Profit is a bad short-term measure of whether you are good at this. Variance is large enough that a sound approach can lose for months and a poor one can win for weeks. You need something that resolves faster, and closing line value is it.
How one bet is graded
What CLV is
Closing line value compares the price you took against the price the market settled on at kickoff, with the bookmaker margin removed from the closing number. Take 2.10 on something that closes at a fair 2.00 and you beat the close by about 5%. Do that consistently and you are consistently ahead of the market.
It matters because the closing price is the best estimate anyone has, arrived at after all the money and information has landed. Beating it is not a matter of luck in the way a single result is.
How the tracker handles it
Track a bet from the drop panel and the Terminal keeps hold of the price you took. It then grades that bet against the de-vigged closing price automatically, and settles the result for you when the match finishes. There is no spreadsheet to maintain and no closing prices to look up by hand, which is the part most people give up on.
Bets placed elsewhere can be imported by CSV so your whole record lives in one place, and exported the same way if you want to do your own analysis.
Reading your numbers honestly
- Both negative. Something in the approach needs changing, most often taking prices too late.
Positive CLV, negative profit
- Normal, especially in the first few months
- Your prices are ahead of the market
- Results have not caught up yet
- Keep going
Negative CLV, positive profit
- You are being paid for luck
- Your prices are behind the market
- Expect it to reverse
- Do not scale this up
The tracker runs live on every plan, free included, so there is no reason to keep a spreadsheet alongside it.
Read next: The dropping odds strategy explained, The two ways to use a drop.