What does the average bettor or betting novice typically do? They go to the website of their chosen bookmaker, open the list of matches, select the match they’re interested in, and place a bet on it. What does a professional bettor usually do? They register accounts with several bookmakers, find an outcome they’re interested in, and check which one offers the highest odds for that event. Accordingly, the higher the odds, the better the choice.
Why It’s Important to Choose a Bookmaker with High Odds?
This question might seem straightforward. Everyone knows that higher odds mean bigger winnings. But many people think the difference is negligible and ignore the opportunity to find the best odds. So, let’s do some calculations to clarify.
Even for the main lines (like 1X2, basic handicaps, and totals), different bookmakers offer varying odds. Why? Several factors can influence odds: the bookmaker’s analysts’ assessments, heavy betting on a particular outcome, and so on. As a result, odds vary, and the difference can sometimes reach 0.1-0.15, or even 1.00-3.00 in the case of major upsets (odds of 6+). For extremely high odds, one bookmaker might offer 20, while another offers 30. That’s a huge gap. But let’s focus on more common main outcomes.
Even if the odds difference is just about 0.05, that’s serious extra profit for a bettor. Let’s use an example with a bet amount of 1,000 rubles.
1,000 rubles * 0.05 additional profit = 50 rubles.
Can we live without an extra 50 rubles? Obviously, yes. But now imagine that with this setup, we get that for 10 bets.
10 bets * 50 extra rubles per bet = 500 extra rubles in the account. Similarly, 100 bets (which any bettor can make in just 2-3 days) would bring an additional 5,000 rubles.
That’s noticeable, especially with a modest bet of 1,000 rubles and a very small additional odds margin of 0.05. And remember, the difference can be 0.10, 0.15, or even more. So, monitoring bookmakers for the highest odds is essential and worthwhile. I think the profit is clear. Now, let’s figure out the easiest ways to track the highest odds for your selected outcomes.
Services for Comparing Odds
Services that allow you to compare odds from various bookmakers are commonly called scanners. They can be paid or free, and they work in both pre-match and live modes. Again, if you’ve never used anything like this and you’re not an experienced bettor, don’t pay for a scanner yet. Start with the free version, learn the features and capabilities. If you like it, you can upgrade to a paid one later.
Free Scanners
There are plenty of free or conditionally paid services. Conditionally paid ones have a premium version, but the free version is still quite good. Let’s break down what we have.
- FlashScore. We wrote a separate article about this service on statistics, but you can also track odds there. It has an excellent database with over 40 sports, a huge number of leagues you might not even know about, including championships from countries you may have never heard of. You can compare the odds themselves and follow their trends. Plus, the site adapts well to your country. For example, in Belarus, it shows bookmakers like Fonbet, Favbet, and BetEra. Switch to a Ukrainian VPN, and you’ll get different bookmakers. Let’s take a look.
Open the Morocco vs. Portugal match from a Ukrainian IP and check the odds tab. Here we see three bookmakers with a significant difference. For instance, without knowing better, you might bet on 5.5 with BWIN, but instead, you could take Bet365 at 5.75. That’s substantial. As for odds changes, you can track that too.
Hover over the odds, and you’ll see that on Bet365, the odds for Portugal went from 1.67 to 1.70. It’s not a big change, but there’s movement. How to interpret it is up to you—maybe too many bets on Morocco, or bookmakers are losing faith in Portugal as the match approaches. Overall, this is an important part of analysis, but today we’re focusing on odds. So, that’s it for this service.
Oh, almost forgot. Besides odds for wins or draws, there are plenty of others: totals, handicaps, both teams to score, and more.
- OddsHelp. This project has been running since 2010 and offers a large number of matches, but only for soccer. Besides comparing odds, it helps find arbitrage opportunities, track line movements, dropping odds, and more. Let’s look at the England vs. France match as an example.
We see odds like 3.14 x 3.3 x 2.65, and for over/under 2.5, it’s 1.77 and 2.39. These are the best odds. So, 3.14 is from one bookmaker, 3.3 for a draw from another, and 2.65 for France win from a third. Let’s open the match and look inside.
In this case, we see that the best odds for England win and draw are from Marathonbet, while for France win, it’s from 888. Quite a long list of bookmakers, right? It’s very convenient for tracking the top odds.
OddsFan. This service scans around 80 bookmakers, which is incredibly comprehensive. Let’s go back to the Morocco vs. Portugal match and see how it looks here.
In the top frame, you can switch between different outcomes, and at the bottom, it shows who offers the best odds. This is much better than FlashScore, where for Morocco, they only had up to 6, for draws up to 3.5, and for Portugal win up to 2.71. Here, we see significantly higher odds. Great service.
You see, in the odds block on the left, there’s a ‘Open’ button. Clicking it shows which bookmakers offer which odds. This is important because the service tracks over 80 bookmakers, and having accounts with funds in all of them is impractical. You can look for the bookmakers you have and pick the best odds.
Other scanners worth mentioning include:
- Hot-odds.
- Oddsportal.
- Oddschecker.
We won’t go into detail about them. If you’re interested, try them yourself.
Paid Scanners
We won’t cover paid scanners in as much detail or include screenshots, but we’ll discuss key points. I’ve highlighted two good paid scanners.
- BTFOdds. This scanner is often used for finding arbitrage opportunities. There’s a free version that tracks situations up to 1%, which isn’t much. With a paid subscription, you get juicier opportunities. We’re interested in the paid version, which not only compares odds but also shows their trends. Most importantly, it provides analysis on what caused the odds drop: heavy betting, a sudden injury, team conflicts, and more. This is very useful information. The subscription costs 30 euros and can only be paid via PayPal.
- OddStorm. This scanner has developed a Windows app where you can find arbitrages with profits over 5%, as well as odds comparisons from 90 bookmakers in both pre-match and live. It has tons of extra features, like a Polish corridors calculator and others. It’s very flexible, letting you choose the functions you want, with prices ranging from 50 to 2,655 euros per year.
How to Choose a Scanner for Yourself
First, consider your bankroll. If you can only afford a deposit of around 3-5 thousand rubles, paid scanners are out, as they won’t pay off or you’ll just break even. In general, here are the key criteria to focus on:
- List of bookmakers. If you have accounts with 5 bookmakers, look for a scanner that monitors all 5. And don’t be lazy—register for more when a match has much higher odds elsewhere.
- Live monitoring availability. Not essential for everyone, but a must for live betting fans. In live, odds differences grow even larger, making this a big advantage.
- Monitoring speed. The faster the scanner checks all bookmakers, the more up-to-date your information. Not critical for pre-match bets, but vital for live betting.
- Additional features. Each scanner tries to stand out with unique tools. Check what each offers, see what you’d find useful, and look for services that match.
- Price-to-value ratio. If you’re considering paid or conditionally paid scanners, analyze what you’re paying for. Make sure the enhanced features are worth it. Often, many free versions provide everything you need, and paid extras aren’t justified.
Conclusions
Dear scanners we didn’t mention, forgive us. We know you exist, and readers of this article will discover you when they start choosing their ideal scanner. Yes, there are dozens, and you have plenty to choose from. You just need to get started.
Don’t ignore this option if you bet frequently or with large amounts. If you do both, it’s absolutely essential. Remember, as we calculated, for 10 bets of 1,000 rubles, we got an extra 500 rubles. And when a bettor places 1,000 bets in a month (which is normal for a regular player) with an average bet of 10,000 rubles, instead of 500 rubles, you’d get 500,000 rubles in extra profit just by checking a scanner and betting where the odds are higher.
Maybe in the near future, we’ll do a full review of the top scanners. For now, that’s all. Good luck.
