When gambling, the betting odds are probably the most important thing customers will look at.

Punters are always going to want the best odds available, to increase the possible profit they will make if their bet comes in. Bookmakers will also look to offer best odds where they can, in order to entice and retain customers.

There are numerous comparison sites out there who will list betting odds on specific sporting events from all of the biggest and most well-known online bookmakers. This is a fantastic way for customers to look for the best odds available on a certain selection. However, that still involves the customer wasting plenty of time sifting through each different sporting event they want the best odds for.

Here, on our site, we keep sports betting customers regularly updated with specific information relating to betting odds and where to find the best odds on offer for different sports.

Different bookmakers may offer better odds for some sports and worse odds for others. For example, a bookie may offer odds of 1/1 (2.00) on a specific football team to win when everyone else has them priced at odds-on. But, the same bookmaker may price a tennis player at much shorter odds than the competition is offering.

This is why it’s important to find the bookmaker who constantly provides the best value betting odds on the sports which you wish to bet on.

A bookmaker will set odds based on the probability of specific outcomes of sporting events. They take into account all variables, the likelihood of customers betting on a certain selection, and add a margin to it in order to ensure they do not lose all of their money.

Every statistic is taken into account and opinion garnered so they can predict the probability with a high percentage of accuracy. Recent form, history of the event and head to head records, and more. A bookmaker will also get advice in the form of opinion from others and use their own prediction as well.

Bookies do not want to risk everything on a certain outcome, as that isn’t clever business and means that only one outcome will give them a decent profit. They use analytical information and perceived risk, create odds using real probability and then add variable margins to increase their chance of profit.

For example, for a football match, there are three possible outcomes in the match result market. A home win, away win, or a draw. The bookmaker will firstly price up the event using the real probability of every outcome, totalling 100%.

So, the home team may be 60.2%, the away team 17.6%, and the draw 22.2%. This totals up to 100% and gives the bookmaker the real odds for all the outcomes.

The odds would then be around 4/6 (1.66) for the home team, 9/2 (5.68) for the away team, and approximately 7/2 (4.50) for the draw.

To understand how a bookmaker creates their betting odds to guarantee a profit, let’s look at an event with only two possible outcomes. For example, a coin toss where the coin will either land on “heads” or “tails”.

There’s a 50% chance of the coin landing on “heads” and a 50% chance of the coin landing on “tails”. However, the bookmaker will not price up both selections at the same price of 1/1 (2.00) like the real probability suggests they should.

The bookie will add a profit margin to this, so may price both options at 4/5 (1.80).

This means that if a customer placed the same amount on both selections, they wouldn’t be able to break even. So, if a customer places £50 on each selection, they will spend £100 but can only win £90 with their returned stake of £50 and the profit of £40.

So, that’s a profit margin of 10% for the bookmaker and guarantees that they will make £10 for every £100 wagered on this market as long as it’s a balanced book, equal amount of money staked on each selection.

As mentioned above, bookmakers will add a betting margin after calculating the real probability of each outcome of an event.

This margin will vary depending on the type of event, with major sporting events usually having a margin of between 2-5% and rare sporting events possibly going up to a margin of 20%.

The reason for this is that more people bet on major events, so the bookmaker can afford to provide odds using a smaller margin. The rarer events will have less bets placed on it and therefore the bookie will want to make a bigger profit by using a bigger margin.

Using the above example, with real probability giving odds of 4/6 (1.66) for the home team, 9/2 (5.68) for the away, and 7/2 (4.50) for the draw, we can work out how much of a margin the bookmaker has added.

If the odds were changed to 4/9 (1.45), 11/2 (6.50), and 4/1 (5.00), the margin used would be 4.64%. With a balanced book, that would mean the bookmaker making £4.64 for every £100 wagered.

There are sites out there with margin calculators, which enable you to find out the margin being used for every sporting event. They are usually easy to use, although the explanations of each method may sound extremely complicated to more novice gamblers.

The betting favourite doesn’t always win, regardless of how short the odds offered are. So, looking for long shots with great potential of coming in is something every sports betting punter must do.

Backing a selection at long odds may be quite daunting, especially if the favourite is priced ridiculously low and is more well known or more successful in general. But, if you use an analytical approach, study statistics, and work out your own probabilities, you may find that certain outside chances offer a great reward compared to the risk.

Let’s use a sporting event, such as a tennis match or darts match, as an example. If Player A is ranked number 3 in the world, has a brilliant past record in the tournament being played, and their first-round opponent is ranked outside the top 16 in the world, their odds are likely to be extremely short.

