Apparently we are pleased to stake our cash on everything from bullock racing to a bullfight. The consulting firm H2 Gambling Capital released statistics recently which reveal that the typical UK adult or perhaps the US adult will lose around US$400 gambling annually. But they’re nowhere near the Australians (the most prolific bettors) whom shall lose more than $1,400 for every adult this coming year.

All these losses add up and popular sports betting markets like English Premier League soccer betting, NFL football, NBA basketball, NHL hockey, and MLB baseball turn over billions of dollars 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 manage their risk in real time.

Alternatively, 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 in your mind prior to deciding to place it and after that multiply that through the number of bets placed each day. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours are spent trying to predict the outcome of professional sports daily.

But could this effort be better utilised?

You will find only two things which determine the expected payout of a bet. The first is the likelihood of the predicted result and also the second is the odds accepted for that result. Improving on either one of these factors improves the expected return of the bet. Nonetheless, for all of the effort expended attempting to predict the proper result, it appears that proportionately very little effort is expended securing the very best possible odds.

This really is hardly logical. It’s not possible to anticipate the result of a sporting event with any meaningful confidence and even guessing at the likelihood of a particular result is incredibly 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 different bookmakers and selecting the bookmaker which offers the top return on this type of bet. It’s quick and easy to shop around the many online sportsbooks, compare odds, and locate a better offer. You will discover even plenty of services available that can do it for you for free.

Professional gamblers often have accounts with multiple bookmakers, pay close attention to the odds provided by each, and seek out the very best odds before they place a bet. But the average punter tends to mindlessly accept the odds offered by his usual bookmaker. This is a sizable oversight and also a costly missed opportunity.

Bookmakers often post noticeably different odds for the same event and it is common to discover mismatches of up to 10% from one bookmaker to another. This percentage is there for the taking and it mystifies me that more people aren’t shopping around for better odds.