Better Bookmaker

Betgalaxy.net is a high limit bookmaker and has the “asian bookmaking system” implemented. Asian Handicap is the way of reducing bets into two outcomes, win or lose. The typical example in a soccer match is over/under 2.5 total goals or -0.5 goals in a handicap line. Let’s explain further via some examples: Half lines. VIP Programs – One of the major things we look out for, VIP programs are important in making the experience of players a lot better. Longer and loyal players tend to get the best experiences. So we check every VIP program that a bookie or bookmaker provides. Games – All bookie or bookmaker.

It’s difficult to avoid the barrage of sports betting adverts shown around the UK, they’re everywhere: on the tv, websites, the radio, billboards and more.

Every bookmaker tries to convince us they’re offering more than their competitors. Betfair regularly claim to have the best odds on certain sports and events but is that really the case?

Let’s strip away the bright colours, the quirky punchlines, the cameo-celebrity endorsements, and sign-up offers and instead let’s consider what really matters when it comes choosing the right bookmaker: the odds.

Every Bookmaker Should Have:

• A licence from the UK gambling commission, ensuring they’re legally entitled to operate.
• Various payment methods including credit/debit cards, and e-wallets.
• A vast array of betting markets, with all major sports events/markets at your disposal.
• A clean, professional app providing a smooth and reliable user experience.

So there’s the basics covered. There’s still one key question that remains: what sports betting site offers the best odds and therefore most value?

Value Should Be The Top Priority For Punters

Without any doubt, the most important factor for reviewing UK bookmakers is the value of their odds. This is because value means everything to the successful bettor.

A lot of punters believe that profitable betting is all about making the ‘right’ selections. That’s only partially true. More accurately, it’s about pursuing the best possible value, every time you bet. That way you avoid giving away too much ‘edge’.

I’ll explain how value works with a simple example:

Imagine you place 2x £10 bets every weekend. So over the course of any given month you bet a total of £80. You might be up, down, or even at ‘break-even’ by the end of each month.

Suppose during one month you had just 1 winning bet of your 8 x £10 stakes. Assume these were placed at industry-leading prices, and the winner was made at odds of 8/1, as follows:

Bet 1: -£10
Bet 2: -£10
Bet 3: -£10
Bet 4: -£10
Bet 5: +£80 (£90 return)
Bet 6: -£10
Bet 7: -£10
Bet 8: -£10

In total you would make a profit of +£10 in this month. The winning bet saved the day.

Sure, in hindsight, it made absolutely no difference what odds you had on the losing bets. But it’s important to maintain that attitude of finding the best possible value every time. You’ll see why.

Suppose this same month played out at low industry prices, with the one winning bet secured at odds of just 7/1. This would play out as follows:

Bet 1: -£10
Bet 2: -£10
Bet 3: -£10
Bet 4: -£10
Bet 5: +£70 (£80 return)
Bet 6: -£10
Bet 7: -£10
Bet 8: -£10

This time round you would break even with £0 profit. No change to your bankroll.

So there’s a significant £10 difference after a series of bets. What this very simple example illustrates is the importance of shopping around for odds.

The leading prices made the difference between earning profit, and merely breaking even. Think about it. If this case represented an average week of betting, then that’s a whopping £520 you miss out on over the course of a year (assuming 52 weeks of betting), just by accepting low odds.

Sport is unpredictable. You don’t know for sure who’s going to win or lose. The best you can do is bet at the highest possible odds. This reduces the edge you give away, and gives you the maximum chance of making a profit. Don’t settle for less.

Where Do You Find The Best Odds?

You can use an odds comparison tool to shop around. However, you’ll notice that the majority of UK bookmakers offer highly synchronised prices. It’s not so easy to highlight a clear-cut, consistent leader in terms of value.

So what you really need is that go-to sports betting site that simply provides you with the best value every time.

That site is Betfair.

How & Why The Betfair Exchange Offers The Best Prices

You might be wondering precisely how one company can offer such superior odds.

Well, it’s actually because Betfair isn’t (primarily) a bookmaker, and functions very differently. Betfair is a betting exchange — which means that for a sports event outcome the public places “Back” bets for, and accepts “Lay” bets against one another via their platform. You have the choice of playing the role of the punter or the bookie.

