Positive EV Betting Guide 2025 - PromoGuy can help!

What is positive EV betting?

Positive EV betting basically refers to when a sportsbook puts on odds that don’t quite reflect what’s most likely to happen in a sporting encounter. It refers to something called ‘implied probability’ and your job is to spot those bets that could help you make better returns than normal.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples. A sportsbook might give the Detroit Lions long odds of +550 of beating the Chicago Bears. While you admit that the Lions were the underdogs, you felt that the Lions had a better chance than that and would put the team’s odds closer to +350. This would be positive expected value because, if your bet won, you would be getting better than expected returns.

Positive EV betting isn’t just restricted to backing the underdogs. Let’s say that you wanted to bet on the Milwaukee Bucks to beat the Brooklyn Nets in the NBA. You found a sportsbook who had odds of -100 for the Bucks to win, but you felt that the result was easily the Bucks to take, and your prediction was that the Bucks’ odds should be closer to -250. Again, this would be positive expected value, as your return from winning this bet would be greater than it should have been.

It’s a different approach to the standard model of sports betting where you’re merely trying to predict which teams are going to win. Instead, expected value betting is where you are trying to take advantage of the probability gap between the sportsbook’s predictions and your own predictions.

How do I spot positive EV betting odds?

There’s a lot of theory involved in expected value betting, so we’re probably better off looking at an example of how you can calculate the expected value of how a sportsbook is covering a sporting event.

Let’s imagine that there was an NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets. Of these, the Chiefs were the outright favorites with odds of -500 while the Jets were clear underdogs with odds of +450.

You could convert the Chiefs’ negative odds into implied probability with a simple formula. This means taking the odds and dividing them by the odds plus 100 multiplied by 100. This would be 500 divided by 600 multiplied by 100 which would have a resultant implied probability of 83.3% for a Chiefs win.

Then you’d convert the Jets’ positive odds into implied probability using a slightly different formula. This would be 100 divided by the odds plus 100 multiplied by 100. So here, it would be 100 divided by 550 multiplied by 100 which would have an implied probability of 18.1% for a Jets win.

Now all you need to do is think about whether these implied probabilities are less than your own predicted probabilities. If the implied probability is less, then this is a value bet and it could give you better than expected returns.

Is value betting profitable?

It ultimately depends on how you handle the betting strategy. Expected value betting isn’t some quick fix that you can get to get a fast return from just one sports bet. Instead, it’s something that you do over the long-term to try and build up steady returns from your sports bets.

Ultimately it comes down to your own power to make better predictions of what could happen than the sportsbook. This is something that requires you to be better than the oddsmakers and understand when their odds are overvalued. So if you think that you have the skill and predictive powers needed to do this, then there is no reason why expected value betting can’t work wonders for you.

Simple tips for positive EV betting

We realize that expected value betting might not be the simplest thing in the world to put into action. After all, online sportsbooks will invest a huge amount of time and money into ensuring that their odds give away as little extra value as possible. But here are a few simple tips you can use to try and spot those all-important value bets:

Get in there early - It’s common for sportsbooks to adjust their odds closer to the actual sporting event. This is when they have had enough time to digest all of the relevant information to make more accurate predictions. As a result, you are far more likely to spot any value bets earlier on in a sporting week.

Don’t bet on the big teams - Most sportsbooks will keep their betting margins very tight whenever one of those massive teams like the New York Yankees or the Dallas Cowboys are in action. This is because these franchises always attract plenty of casual bettors who won’t realize what a value bet is. So best stay away from betting on the big teams as it’s the less popular teams who are far more likely to get value bets. Plus we should note that it’s never a good idea to bet on your own favorite team as you’ll probably be biased!

Shop around - Expected value betting is all about hunting around for the best possible odds. This means that you are unlikely to find value bets at the first online sportsbook that you see. Instead of this, you should take time to shop around at the different betting sites to see which one of these has slipped up to put on some value bets.

Conclusion: Your resource for positive EV betting 

So is value betting profitable? Well, positive EV betting is just one of the latest ways in which you can take advantage of the odds that sportsbooks have to offer. As more states in the US start legalizing sports betting, you’ll see a greater number of sportsbooks which means more opportunity for bagging some of those value bets.

This is why we will keep these betting guides updated to make sure that you get the latest advice for things like expected value. After all, the online sportsbooks will be doing all they can to stay one step ahead of you, so you’ll need all of the help you can get. So keep it here to take your positive EV betting up a level!

1.877

Pick

898

Wins

21.5%

ROI

Positive EV betting FAQ