Do you rely on the odds when placing bets?

[kryptqnick]

I've recently created a discussion about the odds of various outcomes and the gaps between the likely winner and other options, but some replies raised another questions that I believe is worthy of being discussed. When placing bets on sports, I rely heavily on the odds, especially if someone has a very high probability of winning, like here:

I placed a small bet on this match on Sportsbet.io:

But of course when the odds are close to one another (2.5, 3.1 and similar), I try to rely on the history of matches between the teams and recent wins/losses of the teams.
What do you follow when you are betting on sports: is it the odds or your knowledge and experience? Or maybe you're one of those people who bet on the favorite team or perhaps follows a gut? Do odds even matter to you? If yes, how important are they for your final decision?

[Haunebu]

Odds matter a lot to me irrespective of which team is playing in any sport around the world. I place a lot of single and accumulator bets now and then and I usually check the odds through odds comparison sites carefully.

This helps finding the best value now and then. 1.01 odds might indicate a 99% winning percentage to many, but only few gamblers can differentiate whether there is value involved in such odds or not.

[longlivecapitalism]

I think it's more important to know the sport and the teams you're betting on. Especially now with Covid, if you are not aware of the changes every team has gone through, it's very difficult to make a correct prediction. Merely relying on odds to place a bet isn't the correct strategy although it should tell you whether it's worth placing the bet or not.

[Bttzed03]

Yeah I rely on the odds because I'm not that of a high roller. When your regular bets are $10 or less, you might want to go with odds at 2 up or close to two. Odds below 1.5 like that in the OP might be better paired with other low odds for parlays.

A high roller would surely have a different view on this. Even odds at 1.1 would bring in good profits for him/her.

Do note that whatever strategy in betting, understand that it is still gambling. Sometimes it works, sometime it doesn't. There are days like what's happening this weekend with lots of upsets and disappointing draws

[pixie85]

Odds help you when you don't know the teams/players or don't have time to go through previous matches.

When all you want to do is bet on something you're about to watch odds will help you decide if the bet is worth your time. If it's close to 50:50 you know there's nothing strange going on. When it's like 80:20 there might be something you've missed like one of the participants had a bad streak or is in a bad form this season.

If you gamble a lot you may disregard the odds but the less you do the more important they become. That's my opinion.

[Hydrogen]

Oddsmakers have locker room, behind the scenes, information sources. They know when players, athletes, teams are having drama. Not getting along. Fighting with their girlfriend/spouse. Having issues that will affect their performance.

Access to better information allows oddsmakers to reverse odds sometimes. They'll open the favorite as a betting underdog. And the dog as a favorite. If those are the odds the public and casual gamblers expect to see. Simply as its a common sense practice that would make owning and operating a sportsbook more profitable, and there would be more money to be made.

Examining some sports like mixed martial arts, a high percentage of underdogs regularly win fights they were expected to lose. Sometimes its an honest surprise to everyone. Other times books have access to information the public does not. Which allows them to flip odds and fool the public into betting on the higher probability losing option as if it were a healthy favorite.

Should you rely on odds? No. They do reflect accurate probability sometimes. But there are enough monkey wrenches deliberately thrown into the pricing for it to not be a worthwhile indicator worth chasing.

[Reid]

Why not combine them? Knowledge and odds.
You don't need to separate them or you don't have to. That is all you can rely on to make the chances of winning even higher.

As an underdog fan, I look at higher odds of losing.  
Then, I go back to the history of the team they are against.
If they win even just 3/10 then it's already a high chance for me. I am also checking the player's injury reports and other stuff that may affect the game.

PS: This is better to understand than the last thread you made. Great job.

[Becky666]

I think it's more important to know the sport and the teams you're betting on. Especially now with Covid, if you are not aware of the changes every team has gone through, it's very difficult to make a correct prediction. Merely relying on odds to place a bet isn't the correct strategy although it should tell you whether it's worth placing the bet or not.

You are right, knowing the sport and teams during this period of the pandemic matters alot, the recent qualifiers game my country Nigeria played recently made me have a re-think about this recent games, the players were tested of COVID-19 and they turned negative the day before the play and when they re-tested again morning before the play they were positive and that was how we lost out. I won't put odds first in placing bets but the teams players and their crisis internally.

[sunsilk]

In esports betting, I don't usually rely on the odds but it's better to have a good odds for the team that I'd like to bet. If there's an underdog team and I see the odds favoring them and I know that they are in condition winning the game against the opponent, it's like having a jackpot for me.

I think it's more important to know the sport and the teams you're betting on.

