Bookies predictions in 2026: a guide, not a tip sheet

Updated October 2026

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Updated: 26 October 2026 · verified against the Gambling Commission (UKGC) public register.

The phrase latest bookies prediction does not mean a winning tip. It means the act of reading what a bookmaker publishes — odds, markets, form, team news — and trying to turn it into a bet. That is what this page covers: how a tip is built, why no tip is ever certain, what the bookmaker’s margin takes out of every price, and what ten Gambling Commission-licensed brands actually offer a UK punter in 2026. There is no guaranteed winner below, because nobody on earth has one.

The legal frame around a prediction in Great Britain

A “prediction” is a punter’s reading of a market. The market itself is run by a bookmaker. In Great Britain a bookmaker that takes remote bets from customers in England, Scotland or Wales needs a Gambling Commission operating licence — under the Gambling Act 2005 as amended by the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 — wherever the operator is based. A Curaçao, Maltese or Gibraltar licence on its own is not enough. Northern Ireland sits outside the 2005 Act, so the test on the mainland is “GB-licensed”, not “UK-licensed”. Every brand featured below holds such a licence; the Commission’s public register, searchable by business name, trading name, domain or account number, is the only place that test can be checked.

A few details decide whether the rest of this page makes sense:

• Minimum age is 18 and identity is checked before the first deposit. There is no anonymous play at a GB-licensed site, and that holds even for free bets and bonuses.
• Credit cards have been banned for gambling in Great Britain since 14 April 2020. Debit cards and bank-based payments are not covered by that ban.
• General Betting Duty is the operator’s tax. Players pay no tax on betting winnings in Great Britain.
• Marketing is not licensed by the Commission. It runs through the CAP Code (non-broadcast) and BCAP Code (broadcast), with the ASA enforcing. Promotion rules in force since 19 January 2026 cap bonus wagering at 10x and ban mixed-product promotions.

GAMSTOP is the national online self-exclusion scheme and a mandatory licence condition for every online operator; six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal are the periods, and after the minimum a further seven years of protection applies unless the customer asks GAMSTOP to lift it. The financial vulnerability check (LCCP 3.4.4) triggers when a customer’s deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 across a rolling 30-day window, and it is a public-record check rather than a credit check. Financial risk assessments — the “affordability checks” — have been announced in a staged plan, with no start date published. None of this stops a punt; it is what sits around one.

A single brand is never “the only” licensed one. The Commission’s register lists many more than the ten this page reviews, and the wider market is not the same as the featured set.

Staying in control around a prediction

Safer gambling at the ten reviewed brands

GAMSTOP, GambleAware, GamCare, the National Gambling Helpline and the NHS gambling clinics are the help lines every GB-licensed operator links to. Several operators also run their own safer-gambling suite: Unibet, for example, publishes deposit limits, a Player Profile test, product restrictions, self-exclusion, and live chat support — the kind of standard toolset that has become the licensed minimum rather than the exception. The same pattern repeats across the ten brands reviewed below; that repetition is the point of regulation, not a coincidence.

Why this page keeps coming back to the margin

The margin is where the cost lives. A bookmaker’s prices do not pay out the “true” share of every pound bet on a market — they pay out less, and the difference is the margin. The promotional words — “free bet”, “boosted odds”, “risk-free” — name the margin’s other face. A punter who knows what the margin is, and what a particular offer asks them to do to clear it, makes a different decision to a punter who reads only the headline. The rest of this guide tries to be useful for that punter.

The shape of a prediction: apps, mobile sites and what they actually show

A “bet prediction app” is, in practice, the same product as the bookmaker’s mobile site: a wallet, a sportsbook, an in-play tab and a bet slip. What changes is which screens are easier to reach. Midnite’s mobile product is built around in-play events, an acca builder, a popular-accas feed and price boosts with maximum-stake limits, and the brand sits on a Gambling Commission licence under account 101839. The acca builder and the popular-accas feed are two screens that have become standard across new UK-facing brands: one is a tool, the other is a list of what other people have already bet on. Both are useful; neither replaces reading the form.

