk in real time.

Conversely, all this effort from the bookmakers is nothing in comparison to the time expended by punters themselves. Think about the time you spend turning a bet over within your mind before you place it and then multiply that through the number of bets placed each day. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours are spent trying to predict the outcome of professional sports every day.

But could this effort be better utilised?

You will find only two things which determine the expected payout of a bet. The very first is the probability of the predicted result as well as the second will be the odds accepted for that result. Improving on either one of these factors improves the expected return of the bet. Yet, for all the effort expended attempting to predict the proper result, it appears that proportionately very little effort is expended securing the best possible odds.

This is hardly logical. It’s not possible to anticipate the result of a sporting event with any meaningful confidence and also guessing at the likelihood of a particular result is extremely hard. At least several of the time spent trying to predict the outcome of a sporting event will be better spent comparing the odds provided by the various bookmakers and selecting the bookmaker which offers the very best return on this particular bet. It’s quick and easy to shop around the many great online football sportsbooks, compare odds, and locate a better offer. You can find even lots of services out there which will do it for you for free.

Professional gamblers often have accounts with multiple bookmakers, pay close focus on the odds provided by each, and seek out the most effective odds before they place a bet. However the average punter tends to mindlessly accept the odds provided by his usual bookmaker. This really is a big oversight and also a costly missed opportunity.

Bookmakers often post noticeably different odds for the exact same event and it’s common to search out mismatches of up to 10% from one bookmaker to another. This percentage is there for the taking and it mystifies me that more people aren’t shopping around for better odds.