Certainly. You have the knowledge and idea who's favoring the match. But I think we're all like that, when we see a too high odds even though we're not sure if we'll bet on it, sometimes we play YOLO so odds doesn't matter during that situation.

[khaled0111]

When it comes to sports betting, I usually make a small research before choosing which team to bet on. I usually check the last teams results (especially h2h), read latest news and experts predictions, compare the odds from different bookies...
But most of the times, I end up with a result very close to what the bookie offers.

btw, I read your last topic and it was very interesting. Learned a lot from it.

[Sebas.tian]

Odds are good to follow but sometime can easily fool a gambler to fall into the part of destruction. Sportmakers know teams more than we do, they often convince and confuses the players from these odds settings and so may have fell for this trap. My bet placing are for the team i trusted and have sound knowledge about their play.

[ChrisPop]

I think most people who play regularly rely on odds. The ones who actually make a profit in the long run are those who have developed their own way to spot inconsistencies in the system. This kind of players are playing on betting exchanges as far as I know like betfair.

Although I play only occasionally, I mostly rely on odds with exceptions when my favorite team is involved  

[Oilacris]

When we do play sportsbetting then of course we do rely on the odds when we do tend to make bets specially if you can saw which one is heavily favorite and whose the underdog.

In most cases on where people do always stick out to those heavily favorite neither it would be playing on odds 1.1-1.5 or even lower but still people do see that it is already a
sure win to them but to know that odds or chances for some upset can really happen.

When there is no much difference or gap with the odds then that what makes the selection even more harder.So on this point this is where peoples knowledge and experience
will vary specially if you do know the sport then making some analysis will really be not hard.

[magneto]

What do you follow when you are betting on sports: is it the odds or your knowledge and experience? Or maybe you're one of those people who bet on the favorite team or perhaps follows a gut? Do odds even matter to you? If yes, how important are they for your final decision?

The odds that you receive does not exist in a vacuum. It is roughly inversely proportional to the probability of you winning the bet.

There is no point betting just because an event has low odds or high odds, because they may actually have the same expected value at the end of the day. You want to find opportunities where you can maximise your returns, and that can't be done simply by considering odds in isolation.

And as Hydrogen says, it is pretty much impossible for the retail bettor to have more information about the match and gain an advantage over the bookie. You are much better off just betting on whatever matches entertain you the most and are available on the day.

[Ryker1]

Well, I dont much rely on the odds, --and does not matter to me.
The thing that most commonly I used in betting strategy is 40% odds and the rest is knowledge and skills on picking the team, you should study weakness against their opponents. Sometimes odds become a hype of many bettors that they see who has high odds and the underdog, we should take consideration on it because sometimes higher odds will not win.

[robelneo]

Sometimes I do especially in sports betting when the odds are obvious, but it goes down on how much you know the game and the teams involved, if you know the game you should have your own odds and check if the odds given by the system are similar to yours, it's just a way to compare your odds and the odds given to you. 

[Stedsm]

Odds can give a reliable idea, not the winner itself. I've seen some game-changing matches where, without lost any moment, when the opposite team gets a chance to become the stuck bone in winning team's neck, they never leave it at any cost. Let's say for example, cricket. A match can change towards any side and it all depends on various factors like wickets remaining, runs remaining, balls remaining, form of players, their behavior towards trying to win the match, etc. So I couldn't rely on odds possibly on this game and this also happens in other games too, so it's not worth it to rely alone on the odds.

[Yamifoud]

When it comes to sports betting especially when you know both teams, odds won't play a big role in betting, of course, we will choose the team that knowingly wins no matter how much is the odds. That is why I have to review first their previous performance before placing my bet and this will help me to decide than focusing on the odds.

Because here in gambling, not just because we are talking about LUCK a tool to win we just put our bets hoping for it but it was important to have some basis that could uplift our winning chances than having nothing. 

[seleme]

Some crazy people especially chase the high odds and always bet on the high odds with less chance of winning. I don't usually make gambling over my favorite teams because the emotions will speak instead of logic in this case. Combining all possibilities with higher odds is better than relying on the single factor before the final decision, IMHO. Before deciding to make a bet, I will go to check the predictions of other users on different gambling platforms in order to avoid the mistakes.

[Harlot]

For me aside from checking the odds I always check the teams itself and their current conditions are because yeah the odds will show on who has the advantage but it doesn't show you what will really happen in a match or what the outcome will really be because there are factors such as last minute roster changes and even the underdog suddenly beating the favored team. Odds really is just showing you the first page of an entire book on choosing what team you will be betting on.