Making Sense of "Value" In Sports Betting

Prospector Sam is one the most well-respected sports gamblers in the twitter community and this week he's here to break exactly what "value" means in sports betting.

Prospector Sam's Dictionary

Value: The regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something.

Aside from the fun of bringing back haunting memories of High School English or your college essay, I’ve started with the Oxford definition of “value” because I think informs where I’m going with this article. Gambling Twitter throws around that term like stoners tossing a frisbee, but what value actually means as far as wagering goes is a bit of a black box (or, even worse, it can mean different things to different people).

It also gets used way too often without any explanation by the person using it, because it’s a good buzz word to tell people you like a bet without having to say anything more. Today, I’m going to take a crack at fleshing out what the word should mean as far as gambling goes, and, if my brain is capable of conveying the message well enough, how to use value effectively (as I write this intro, I’m genuinely not sure if I can do it, so don't be surprised if this article ends abruptly after I’ve given up).

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The first thing you should notice about value, both in the generic definition and in gambling, is that it’s a relative term. Money, for example, is “valuable” because we’ve all agreed that it’s worth a certain amount and that it can be used to buy other things.

Value in gambling, while similar in terms of comparative worth, comes from the price on a wager being better than it should be relative to the odds of the bet. Value can come and go, and you determine value based on how well you can assess potential outcomes.

Value also isn’t tangible or something you can point to as a matter of fact. I can’t hand you a slice of value, and there’s no real way to “prove” you’ve found it until the bet ends.

So, how do you know when you’ve found it? You sort of don’t. As with all things in gambling, even the best of the best are making an educated guess on what they expect to happen, and value doesn’t always pan out. For example, say the book’s price has the odds of an outcome at 50%, and you see it as closer to 55%.

You’ve found value, but there’s still a 45% chance your bet won’t hit. What that tells us, then, is that you may uncover value and still lose in the short term, BUT you should expect to find profit in the long term (as short term variance decreases and results regress to the mean).

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To sum things up, value is both impossible to demonstrate and doesn’t ensure profit on a day-to-day basis (yeesh, this is going well...). After that sentence you might be thinking “what the fuck is the point of this exercise, and are all gamblers just making shit up when they use the term?”.

In fairness, that question has some truth. The key is that you should (usually) never trust a blanket statement that a bet has value without something else to go along with it.

The itch to go to Vegas to spend 48 hours gambling on sports and playing Hold 'Em is very strong right now...

I'm actually worried I might do it

— Prospector Sam ⛏️ (@prospector_sam) June 2, 2022

The necessary next step, from a gambler’s standpoint, is to look for an explanation. If I tell you I’ve found value, I should also be able to explain the reasons why I’ve found value or else I’m probably not worth trusting.

Sports books have some of the best gambling minds and algorithms and information all at their fingertips, and that makes them incredibly difficult to beat. Impossible? No. Books aren’t perfect and the best gamblers sift through lines to find places where they’ve miscalculated.

But, if I think I’m smarter than them, I should have a damn good reason for believing it that I can explain, or else I’m not providing you with much reason to believe me.

From a personal standpoint, this is why I trust people who give some sort of write up for their bets (even better if it’s an article or podcast clip), and I’m reluctant to follow along with nothing but a blank promise.

Does that always need to be the case? No. For one, it’s pretty hard to give full explanations for every pick, and a small tweet with the cliff notes version may be the best you can do.

On top of that, certain gamblers earn the benefit of the doubt over time with success. The same way certain veterans don’t have to show up to preseason because you know they’re putting the work in at home, there are gamblers who you can expect to be doing the right things to make smart bets even if they don’t write out their logic every single time.

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So, what do we take away from all this (aside from the fact that explaining ambiguous and intangible topics is EXTREMELY difficult and I may not be the right guy for that task)? Well, in traditional bullet point form, I think it’s this:

1. Value should be the reason for making a bet, but it doesn’t always mean you’ll win
2. Value is hard to explain, but look for people who give out their thought process along with their pick
3. Time is limited, you can trust the people who have earned it even if they don’t always have time to walk you through their logic

Value isn’t an easy concept, and even the best gamblers have trouble with it some days. Hell, after a bad run, there are times I even question if I know what the hell I’m doing at all.

But, while it’s not the easiest target to hit, value does exist and using the concept effectively (and explaining yourself) is one of the keys to making money in the long term.

With that, I’ll bow out and hope this article has been slightly useful to some of you (or, at least, not a total trainwreck), and get back to winning some money.