Odds Comparison Sites| Getting the Best Bookmakers Prices| Best Odds Guaranteed

Are Bookmakers odds an accurate reflection of the TRUE odds of a result?

No, because a Bookmaker's "pricing-up" of an event is dependent on collateral factors.
More people may be betting on a particular team or horse to the exclusion of other contestants in the event.
Hence the bookamker will lose a lot of money if the popular slection wins. The bookmaker will reduce the odds of the popular selection to discourage further people from backing it -- and he will increase the odds of the other competitors to attract more money for them instead. The odds on an event often just reflect what people are betting on.

The Bookmaker's main objective is to create a balanced over-round book whereby he will achieve a return irrespective of the outcome. He tries to achieve this by attracting bets in the right proportions to prevailing odds. If there is too much money on a particular contestant at particular odds then the odds will be reduced.

The over-round is the bookmaker's profit in an ideal market where he can attract an amount of money for each contestant in an event. An over-round in a race may be as high 160% or as low as 102%. The value-seeking bettor should restrict his interest to races with low over-rounds.

Best Odds Guaranteed.

Unless there is a very good reason such as outlandishly generous odds, you should restrict yourself to thoses Bookmaking firms on Oddschecker which offer Best Odds Guaranteed (denoted with an orange coloured icon "B" above the bookmaker's name).

If the starting price is higher than the offered price, then your bet will be settled at the higher price.

Market Move Significance.

Remember than it takes a much greater volume of money in the market to move a horse from 5/2 down to 6/4 than it does to reduce 66/1 to 25/1.

The odds contraction of an already short-priced horse is more significant than the fluctuation in the price of an outsider.

You should certainly take note of the website www.oddschecker.com . This is a totally free website which requires no signing up or log-in.
The other odds comparison site Betbetting is considered by some to have a more efficient sotware architecture resulting in a quicker updating of live odds. (However, this writer does find that the loading of individual Bestbetting pages takes a little longer.)

Oddschecker and Bestbetting are aggregators of Bookmaker prices across a wide spectrum of sports markets. They will provide you with a snapshot of any particular market.
Both Oddschecker and Bestbetting indicate the movements in a market, and will identify the particular horses or individuals which are attracting support and those which are drifting. The two sites are invaluable resources and are essential elements of any sportstrader's armoury.

Oddchecker also boasts a "MARKET REPORTS" facility which monitors any moves in the betting on an event.

MARKET REPORTS incorporates a few useful tools which taken together give a very good idea of the strength or weakness behind the individual horses in a race, and of the overall "make-up" of the market.

1) Top Movers.
2) Steamers. ( horses contracting in price)
3) Drifters.
4) Top Differences
5) Best Books.

Taking the 18:40 race at Haydock on 17/07/2010 as an example, when we apply the above five tools we get a valuable insight into the prevailing conditions of the market.

1) Top Movers shows a particular Bookmaker's most recent movers in the market. In the example Haydock race, we see that Uptown Guy has contracted from 5/2 into 7/4 with William Hill. (The strongest movers are listed in descending order according to the significance figure on the right.

2) The Steamer's report lists those horses whose odds have contracted from the Bookmakers opening price. Along with Uptown Guy in the Haydock race under review, we cannot help but notice the very considerable contraction of the odds for Peters Spirit also (In to 16/1 from 200/1

3) The Drifters report, as its name suggests, lists the market drifters in a race. Again, taking the 18:40 race we see that Shaabek has drifted from 10/1 to 12/1

4) Top Differences gives the latest price differences between various bookmakers for the same horse. Token Gift is on offer at odds of 100/1 with one Bookmaker but as low as 50/1 with another.

5) Best Books gives the over-round for each race. calculates the total book (overround or overbroke) for each event. The larger the book value, the more money the bookies make. The smaller the overround, the more chance the punter has to make money.