Does Value Betting Work? 25,954 Real Bets Say Yes

The short answer

Yes, value betting works. Between 7 October and 3 November 2026, OddsHub users tracked 25,954 settled bets taken from the Value Bets tab in the OddsHub Terminal. At a flat one unit per bet, they made +728 units, a +2.8% return on every bet placed. More importantly, 74.7% of those bets beat the closing line, with an average closing line value (CLV) of +4.9%. Beating the closing line is the most reliable sign of a long-term edge, and these bets did it three times out of four.

The headline numbers

That profit is shared across 180 users, roughly +4 units each on average. A fairer way to judge individual results is to look at users with a decent sample: of the 70 users with 50 or more bets, 64.3% are in profit, with a median ROI of +2.6%.

How we got the data

Every bet in this study was tracked by a user directly from the Value Bets tab, which lists bets where a soft bookmaker's price is above Pinnacle's fair odds. To keep the numbers honest, we cleaned the data before counting anything:

• Only bets tracked from the Value Bets tab were included.
• We removed bets with results set or changed by hand (2,526), bets edited after tracking (190), duplicates of the same selection by the same user (293) and obvious odds typos (7).
• Every bet was graded automatically from final scores, at a flat 1 unit stake, with voids counted as zero profit.
• EV is measured against Pinnacle's fair price at the moment the bet was tracked, and CLV against Pinnacle's no-vig closing price, using the same formulas as the Terminal.

That left 27,200 bets, of which 25,954 had settled by 3 November.

Beating the close is where the profit comes from

This is the clearest result in the data. We grouped every bet by how far it beat (or missed) Pinnacle's closing price.

Every group of bets that beat the closing line made money, and every group that missed it lost money. The further ahead of the close, the bigger the return. This is why CLV is the number to track: it tells you whether your bets are good long before the profit and loss settles down.

Higher EV, more bets beat the close

The EV shown when a bet is placed is a prediction. The closing line is the check. Bets placed at higher EV beat the close far more often.

Bets under 2% EV barely beat the close on average and lost a little. That's the price of thin edges: the margin for error is small, and the odds often move before the bet is placed. From 2% upwards, every group was profitable and the average CLV rose in line with the EV.

Not just a few power users

A handful of heavy users can make any results table look good, so we split them out.

The top 10 users placed 47.4% of all bets, but the other 170 users were profitable too, with almost the same CLV. Among the 70 users with 50 or more bets, 95.7% beat the closing line on average (median CLV +4.6%).

Results by sport

Every sport beat the closing line on average. Football and basketball make up most of the sample and are both comfortably in profit. The smaller sports swing either way on ROI, which is what you'd expect from a few hundred bets: handball and volleyball beat the close by +7% or more and are still flat or slightly down. Give them more bets and the CLV tends to show through.

Results by market

Every market was in profit and every market beat the close by more than 4% on average. Handicaps and match odds carried most of the profit.

Results by bookmaker

Bet365 alone accounts for about a third of the bets, at +6.3% average CLV. With bookmakers, look at CLV rather than ROI: a few hundred bets is far too few for ROI to mean much. The two exchanges stand out with the lowest CLV, because exchange prices sit much closer to fair odds, so there is less value to take. Leaving Polymarket and Betfair Exchange out, the other 23,412 bets returned +3.7% at +5.2% average CLV.

Results by odds

Most value bets sit between 1.50 and 2.99. Longer odds carried the biggest CLV, but bets at 5.00 and above are still down after 635 bets. That's variance: at long odds, a few hundred bets can easily run behind, even with an average edge of over 10%.

Week by week

Weekly ROI ranged from -2.6% to +4.4%, while average CLV stayed between +4.1% and +5.3% every week. That's the point: profit jumps around, CLV doesn't.

Profit was actually below what the prices predicted

Based on the closing prices, these bets should have made around +1,217 units. They made +728. Running behind expectation over a few weeks is normal, and it means the +2.8% ROI is, if anything, on the low side of what this level of CLV should deliver over time.

Value bets v dropping odds

The same method was used in our dropping odds results post, which tracked 21,777 bets.

The ROI is similar so far, but value bets beat the close far more often and by three times as much. Over a longer run, that CLV is the number that should show up in profit.

What the data doesn't show

• It's four weeks. 25,954 bets is a large sample, but a short period. CLV is the steadier signal; the ROI will move.
• Users chose what to log. These are the bets people picked from the Value Bets tab, not every value bet that was shown.
• Exchange and Polymarket results are before commission. Excluding them, ROI rises to +3.7%.

Start value betting with OddsHub

You don't need a model or a spreadsheet to find these bets. The Value Bets tab in the OddsHub Terminal compares soft bookmaker prices with Pinnacle's fair odds across 490+ bookmakers and lists every bet priced above them, with the EV worked out. Track a bet in one click with the free bet tracker, and the Terminal logs your EV, follows your CLV as the line moves and settles the result for you.

The Free plan shows value bets up to 3% EV on a 15-minute delay. Standard removes the delay and shows bets up to 5% EV, and Pro shows every value bet in real time, with mobile alerts. Every paid plan comes with a 7-day free trial and a 14-day money-back guarantee.

Start with the free Value Bets feed