Apparently we’re happy to stake our cash on anything from bullock racing to a bullfight. The consulting firm H2 Gambling Capital released statistics recently which reveal that a normal UK adult or the US adult will lose around US$400 gambling every year. But they are nowhere near the Australians (the most prolific bettors) who will lose more than $1,400 for every adult this year.

All these losses add up and popular sports betting markets like English Premier League trusted quality soccer, NFL football, NBA basketball, NHL hockey, and MLB baseball turn over billions of dollars each and every year. 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.

Alternatively, all this effort from the bookmakers is nothing in comparison with the time expended by punters themselves. Consider the time you spend turning a bet over within your mind before you decide to place it and after that multiply that through the range of bets placed each day. Tens of thousands of man-hours are spent trying to predict the outcome of sports events daily.

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 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. Still, for all the effort expended attempting to predict the proper result, it seems that proportionately very little effort is expended securing the very best possible odds.

This really is hardly logical. It’s not possible to anticipate the result of a sporting event with any meaningful confidence as well as guessing at the probability of a particular result is incredibly 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 many bookmakers and selecting the bookmaker which offers the best return on this kind of bet. It’s quick and easy to shop around the many online sportsbooks, compare odds, and locate a better offer. You’ll find even a lot 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 offered by his usual bookmaker. This really is a big oversight and a costly missed opportunity.

Bookmakers often post noticeably different odds for the exact same event and it is 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 are not shopping around for better odds.