For years, value bet strategy have been successfully used by bettors from all over the world to make money at bookmakers. Today we’d like to dwell on this game method in more detail.
What is value bet?
Sometimes bookmakers may be wrong while setting quotas, intentionally or mistakenly overrating the odds for a particular outcome. In other words, the bookmaker understates the probability of an outcome.
This may happen for several reasons:
- bookmaker deliberately overstates the odds for a particular outcome due to the high competition, hoping to get new customers in such a way;
- bookmaker analysts make mistakes while forming the line;
- bookmaker does not react to changing the match development in a timely manner (especially relevant for in-play events).
The essence of the strategy lies in the searching for such overvalued odds and placing value bets, thereby beating the bookmaker.
How to search for overvalued odds?
In order to make a value bet, first you need to find overvalued odds. You can do it by yourself utilizing special formulas or through a special value bet scanner.
Independent search
Independent search involves several phases:
- Identification of the margin percentage set by the bookmaker in opposite outcomes. The formula is 100/C1 + 100/C2. Here and further C1 and C2 are the odds of the selected outcomes from the bookmaker line.
- 2. Determination of the real probability that an event ends with such an outcome. The following formula is used: C1+M, C2+M, where M is the margin percentage we defined in the previous step.
- Obtained odds are compared with the lines of other bookmakers. If the odds are higher than stated values, it means the bookie has underestimated that outcome, and you can bet.
Value bet scanner
The process of independent search for undervalued outcomes may take a lot of time, and therefore many players prefer to use valuebet services.

For the time being, BetBurger is one of the leaders among such services. Due to excellent functional capabilities, it is possible to get the data on overvalued odds just in a few clicks (both live and prematch).
At the same time, the choice of such odds is really impressive because BetBurger provides information from the lines 70+ bookmakers for over 25 sports.
Furthermore, there are convenient multifilters that can be adjusted according to the parameters you need.
As a final point
Summing up, we’d like to highlight the main pros and cons of value bets compared with another effective strategy known as surebets:
Pros
- Valuebettors are more difficult to determine than surebettors, and therefore they can stay longer under bookmaker radar.
- Value betting is also able to bring a tangible income.
- It’s just enough a few bookmakers to successfully work with the strategy.
Consvue
- Surebettors get profit in spite of the outcome. In case of value bets, it’s possible to lose. There is an absence of a 100% safe profit. That’s why value betting is more effective in the long run.
