Today we kick off a five part series of articles looking at value betting and culminating with a method for finding value bets.

The articles have been written by Kieran Ward, professional gambler, tipster and betting blogger over at www.makeyourbettingpay.co.uk …

Take it from me, you won’t be able to turn a regular consistent profit from your betting until you fully grasp the concept of value and start applying its principles to every single bet you place.

I literally cannot stress enough how important it is to understand and seek out value in all of your betting. It is, by far and away, the most important factor in profitable betting!

The only way you can make profit from betting in the long term is to ensure that you are getting value prices about your bets. If not, you are doomed to failure. It is that simple.

Amazingly, there are plenty of people out there who will tell you that finding winners is the only important thing. Anybody who tells you that is showing such staggering naivety (and inability to perform the simplest of calculations) that I need to meet them immediately and start offering them some wagers!

The ‘Hole in One’ gang are a great example of finding a value proposition and exploiting it ruthlessly. It’s a famous story but I think it bears a re-telling here.

The ‘Hole in One’ gang operated very successfully for a short time in the early 90s. They were 2 gamblers by the names of Paul Simons and John Carter who, through detailed study of past results, came to realise that the occurrence of a hole in one in professional golf, far from being a freakish, rare event was actually exceptionally common.

They calculated that the true odds of a hole in one being scored in one of golf’s majors are shorter than even money.

They were staggered to discover that large numbers of independent bookmakers were simply not doing their homework and were prepared to offer them ludicrous odds about a hole in one – up to 100/1 in some cases!

They toured the country surreptitiously placing bets in singles, doubles, trebles and accumulators for a hole in one to be scored in the majors, taking all prices from 3/1 upwards. By the time they were finished, they had plunged their entire lives savings of around £40,000 into a multitude of bets.

The rest is history. A hole in one was scored in most, if not all, of the majors that year and the gang’s winnings totalled somewhere in the region of £500,000. (Some of the bookmakers subsequently welched on the wagers and they eventually collected around £420,000).

£420,000 – all for doing a very simple piece of research and realising that the odds available were offering a ludicrous level of value!

Now clearly value opportunities of such magnitude (particularly on such a probable event) don’t arise everyday but you would be surprised just how often decent value opportunities do occur – particularly in horse racing where bookmakers have to assess an almost infinite set of factors in formulating their prices.

Tomorrow, I will define what I mean by ‘value betting’ and work through some examples to show just how important it is.

Today's selection

Wolverhampton 5.35 Follow The Flag – each way bet – 7/1 Victor Chandler