Player B, ranked lower down after a tough few months, may be priced at something like an 8/1 outsider. Which is extremely long odds in a two-horse race.

If you then study a few statistics, you may find that Player B has only dropped down the rankings due to missing a few tournaments earlier in the season and is actually as good as anyone else in the top six. They have been in brilliant form, reaching the latter stages of the past couple of non-televised tournaments.

Then, you see that Player B actually has a superior head to head record over Player A, with seven wins to two in their last nine meetings. And, finally, Player A has been struggling with a slight back injury which is causing pain the longer matches go on.

All of a sudden, the 8/1 odds being offered for Player B to win look fantastic value and the reward being offered far outweighs the risk of betting on this selection. Player B goes on to win and the customer who studied the stats has a healthier bank balance than they did before the event.

Obviously, there’s only so much guidance statistics can give and not every long shot with a slightly superior record is going to come in. But, there are long shots that come in regularly. Especially in horse racing, where big priced selections are often seen in the winners’ enclosure while the trainer of the odds-on favourite who finished fourth consoles themselves.

Constantly backing short-priced favourites will not help you build a betting bank and may eventually end up with you losing a lot of money. The short odds can make it look like the favourite will win easily, but that isn’t always the case.

So, always remain analytical in your approach and never back a selection based on the fact it’s a short-priced favourite.

As already mentioned, some bookmakers offer best odds for certain sports than they do for others. For instance, a bookie may use the fact they offer best odds on football as a brilliant marketing tool.

So, let’s look at who we think offers the best odds for some of the most popular sports.

Best Odds for Football

There are several different markets available when betting on football, so you must find the best odds that suit what you are betting on. A betting site may offer you guaranteed best odds available on all correct score, under/over, handicap, both teams to score, and half time/full time markets.

Which is pretty impressive, if you bet on those markets, but useless to you if you only ever do a multi-selection accumulator from the match result market.

The best thing to do is look for promotional material and visit odds checker sites, that usually put all the odds for a certain event and specific market into a table with something like a tick or other identifier used to show you which odds are the best.

In our research, we have found that BoyleSports and Coral are usually among the bookmakers who provide best odds in the match result markets. For matches being played over the next few days, these bookmakers offer the best odds or matched best odds for at least two of the three possible outcomes. The outcomes being home, away, or draw.

BoyleSports actually match the best odds for all three outcomes for a high percentage of events.

For those who like to bet on the exchanges, there’s only one betting exchange to use. We have found that the Betfair Exchange offers best odds for one outcome, and matched odds for the other two, for pretty much every football match being played this week.

Best Odds for Horse Racing

The starting price odds are the same for everyone when betting on the horses, but earlier prices will vary depending on the betting site and a lot of companies offer guaranteed best odds.

Who offers the best odds tends to change from race to race, depending on special offers and price boosts, and it always pays to take the whole race card into account. One bookmaker may offer slightly better odds on the short-priced favourite, but a fancied outsider may be at shorter odds than a competitor is offering.

So, who offers the best value may be dependant on the type of sports betting customer you are and what types of bets you will place.

In saying that, there’s one betting site who stand out from the crowd with regards their offers and price boosts.

That is SkyBet, who tend to offer more extra place races and pay out for more places to each-way punters. For example, in a 24-runner handicap, most bookmakers will pay each-way for the first four finishers and some companies may pay out for five. Sky Bet often pay each-way punters if their selection finishes in the first six for these types of races.

As well as their each-way place boosts, they also offer boosts on a high number of short-priced favourites. This may only be a slight boost to the odds, which sometimes look like it won’t make much difference. But, if you regularly back these boosts and they come in, you will notice a difference in the long run.

Basically, you must shop around to find the best value for the types of bet you want to place and markets you are interested in. Every bookmaker will offer you some incentive to continue betting with them, so it’s in your own interest to take advantage of as much as you can.

Having multiple accounts with several different betting companies will allow you to receive more offers, more regularly. If you are signed up to one company, who offer you best odds on the sport you bet on most, you may be missing out on a fantastic free bet offer somewhere else.

The best advice we can give on how to get the best value from sports betting is to remain analytical at all times, research statistics, shop around for best prices on your desired selections, and take advantage of as many special offers as you can.

Most importantly, remain responsible at all times. Never risk more than you can afford and always read the terms & conditions before placing a bet with a new company, opting in to a new offer, or betting on a new market that you have never had a punt on before.

Sports betting is supposed to be a form of entertainment and provide you with something fun to do, keep it that way and do not end up losing all your money by betting irresponsibly.