The single biggest advantage that you have as a punter over a bookmaker is that you have the ability to pick and choose when you place a bet. For the sake of this tweet we will ignore bookmaker restrictions and discuss that at a later date.
The bookmaker is pretty much forced to price every market up and every runner within that market. It is impossible for a bookmaker to price up thousands of markets a week and get them all correct. That provides huge opportunities.
They cannot be experts on everything. It is important to understand how a bookmaker generates their prices to find potentially interesting and profitable markets. As a general rule the smaller the market the greater the chance that a bookie will have made an error or missed something.
One of my favourite ever bets and I still remember it vividly 20 years later involved the 2002 Winter Olympics. I was really just starting out on my betting journey and was scouring through the smaller markets. I came across the Skeleton which was a new event and GB had one of the favs.
I ended up backing Tristan Gale at 50/1. I couldn’t believe her price. I don’t think people realised it was her home track. Luckily (?) she won. I remember thinking I was billy big ***. Young and naïve. Betting has an amazing way to humble you.
There is a big problem though with betting on the smaller more obscure markets. The limits in terms of what bets you can place tend to be much lower and you are likely to flag up as shrewd to the bookmaker much more quickly.
It ends up becoming a never ending battle between having an advantage (edge) on a market and being able to place the bets that you need to make the game pay. Just remember don’t place bets unless you feel you have positive expected value (edge) on them.
No one is making you bet on the big horse race or the football match that is on tv. In fact you would be well advised to pick easier options elsewhere. Pick your battles carefully and shrewdly.
ProPunting 