When you look at sites for comparing odds from different betting houses you probably will see that the odds fluctuate in the days before the match. This is a very important indicator of what is happening and it can be helpful in making your betting predictions.

If you’re wondering what I am talking about, just open such site and see that every match has its odds. Right next to them you will see a red and a green arrow pointing up and down. These arrows show the movement of the odds. Usually, if you click on the odds you can spread out and see the whole story of the coefficients.

Now what those changes tell us and how we can use this information? We all know that the bookmakers make everything in their power so they will have profit whatever the outcome of every game is. They do this through the so-called margin, which represents the difference between the real percentage for something to happen and the percentage given by the betting houses through the odds. An example – if the sum of three probabilities is 100%, then for the bookies the sum of the three probabilities is not 100%, but 96% plus their profit.

To ensure profits, they must have evenly distributed bets for all possible outcomes of a match. How can a bookmaker do this? By putting the odds down and up and by doing this they motivate players to bet on one or another outcome. That’s why we see the rising and falling of the odds.

So if we see that a team’s odds are going down that can tells us that many bettors put their money for the win of this team. Therefore, the bookmaker is trying to motivate us to bet on the other team with higher odds.

This information can be useful to know how the things in betting are made. Of course, the final decision about your bets is all yours, but a bit of information won’t hurt, right?

Of course the odds movement during the match is something completely different. You can learn more about it on the video at the end of the post.