The principle of value betting is not to bet when you think you will win, but when the probability of you winning is greater than that implied by the bookmaker’s odds. To be a profitable bettor means that your judgement is better than your bookmaker’s. In this article, Joseph Buchdahl…
For those of us who use tipsters to find positive expectation there are two important questions. Is the tipster lucky or skilled? And is the track record genuine? We have previously investigated how to evaluate a tipster’s ability and how to test a betting record for evidence of predictive skill over…
Knowing about something before anyone else is the key to successful betting. Instead of wasting time with soccer betting tips, smart bettors will collate as much information as possible, analyse the impact it could have on the market and then bet accordingly. Information could change the way you bet and…
With success stories of professional bettors living the good life all over the internet, how easy is it to get consistent profits in the sports markets? Joseph Buchdahl, who has evaluated over 100 tipsters in his career as a betting analyst, has the answer. Are winners perhaps overestimated? Read on…
Opinion is free, but information is very expensive, which is a harsh reality for bettors who derive an edge from reacting to news before the odds do. In an ever-more digitally connected world the volume of free opinion is rising exponentially, bringing us to the point of a ‘post-truth’ era….
The law of small numbers is a cognitive bias where people show a tendency to believe that a relatively small number of observations will closely reflect the general population. Read on to test your logical powers with the hospital quiz and find out how graphs can be misleading and what…
Betting tipsters often promise high strike rates that will win you a fortune. Although the promise of big profits is alluring, how can you tell the difference between a profitable tipster and a salesman. Read on to find out the two factors you need to evaluate before you decide which…
Arbitrage betting is when a bettor uses a system that exploits differentials in odds for a specific market at two or more bookmakers. It guarantees the bettor a profit, as the combined odds produce a negative margin - a margin in the bettor’s favour. Continue reading to learn more about…
There is a strong case to suggest that the amount you bet is actually more important than what you bet on. We reviewed five popular staking methods. Continue reading to discover which is best. Professional blackjack player and author Ed Thorp was a successful card-counter. Too successful, many would argue,…
Pinnacle is renowned for offering great value and unbeatable odds. Additionally, there is another equally important, but lesser known free service we provide that offers bettors a potentially huge advantage – a betting API. Read on to find out the benefits of using a betting API and how to do…
Betting exchanges offer bettors an alternative to the traditional bookmaker with the promise of better value, but how do they work and what are the hidden costs you should be aware of before deciding that they are the best deal for you? Read on to find out. How do betting…
To win in sports betting you need a betting strategy with a positive expected value, i.e. an estimation of your average winnings per bet. But how much capital should you risk per bet to achieve maximum profits? For this, you need to understand the concept of utility. Read on to…
With a large number of soccer bettors looking for more profitable markets than 1X2, where a lack of scoring or a late equaliser can turn even the best betting judgments into losing bets, here’s a simple guide on how to beat the bookies in the Over/Under goals markets. A must-read…
With more and more cases of winning bettors complaining about having their accounts closed or severely restricted by leading bookmakers, what are the reasons behind this off-the-record practice? Read on to find out what can get your betting account closed and why this will never happen to you at Pinnacle….
From the world of finances to casino games, hedging is a key strategy applied across the board by professional bettors as a means of reducing risk and securing winnings. Here’s how to use hedging in the outright sports betting markets to secure profits. Predicting the outright winner in a future…
The margin a bookmaker applies on the betting odds is the number one information a bettor should know in order to increase long-term profits, with lower margins favoring the bettor and larger margins eating into betting profits. Here’s a simple guide on how to calculate margins on 1X2 odds. While…
Understanding the significance of market movement is a vital betting strategy for bettors who hope to predict the winner of a sporting event. By taking notice of the odds movement at Pinnacle, bettors are on the right track to becoming a successful bettor. The phrase ‘money talks’ is believed to…
Following the Copa America this year, Dominic Cortis became the witness to two stunning statistical events. During this tournament, Mexico broke two records. Read on to find out how these records were conflicting in nature and what that means for using statistics in betting. The first Mexican national team record…
Bettors should always look for a mathematical edge rather than rely on their impulses. Learning how to use the Kelly Criterion, for example, is a great way for bettors to determine how much they should stake. Read on to find out. Prior to placing a bet bettors should consider six important…
Find out the meaning of soccer handicap betting, how it works and the different types of soccer handicap betting markets. In soccer as is an all competitive sports there is normally a difference in perceived quality of the opposing teams; the size of that difference varies depending on a complex range…
When looking to join a betting site, one of the criteria that inexperienced bettors often use to guide their choice is the sign-up incentive. Free bets may seem like a good reason to choose a bookmaker, but what is the true value of these sign up incentives? The first thing…
From finances to sports, betting is a mixture of skill and luck. The key to long-term success is not to pick winners, but to find value and make consistent profits. Betting tipsters often promise high strike rates, but can they perform consistently in the long run? The answer lies in…
The tendency to overvalue “longshots” and undervalue favourites is widely known in the world of sports betting and finances as the favourite-longshot bias. Learn what it is, how bookmakers take advantage of it and what you can do to survive it with a profit. Every bookmaker applies a margin to…
Every bettor is looking for ways to beat the bookie. To become a consistently profitable bettor though, a deep understanding of odds calculation is only half of the story; the other half is knowing how bookmakers operate. In this article we lift the lid on the methods that keep both…
One way to distinguish winning from losing players is to look at the odds a player received when they made their bet and compare it with the Pinnacle closing line. Consistently beating the closing odds at Pinnacle can be a strong indicator of long-term betting profits. When a bookmaker opens…
