Apparently we are 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 the average UK adult or even the US adult will lose around US$400 gambling every year. But they’re nowhere near the Australians (the most prolific bettors) who shall lose more than $1,400 for 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 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.

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 before you decide to place it and then multiply that by the range of bets placed each day. Tens of thousands of man-hours are spent trying to predict the outcome of sporting events every day.

But could this effort be better utilised?

You’ll find only two things which determine the expected payout of a bet. The first is the likelihood of the predicted result and the second will be the odds accepted for that result. Improving on either one of these factors improves the expected return of the bet. Nonetheless, for all 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’s not possible to anticipate the result of a sporting event with any meaningful confidence and also guessing at the probability of a particular result is very hard. At least some of the time spent trying to predict the outcome of a sporting event would be better spent comparing the odds offered by the many bookmakers and selecting the bookmaker which offers the top return on this specific bet. It’s quick and easy to shop around the many quality online gambling agency sportsbooks, compare odds, and locate a better offer. You’ll find even lots of services around that may 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 best odds before they place a bet. Though the average punter tends to mindlessly accept the odds provided by his usual bookmaker. This is a large oversight as well as a costly missed opportunity.

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