Betfair members compete against one another for prices. Whoever offers the best value is first in line to get their bet(s) away. This forces the Betfair betting markets to organically generate very accurate, fair prices for every sport event. Betfair themselves only take a small clip of winnings — which starts at 5%, and is reduced the more you bet. Thus the exchange is said to be “fair”.

Technically a “fair” bet is one which reflects the true chance of an event occuring. For example, if there’s a 50% chance of Man United beating Liverpool at home, then the price would be 1/1 (2.0 decimal). Betfair gets you the closest to those fair odds as possible.

Bookmakers, on the other hand, offer as little value as they can. This gives them an advantage or ‘edge’ in the region of 4-15%. If they offer too much value, they won’t earn enough in the longrun. If their prices are too low then punters won’t bet there. They seek that ‘sweet spot’ where they earn, but don’t deter customers.

The reality is that Bookmakers cannot afford to offer the same prices as Betfair. In fact, they track Betfair odds, and try to keep their prices lower. The bookies at racetracks do this manually, too. Using public markets is a very simplistic — yet effective — way to price odds.

So the big question now is: why doesn’t everyone bet on Betfair?

Why Do Bookmakers Continue To Thrive?

It’s true that bookmakers offer a product that’s largely inferior to Betfair’s exchange. However, there are some reasons bookies continue to capture the lion’s share of the market…

1. Bookmakers invest heavily in advertising in order to familiarise customers with their brand, and deter them from heading over to the exchange.
2. The Betfair decimal odds format is too much of a transition for many bettors to make. The UK market is accustomed to the traditional, fractional format; many punters are reluctant to convert.
3. Betfair relies on volume from the public. For highly obscure markets it’s tough to place a decent sized stake. Bookmakers, on the other hand, can offer as much volume as they’re willing to accept — it’s their choice.
4. Promotions, novelty bets — even accumulators — are mainly ran by bookmakers. This attracts many recreational bettors. The betting exchange is geared towards professionals placing more than just the one-off stake.

Despite some limitations of betting exchanges, it remains crucial to seek value on every bet.

Much Better Bookmakers

A good starting point is to familiarise yourself with Betfair’s interface and odds format. From there you can begin to learn trading strategies, and further improve your approach to betting.

Consistently find value that’s “above fair”, and you’ll earn a profit long-term. That’s the basic principle of profitable betting.

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Betting exchanges are becoming increasingly popular for bettors looking to bet with better odds than the ones on offer at traditional bookmakers. Many believe that betting with an exchange will always provide better value than a bookmaker. The question is; is this actually the case? Read on to find out.

What is a betting exchange?

Betting exchanges have gained prominence over the last decade, especially as bettors have become more educated and found their options limited in terms of being able to place a bet. Although what the odds mean and how you place a bet is the same as a normal sportsbook, there are several differences when it comes to using an exchange.

A betting site that doesn’t accept bets, but instead matches backers (those betting on odds) with layers (those offering the odds) taking a commission on the winning bets.

With a traditional sportsbook, it is a company who operates as the bookmaker. The bookmaker determines the odds on offer and available limits and they make money if you lose or pay out if you win. In contrast, an exchange service pits bettors against one another and provides the option to both “lay” (post odds) and “back” (bet on) the outcome of a particular event.

Betting exchanges make money by charging a commission on top of any profit you make as a customer (this typically ranges from 2-5%). A bookmaker, however, ensures they make a profit by offering odds that don’t accurately reflect the true probability of an event - the adjustment they make to the odds is called a margin.

The pros and cons of using an exchange

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An exchange is merely a platform for users to place (or take) bets and while it has various benefits, it also has some often overlooked downsides. One of the biggest positives of betting through an exchange is that, unlike a sportsbook, it doesn’t rely on betting margins to make profit. This means exchange bettors will benefit from better odds compared to those betting with the average sportsbook.

If you want to bet on a particular event using an exchange, you need someone who thinks they have sufficient knowledge to actually offer that market.

