In sports betting, a wager is an agreement between two parties: you, the bettor, and the bookie that offers bets and takes wagers.
Bookmakers can be:
- A physical casino with a sportsbook
- An online sportsbook like FanDuel or DraftKings
- Your local neighborhood bookie
- Or an offshore book
Here at BettingLadies.com we only partner with sportsbooks that are legal in the US
The way it works is simple: you start by choosing which bookmaker you will use, look at what bets they are offering, figure out how much you want to bet, then place your wager.
By the way, online bookmakers will typically have a much broader offering than traditional bookies. There are certainly pros and cons for each kind of bookmaker, but for the most part, all of them work in the same way.
Bookies have a lot of information and statistics to set odds and lines, which is what we wager against. To be a successful bettor we must both find trends and patterns to beat the book, as well as have a strategy.
When you are thinking about placing a bet, it’s worth considering the value you can expect from that bet. The industry term for this is expected value, or EV for short.
EV is based on a formula that tells you whether the expectation is positive or negative. Knowing that will help you decide whether a bet is worth going after.
The EV calculation gives you a dollar value which you get by taking the chance of winning times the amount won, plus the chance of losing times the amount risked.
It sounds a little complicated so we’ll put an article in the forum for you to read about EV in more detail, with a few examples so you can try it for yourself.
What you need to take away from this video is that a positive EV is what you should aim for because the probability is on your side.
