Bettriq — How to use Bettriq

Guide Method

How to use bettriq

Bettriq compares what a bookmaker is offering against what the sharpest book in the world thinks the real odds are. When a bookmaker is priced better than the truth, that is a value bet — and over enough of them, the maths pays. This page is the whole method in five minutes.

Your first bet, in four steps

Open the Value Board

Everything starts at Value Board. Each row is one bet at one bookmaker, at a price we believe is too generous. The list is filtered to EV ≥ 2% by default, because that is where the measured returns are — you can untick it to see everything.

Pick a row and check the price yourself

Sort by Edge to see the strongest first. Click the odds to see what every other bookmaker offers on the same outcome.

Always confirm the price at the bookmaker before you bet. Odds move, and ours are up to 15 minutes old. If the price has dropped, the value may be gone — skip it rather than take a worse number.

Decide your stake

The Kelly column suggests a percentage of your bankroll. We show a quarter of full Kelly, because full Kelly is mathematically optimal and practically brutal — it assumes your edge estimate is perfect, and it never is.

Flat staking works too, and it is what our published returns are measured on. The one thing that does not work is staking more because a bet "feels" good.

Star it, so we can grade it

Click the ★ to save a bet to My Bets. That is how you get your own profit and loss, and your own closing-line record — the only honest way to know if this is working for you.

What the columns mean

Book Odds: The price at the bookmaker named underneath. This is what you would actually bet at.
Sharp Ref: Pinnacle's price for the same outcome. Pinnacle takes big bets and moves its line to stay accurate, so its price is the closest thing to a true market price.
True %: Pinnacle's price with the bookmaker margin stripped out — our best estimate of the real chance this outcome happens.
Edge: How many percentage points better your price is than the truth. This is the number to sort by.
EV: Expected value: what this bet is worth per unit staked, in theory. Higher is better, but see the warning below.
Kelly: Suggested stake as a share of your bankroll, at quarter Kelly.

Read this before you trust EV. EV is a hypothesis, not a promise. Across every bet we have logged, the average EV we displayed was +4.0% while the value actually realised against Pinnacle's closing line was +0.1%. Prices move, limits bite, and some bookmakers post numbers they will not honour at size. Treat EV as a ranking tool, not as money you have already earned.

The flags on a row

⇄ arb The best price on every outcome guarantees a profit whichever way the match goes. Work out the stakes on the Arbitrage page.
⚠ lone One bookmaker is far above everyone else. That is more often a stale or mismatched line than real value — check it carefully.
⚠ decaying Pinnacle is moving toward this bookmaker. The value is disappearing as you read.
⊘ muted This league-and-market combination has failed to beat closing over enough bets. We leave it visible but greyed out, because hiding our mistakes would make the record look better than it is.
NT Norsk Tipping disagrees with Pinnacle on a Norwegian match. On home turf they are worth listening to.
✓✓ consensus A second sharp book agrees with Pinnacle's price.

Where to go for what

Value Board: Every live value bet. This is where you spend your time.
Leagues: Which leagues produce value, and whether they actually beat closing.
CLV: Our full record: every bet we ever flagged, graded against Pinnacle's closing line and against the real result.
My Bets: Your own bets, profit and loss. Stored in your browser, not on our servers.
Arbitrage: Stake calculator for the guaranteed-profit rows.
Alerts: Get told when new value appears, instead of refreshing.
Method: How the numbers are produced, and what we can prove.

Four mistakes that cost people money

1. Betting without checking the price. Our odds are up to 15 minutes old. The single most common way to turn a good bet into a bad one is to accept a worse number than the one on screen.

2. Chasing the biggest EV. The largest edges are often the least real — a mispriced line, a market about to be voided, or a limit you will never get filled at. A steady stream of 2–4% edges is the actual business.

3. Staking to feel something. A 3% edge does not become a 30% edge because you are confident. Size every bet the same way, every time.

4. Quitting during a losing run. At an average price near 2.40 you will lose more bets than you win — our win rate is around 44%. Losing streaks of ten are normal and say nothing about whether the method works. Closing line value tells you that long before profit does.

One honest note

Bookmakers limit accounts that consistently beat them. If you use this well, you will eventually be restricted somewhere. That is a sign it is working, and it is the reason serious players spread their action across many books rather than hammering one.

We are an analysis tool. We do not take bets, hold your money, or earn anything from the bookmakers we list.