What does it mean for a bet to be Positive EV?
When a bet is positive expected value, that means market odds indicate that the true probability of this bet is more favorable than what the specific listed sportsbook predicts.
For more info, see our article explaining the concept of Expected Value!
Why am I losing +EV bets?
+EV betting is just like flipping a coin that is 53% in your favor and 47% not in your favor. You still lose +EV bets. The "edges" are typically 3-7%. It's just like why investing in the stock market is a good idea long-term - the market goes up an average of ~8% per year. But that doesn't mean the stock market goes up every day. This is just the risk of gambling. Stick with it, track your bets, make sure you are generating positive CLV and you will win in the long run.
We'd highly, highly recommend watching this video to better understand!
How many bets should I be placing?
The short answer is...a lot. We recommend at least 15-20 bets per day, even if you're only betting small amounts.
You may not start seeing results until you have a large enough number of bets. We typically say 250-500 bets is the point at which you should see results, although there's no true "right" answer. It depends on the kinds of bets you're taking!
Remember - the way EV betting works is that your edge over the sportsbooks compounds over time. No individual bet is guaranteed to win!
How much money should I be placing on a bet?
How much you should place on any individual EV bet depends on the odds and on the size of your betting bankroll. This calculation is based on something called the Kelly Criterion. Note that you don't need to understand the math behind Kelly - that's our job!
In your OddsJam settings, you can set your bankroll amount, and then for each individual bet, we'll recommend the optimal bet size in-line in the betting tools!
Take these two example bets in the image below to see how and where we recommend bet sizes. Look at the second to last column!
The first bet is Ryan Mountcastle Over 1.5 hits at FanDuel. Based on an example bankroll size of $5000, at +175 odds this bet, we recommend $60. The second bet has the same odds of +175, and since our bankroll is still $5000, we recommend $60 on this bet as well.
Should I Bet Every Play on Positive EV Page?
Yes, every bet on the OddsJam EV page is going to be mathematically profitable, but, with that said, there is additional research that we recommend doing before placing a bet. This is something the OddsJam team does ourselves when betting.
We have two general recommendations on how to limit your bets down further.
1. Use our Recommended Filters - this will limit further to bets we're more confident are good bets! Make sure that toggle is on.
2. If you click into any individual bet, you can see odds across other available sportsbooks.
The goal of this is to determine whether the odds of your bet are an outlier compared to the rest of the betting markets. If the answer is yes, then go hit that bet!