What to check between spotting a drop and placing money on it, in the order that saves the most time.
A drop in your feed is a lead, not a bet. The gap between the two is about thirty seconds of checking, and doing it in the right order means you abandon the bad ones quickly.
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1what triggered it
2the best price your books still offer
3fair and the max bet
4the shape of the move
5every price change
Thirty seconds on one drop
Pinnacle moved tothe drop that alerted you1.84
Fair pricemargin removed1.80
Best price at your booksfound in the panel1.91
Edge over fair+6.1%
When to walk away
Most drops are not bets, and being comfortable with that is most of the skill.
Worth the click
A book still beats fair
The limit is healthy
You hold an account that has it
Kickoff leaves time to place it
Let it go
Already through fair with no reason to expect more
Sometimes seconds, sometimes hours. Close to kickoff and in heavily traded markets the soft books follow fast, so treat anything already several minutes old with suspicion.
Should I bet at the sharp book or the soft book?
The soft book. The sharp price is your reference for what is fair; the value is in whichever slower book has not yet moved.
What if no bookmaker still offers a price above fair?
Then there is no value bet. You can still back it as an anticipation play if you expect the line to keep moving, but you would be betting on further movement rather than on a price edge, so treat it as a separate kind of bet, stake it smaller, and judge it on closing line value alone.