A prediction app cannot read the form for the punter. What it does is collapse the time between “fixture added to the schedule” and “bet accepted” to a few taps. That is its genuine advantage, and it is the reason live-betting turnover keeps growing. The cost is the temptation to bet on something the punter has not thought about for longer than the time it took to tap the screen.

Native apps on the App Store in the UK have age ratings that range from 17+ to 18+; the rating is a content guideline, not a regulatory decision. The only legally binding age test is the one the operator runs at sign-up, before the first deposit.

What “AI prediction” really does

Searches for “best AI betting prediction app” and “best AI sports betting prediction apps 2026” point at the same thing: a model that ranks fixtures by some combination of form, statistics and the bookmaker’s own prices, then suggests a stake. The honest description is that the model is a faster version of the analysis any serious punter already does. Its edge is the speed at which it weighs form and statistics across leagues; its limit is the same as the punter’s. The market’s prices already incorporate most of what is knowable about a fixture, and no model can see a hamstring tweak that surfaces only an hour before kick-off. Anyone selling a “sure” prediction is selling confidence, not certainty.

Predictions and strategy: how a tip is actually built

A prediction is built from the same handful of ingredients every time. The list is short because the inputs are short.

Form

Form is the recent results of the teams or players involved, read in the right order. The Premier League table is not form; the last six results are closer, and the last six of the side that matters — home or away, after a European night, with rotation in the squad — is closer still.

Statistics and line-ups

Expected goals, shots on target, big chances, set-piece routines, the availability of a first-choice goalkeeper: this is the work. So is the line-up an hour before kick-off. A prediction built on Tuesday for a Saturday game is already half-stale by Friday morning, and a punt built on stale work is a punt built on somebody else’s stale work.

The market’s own odds

A price is a number. It is also a summary, by the bookmaker’s traders, of every input they have read. Treat it as a probability with the margin stripped out and it becomes a comparison: is the price higher than the punter’s own probability? If yes, that is a value bet. If no, the price is already in the bet.

What a value bet actually is

A value bet is a price that is bigger than the bet the price implies. If a punter thinks Manchester City win a fixture 55% of the time and the bookmaker is offering 2.00 (1/1), the implied probability at that price is 50%; 55% is higher than 50%, so the bet has value. The size of that value depends on how wrong the punter is, and the punter is always partly wrong. There is no such thing as a 100% value bet.

Staking and bankroll

A bankroll is the sum of money the punter has put aside for betting and will not need for anything else. Staking is the size of each bet as a fraction of that bankroll: 1% per bet is a conservative baseline, 2% is a working figure for most, 5% is the upper end for most recreational bettors. The point of the system is to keep the punter in the game after a run of losers, because runs of losers are what a punter who bets regularly is going to have.

Why no tip is certain

No tip is certain because every input is partial: form goes back to last week at best, statistics go back to last season at best, line-ups are confirmed an hour before kick-off, and the bookmaker’s odds already incorporate most of what is knowable. A 1.50 price is not a certainty; it is a 67% chance that fails one match in three. The only way to make money from a tip in the long run is to find prices whose probability the punter’s work reads higher than the bookmaker’s work does, and to stake small enough that a run of losers does not end the bankroll. That is the whole honest answer.

Bankroll discipline is the difference

Bankroll discipline is the boring half of betting strategy and the half that decides whether a tip sheet turns into a profit or a hole in the punter’s account. A 1% stake on 200 bets at an average price of 2.10 with a 5% margin is a different shape of activity to 5% stakes on 40 bets at the same average. The expected cost of the 200-bet run is roughly the turnover of the bookmaker’s margin; the expected cost of the 40-bet run is the same per cent of a much larger turnover. Stakes decide how much of the punter’s bankroll is exposed to the variance; prices decide how much that exposure costs.

Sure-bet claims and how to read them

A “sure bet prediction” is a contradiction in terms. If a bet were sure, the price would be 1.01 and the bookmaker would not bother listing it. What the search phrase really reaches for is a price whose probability the punter reads above the market’s reading. That is a value bet, and it is the same thing the rest of this section is about under a different name.

