Introduction

Now that I've explained how Trade Your Bets works, I'm going to show you how to pick out value bets.

The great news is that, even on a very busy Saturday, it doesn't take long at all. The Live Value Shortlists tool does all the hard work, then you simply pick out the best value qualifiers.

Results

To give you an idea of what's possible, Paul Gillman started betting with a £1,000 bank at the beginning of 2023.

Initially, he focused on first half bets and made sure that they were performing well before he then added in other bet types.

Paul also tweaked his 'rules' as he went. He analysed his results frequently, making changes to tighten up in areas that he found to be less profitable.

Paul's starting £1,000 bank doubled on 6th May 2023 and, a year or so later, was up to £4,788.04.

Picking Out Bets

Firstly, open the Live Value Shortlists tool, click on 'Show/Hide by Status' and make sure that '0-10%' is switched off in the 'Season Status' section.

You need some stats to go by, so fixtures being played at the very start of the season are best avoided. There's football played all year round, so plenty of fixtures to research.

Live Value Shortlists 'Show/Hide by Status' filter.

Towards the end of the season, you have a choice:

Switch off '91-100%' so that fixtures right at the end of the season are ignored.
Look at the league table to make sure that at least one of the teams has something to play for.

For example, the last thing you want to do is back over 2.5 goals when neither team has anything to play for and the teams play out a boring 0-0 draw.

You can then work your way through the four tabs at the top:

1H Home/Away
1H Goals
Full Game Home/Away
Full Game Goals

Click on 'Filter by Ticks/Crosses' and select '1/3/10' in the green tick section for each bet type in turn.

Once your bank is ticking over nicely, you can test bets that have green ticks for '1/3' or even '1/3/10' in the red cross section. To start with though, stick to '1/3/10' in the green tick section.

Live Value Shortlists 'Filter by Ticks/Crosses' filter.

There are 10 lists of fixtures to research and each one loads in a matter of seconds, so it really is a very quick process.

Each bet type you select will display various percentages. These are used to pick out the strongest bets and I'll explain what to look for in the following User Guide sections.

The final task is to click on each team name to look at the Score Table. This final check gives you confidence that the teams perform well enough against similar opposition.

For example, if you're looking at Arsenal to win at home against Brighton, you need to see that Arsenal generally beat teams similar to Brighton at home and that Brighton struggle away at teams in a similar league position as Arsenal.

All of this research really doesn't take long at all, not even an hour on a busy Saturday.

Market Liquidity

Our value algorithm relies on accurate Betfair prices to work properly.

While the most popular markets will have plenty of liquidity early in the morning for English Premier League fixtures, first half markets in smaller leagues will not.

As money comes into the markets, prices move and green ticks can appear or disappear.

You can certainly carry out your research in the morning but, if you can, it makes sense to check that the green ticks are still showing closer to kick-off.

It's also worth looking through each list of fixtures again later in the day as new qualifiers may appear as prices move into range.

Remember...

You're going to decide against getting into some bets and then watch them go on to win. You're also going to take on bets that lose. That's perfectly normal, so get used to it.

For example... Paul had 564 bets (ignoring the doubles) and 275 were losers, but the total profit was still £3,138.62.

As I explained in the 'Value and Variance' lesson earlier, wins and losses are the same.

All you need to do is pick out strong bets, day after day. It really doesn't matter which ones win or lose because you'll be in profit long-term.

Introduction to Value Betting

You must be logged in to access this course