The Way To identify value in your bets? That is the big question. My friend, Alex Napier who operates the very best Bet Soccer website, has asked me to write this article to explain how bookmakers' percentages are calculated and just how they give a guide to assessment of value within the odds on offer. He has asked me to look at soccer online betting, where, due to the few possible outcomes (three choices - win, lose or draw) the odds offered are short within any event.

A perfectly "balanced book" where the odds offered exactly reflect the possibility of each team winning or the draw would produce an overall total of 100.00%. Theoretically the bookmaker will profit by the total percentage on the match less 100.00%. Within the above table bookmaker 1 should profit by 11.89% of turnover on the match and bookmaker 2 by 11.23%. At first sight there does not appear to be much between them but once we compare the theoretical profit of each the margin on the bookmaker 1 odds (i.e. 111.89 - 100.