The ten reviewed bookmakers, ranked by what they actually offer

A “free bet prediction site” is, in 2026, a Gambling Commission-licensed bookmaker that lets the punter deposit, claim an offer and place a bet. The ten below are all that, and what follows is what each one offers on its own terms and what its own licence says. None is presented as a tip sheet; all are presented as bookmakers a UK punter will actually meet when they search for one.

The comparison is built around three columns a UK punter can act on: the Gambling Commission licence account number and the holder behind it, and what the operator’s own terms state on the subject of this guide. The list is one operator by another; the pages that read it sit in the same order on every site, and a column carries the same value on every site, but the prose around it changes.

A 1.90 / 1.90 illustrative two-way market — the kind of line the page works with below — sits at a payout share of 1 ÷ (1/1.90 + 1/1.90), which is 0.95, or 95%, and a margin of 1 − 0.95, or 5%. A real two-way market at the same headline prices is unlikely to be priced that cleanly; the margin can run anywhere from roughly 2% on the deepest horse-racing place markets to north of 8% on a long-shot outright, and a band of 2% to 8% is the shape the live market takes in practice. The page uses 1.90 / 1.90 only because it is the cleanest example of how a margin is read.

NetBet — Daily Boosts and a Bet Builder that updates live

NetBet’s UK site lists Daily Boosts, Profit Boosts and free bet offers alongside a Bet Builder whose combined odds update as the punter adds legs, plus sports stats for the major leagues. Netbet Enterprises Limited holds UKGC account 39170, valid for remote general betting on real events. The Bet Builder with dynamic odds is the screen that distinguishes NetBet for a punter who likes to combine player props from the same fixture into one bet, and the Profit Boost is the screen that distinguishes it for an accumulator punter who wants a one-off price upgrade rather than the daily rotation.

The trade-off is depth: a brand built around a single feature does that feature well and the rest of the sportsbook less so. A punter who wants a deep horse-racing product will not find it here. A punter who wants a fast acca-builder with live price updates probably will.

Bet600 — Best Odds Guaranteed on racing

Bet600’s headline feature is Best Odds Guaranteed on horse racing: if the starting price is bigger than the price the punter took, the bet is paid at the SP. Tyche Tech Limited operates under UKGC account 44731, authorising remote general betting on real events. For a punter who backs horses early in the morning and watches the market move against them, that single rule is the reason to be on this bookmaker rather than another.

The cost is depth in the same place: Bet600 is not a name that turns up first on every sport, and a punter who needs a deep in-play product will find more elsewhere. A punter whose weekly betting is mostly racing will not.

Kwiff — a Supercharge that lands after the bet

Kwiff’s Supercharge is the screen that defines the brand: a bet the punter has already placed can, at any moment, be boosted — the published example is a 2/1 bet pushed to 20/1 — on singles or multiples and on any sport. Eaton Gate Gaming Limited holds UKGC account 44448, licensed for remote general betting on real events. A punter who likes the feeling of a bet becoming more valuable after they have placed it is the punter Kwiff is built for.

The catch is that the Supercharge is the feature, and the sportsbook around it is thinner than the bigger brands. A punter who wants every market under the sun will not find it here. A punter who wants the thrill of a price moving in their favour after they have backed a side probably will.

Sky Bet — £30 in free bets after a 5p qualifying bet

Sky Bet’s welcome offer is £30 in free bets, credited as three £10 tokens after a £5 deposit and a first single or each-way bet of at least 5p at odds of 1/1 or greater. SBG Sports Limited holds UKGC account 67370, covering remote general betting on real events. For a punter who wants a familiar British brand on the high street and on the phone, Sky Bet is the operator. The 5p qualifying bet is the smallest qualifying stake the welcome offers on this list, and that is the screen a small-budget punter will pay attention to first.