Another benefit that an exchange service offers bettors - and for some the most useful - is the ability to trade the market to guarantee profit. The act of “laying” a bet at a shorter price than when you have “backed” it (or vice versa) is often referred to as “greening up” - this is because all potential outcomes of an event appear in green to show how much profit will be made.

Although the odds might offer more value at an exchange compared to the average bookmaker, the amount you are able to bet is determined by the liquidity of a market. If you want your bet to return more than anyone is willing to risk paying out, you will have to settle for less or wait for someone else to offer the same bet (at the same odds) to increase your stake and potential returns.

In addition to having to bet with lower limits than you might want, betting through an exchange means you are reliant on other people posting markets. If you want to bet on a particular event using an exchange, you need someone who thinks they have sufficient knowledge to actually offer that market.

Why Pinnacle isn’t the average bookmaker

Many of the benefits listed above make sense if you are betting with the average bookmaker. However, Pinnacle is different and has a unique offering that challenges the claim that a betting exchange will always offer more value than a bookmaker.

Renowned for having the lowest margins online, Pinnacle provides better value odds than any other bookmaker. The odds you see listed on an exchange might still be higher than Pinnacle’s (even though Pinnacle’s margin is as low as 2%) but the commission rates for the exchange aren’t factored into the odds you see. If you want to find the best value, you need to consider the impact paying commission will have on your profit in the long term.

• Read: How to calculate betting margins

As well as its low margins, Pinnacle also has the highest limits online. If you’re serious about betting the amount of money you are able to bet is just as important as the odds you’re betting with. The average bookmaker and a betting exchange both have their limitations when it comes the amount of money you can place per bet. Pinnacle, on the other hand, does not.

The notion of value extends beyond odds, the limits you bet with and the number of available markets to bet on are just two more examples of things that serious bettors will want to consider when deciding who offers the best value.

While bets of €40,000 are commonplace on Premier League matches or NBA and NFL games at Pinnacle, these limits regularly exceed €100,000 for major events. As well as having higher limits than anywhere else, Pinnacle also as a re-bet function that lets you place another high limit bet within seconds of your previous one (they may adjust the odds slightly after each bet though).

Due to how Pinnacle operates, the size of its limits, the number of customers placing bets and the fact that it uses teams of highly skilled traders to manage its odds, you will also find a wider variety of markets on offer compared to a betting exchange.

Whether it’s Finnish soccer, Brazilian basketball or Italian volleyball, betting on obscure markets is never a problem at Pinnacle - serious bettors will understand the value this offers as it is often easier to get an edge in more obscure markets.

Limiting and closing accounts has played a major part in driving customers away from bookmakers to betting exchanges. This isn’t an issue at Pinnacle as winners are always welcome - regardless of whether you have expert knowledge or valuable information about a particular sport or can identify arbitrage betting opportunities, your bet will always be welcome at Pinnacle.

Bookmaker vs. Betting exchange odds comparison

In order to quantify the difference in the odds offered by Pinnacle, the average bookmaker and a betting exchange, we can run a simple test. Using the 2016/17 Premier League season (a sample of 380 games) if we take the 1X2 closing odds for Pinnacle, the average bookmaker and apply a logarithmic function to the fair (no margin) odds to represent the betting exchange, we can find out at which of the three provides the best odds.

If a bettor were to place a €10 bet on each of the 380 games during the 2016/17 and correctly predict the winner of every single match, they would be left with the following profit:

The betting exchange profit figure above is based on the standard 5% commission structure. While it is possible to bet with lower commission rates, exchanges can also apply commission charges of up to 20% depending on how successful you are (in addition to how much profit you make, this is also based on the number of markets you’ve bet on and how much commission you’ve paid in the past).

Although the results above show that you would make more profit betting with Pinnacle, it is also important to remember that this is still a relatively small sample of data (it only covers one market in a particular league of a single sport).

The odds you bet with are also only one component of betting (albeit the most important). The notion of value extends beyond odds, the limits you bet with and the number of available markets to bet on are just two more examples of things that serious bettors will want to consider when deciding who offers the best value.

How bookmakers make money video explainer

Better Bookkeeper

Found this article useful? Why not check out our video that details how to find value.

Better Bookkeepers San Jose

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