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 typical UK adult or the US adult will lose around US$400 gambling each and every year. But they’re nowhere near the Australians (the most prolific bettors) who will lose more than $1,400 for anchor every adult this 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 annually. 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 deal with their risk in real time.

On the other hand, all this effort from the bookmakers is nothing in comparison with the time expended by punters themselves. Look at the time you spend turning a bet over within your mind prior to deciding to place it and after that multiply that through the number of bets placed each day. Tens of thousands of man-hours are spent trying to predict the outcome of professional sports every day.

But could this effort be better utilised?

There are actually only two things which determine the expected payout of a bet. The first is the likelihood of the predicted result as well as the second is the odds accepted for that result. Improving on either one of these factors improves the expected return of the bet. Yet, for all of the effort expended attempting to predict the correct result, it seems that proportionately very little effort is expended securing the most effective possible odds.

This really is hardly logical. It is 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 incredibly hard. At least some of the time spent trying to predict the outcome of a sporting event will be better spent comparing the odds offered by the many 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 online sportsbooks, compare odds, and locate a better offer. You will discover even a lot of services around which will do it for you for free.

Professional gamblers often have accounts with multiple bookmakers, pay close attention to the odds offered by each, and seek out the best odds before they place a bet. However the average punter tends to mindlessly accept the odds offered by his usual bookmaker. This is a sizable oversight as well as a costly missed opportunity.

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