With the 2016 Wimbledon around the corner, it is key for tennis bettors to know how to apply handicap betting in matches where a major favourite plays against an underdog. Read on to find out which bet types offer the best profits. Understanding all available bet types is key to…
Considered 5,000/1 outsiders by bookmakers at the start of the 2015/16 season, the soccer world is still flabbergasted by Leicester’s City Premier League title. Could statistical analysis have predicted this rare event? Betting analyst, Joseph Buchdahl, takes a look at their performance to predict how well they are expected to…
You might have heard of Elo ratings but what is it exactly and how can they be applied to betting to increase your winnings? A must read for anybody planning to bet on the second leg matches of the UEFA Champions League semi-final phase. Originally invented as an improved chess…
From betting tipsters to financial advisors, past data is widely used to predict future events. In this article, Dominic Cortis discusses the pitfalls and advantages of this method and explains why prediction models failed to predict Leicester’s chances of winning the league. Prediction is not an easy business to be…
Betting on sport is, by nature, a very uncertain business, but can bettors keep a tight grip on the randomness of it all? Joseph Buchdahl looks at the best way to tackle the inevitable randomness in sports betting. In December 2012, Mirio Mella published an article for Pinnacle Sports discussing…
At any stage during a match, either one side is ahead or we have equality with a variable number of changes in the lead. Ever wondered how often the lead changes? Hint: Don’t put your money on what your intuition is telling you. Read on to find out why! From…
Some bettors are big believers in money management strategies but are they really as reliable as people make out? Joseph Buchdahl investigated the Martingale betting system to see whether the returns are really worth the risks. There are some punters (and tipsters) who advocate a money management strategy, which involves…
To be profitable in sports betting, staking strategy is as important as finding value odds. With many progressive betting systems, such as the Labouchere betting system, promising almost infinite wealth, are they a good idea to follow? Here’s the academic answer to the question. The Labouchère staking system is a…
What do you do when we are still at the beginning of the season and there is not enough data to draw reliable conclusions? In this article Dominic explains how bootstrapping can be used to minimize the effect of any parametric error due to small samples by giving two examples….
Predominantly used for betting on US sports such as baseball and basketball, can Pythagorean expectation be used for betting on soccer? Analytics expert, Mark Taylor explains why this could be a potentially profitable strategy when betting on long-term markets. One of the most famous equations in mathematics and geometry is…
Gaining an edge in betting often boils down to intelligent data analysis, but faced with daunting amounts of data it can be hard to know where to start. If this sounds familiar, R – an increasingly popular statistical programming language widely used for data analysis – could be just what…
Odds are only a representation of something more important – probability. Getting a handle on how to calculate probability and covert it into decimal odds is the first step in developing your own assessments of betting value. There is a conversation that all seasoned bettors will have had numerous times…
In order to have a successful betting model, all bettors should collect as much data as possible. But just how well does data fit into certain expected scenarios? Dominic Cortis explains how important ‘the goodness of fit’ is in analysing data. Modelling and testing results involves a comparison of expected…
Previous articles have introduced different types of prediction models as well as methods to measure dispersion. Whatever the model, the prediction is not prophecy, it assigns a likelihood to an event, which can be influenced by error, something bettors should be aware of, and eager to exploit. As an allegory,…
If you’re new to betting, you should learn how to calculate betting margins. This article explains what betting margins are, highlights why Pinnacle Sports offer the best value and teaches you how to calculate betting margins. In simple terms, bookmakers make a profit by accepting bets on a given market,…
As a bettor do you understand how luck influences your short-term betting? Is a run of five winning bets skill or luck? This article explains how assigning probabilities to your bets is a good habit to develop, as a run of winning bets isn’t always a sign of good betting….
How do you build a sports betting model? What steps are involved? What do you need to consider? Follow these steps to build your own quantitative model, and take your betting to the next level. What is a betting model? In it’s simplest form a sports betting model is a…
This article explains to soccer bettors how to use standard deviation for handicap betting. By understanding this, you can gauge the probability of a team covering the spread more accurately, which can translate to more profit. These previous articles explained why bettors shouldn’t rely solely on the average and how the…
As a bettor are you aware that you can use standard deviation to predict betting outcomes? Find out what the standard deviation is, how to calculate it and apply it to your betting. In a previous article, we explained why bettors should not solely rely on the average, given its…
Following our popular article on how to build a betting model, here is a practical example of creating, applying and testing a betting model that predicts wins, losses and draws in the Premier League. Read on to find out. In this previous article we explained how to build a betting model….
Do you know what a ‘margin’ is and how crucial it is to your sports betting profitability? The bigger the bookmaker’s margin, the more accurate you have to be with your bets to make a long-term profit. Find out more. Margin and Best Odds In essence the margin – also…
The most popular way to assess data for betting purposes is to use an average, but is it the most useful? The mode and median often provide a more suitable alternative, so understanding them is crucial for successful betting. The ‘average’ problem for bettors Because of its simplicity many sports…
Recently, the official Pinnacle Sports Twitter account has been sharing data on the percentage of bets made on either side of selected major markets. Understand the benefits to our Twitter followers and how to use the information. Our Educational mandate Working with the belief that the more educated a bettor…
What models do you use to guide your bets? If you haven’t heard of Monte Carlo simulation you could be missing out. There are various ways to solve a real-life conundrum numerically; however we are usually accustomed to a traditional manner – a function. A function is the relationship between…
If you ever feel constrained by traditional 1X2 options then a Draw No Bet (DNB) option could be what you are looking for. Find out how to calculate this. What is a Draw No Bet? When betting on regular time soccer outcomes that are catered for by 1X2 odds, bettors…
