Working out value

[Guest Whopper73]

Does anybody have any good systems for working out value? How do the bookies work out the value for football matches? If I understood how they did it, then maybe I could work out a system for myself! Any constructive comments are appreciated! Whopper73

[Guest OddsAgainst]

Re: Working out value It is easy to work out value, more commonly refered to as the edge. First you need an estimate of the fair odds. Let's say your estimate for Team A to win at home is evens or 2. A bookmaker is offering odds of 2.1. The edge is fair probabiliy (0.5) times the odds. 0.5 times 2.1 = 1.05, an edge of 5%. So if you could find a large number of bets where you have this edge you would make 5% profit in the long term.