The free-bet tokens expire on the operator’s terms and the rest of the sportsbook is broader than the niche brands above. A punter who wants one bookmaker that does most things to a reasonable standard will not be disappointed. A punter who wants the deepest in-play product will find more elsewhere.

Matchbook — a betting exchange, not a bookmaker

Matchbook is a betting exchange: punters bet against each other rather than against a bookmaker. Triplebet Limited holds UKGC account 39504, licensed for remote general betting on real events and as a betting intermediary. The Bet Builder, the multiples and the in-play betting are the screens a back-only punter will recognise; the lay side, where a punter backs a horse to lose, is the screen that distinguishes an exchange from a bookmaker. Live streaming of horse racing and greyhounds is included.

The shape of an exchange price is different from a bookmaker’s: the margin is typically lower, and the available liquidity on smaller markets is typically thinner. A punter who wants to lay a bet will rarely find it on a bookmaker and will find it here. A punter who wants a familiar bookmaker experience will not.

Sporting Index — a spread-betting welcome for a niche audience

Sporting Index’s new-customer offer mixes fixed-odds and spread betting: a £10 fixed-odds qualifying bet at minimum odds of 1/2 unlocks three £10 fixed-odds free bets, three £5 Total Goals spread bets, three £5 Winning Favourites spread bets and a £1 Race Index spread bet, and the qualifying bet cannot be placed in-play or cashed out early. Sporting Index Limited holds UKGC account 27343, which authorises remote general betting on real events. Spreadex, which is regulated by the FCA for spread betting and by the Gambling Commission for fixed-odds betting, has the same shape on its own page — the regulator split is the screen a UK punter should check before opening either account.

Spread betting is not the same product as fixed-odds betting, and losses on a spread bet can exceed the deposit. A punter who understands that and wants both products under one licence will be in the right place. A punter who wants a straightforward bookmaker will not.

Betfair — the bigger exchange with sportsbook on the side

Betfair runs both a betting exchange and a sportsbook. PPB Counterparty Services Limited holds UKGC account 39439, valid for remote general betting on real events. The in-play betting, the Bet Builder, the free live streaming of UK and Irish horse racing and football in the app, and the 90 Minute Payout market — paid out if the backed team is ahead at the 90-minute mark, regardless of extra time — are the screens that distinguish the sportsbook side. The exchange side is the screen that distinguishes Betfair from a bookmaker. The exchange is the same shape as Matchbook, with deeper liquidity on bigger markets and thinner liquidity elsewhere.

A punter who wants both an exchange and a sportsbook under one licence and one login will be in the right place. A punter who wants only the sportsbook side will pay for the rest in the screen they ignore.

Star Sports — independent, with casino and virtuals on the side

Star Sports describes itself as the UK’s leading independent bookmaker, with virtual sports, casino and live casino alongside the sportsbook. Star Racing Limited holds UKGC account 9177, and the licence covers remote general betting on real events. The “independent” label is the screen that distinguishes the brand from the chains: this is a family name rather than a corporate parent, and the product set is shaped accordingly.

The cost of independence is depth in the same place: a smaller brand does not always carry every market the bigger chains do. A punter who wants a brand whose name they can attach to a person rather than a parent company will be in the right place. A punter who wants the deepest market coverage will find more elsewhere.

Hollywoodbets — acca stake-back, one free bet per customer

Hollywoodbets’ sports welcome offer is straightforward: new players who deposit £10 or more by card get their stake back as a free bet of up to £30 on their first qualifying losing accumulator, with the acca stake at £10 or more, three or more legs, odds of 4/1 or greater, settled within seven days, and one free bet per customer. Hollywoodbets International UK Limited holds UKGC account 53028, and the licence covers remote general betting on real events. The acca-stake-back is the screen that distinguishes Hollywoodbets for a punter whose betting is built around accumulators.

The “settled within seven days” line is the screen a punter should read before they place: a long-priced acca that drifts past a week becomes void for the purpose of the offer. A punter whose accas settle quickly will not notice.

Fitzdares — premium feel, antepost, Lucky 15s

Fitzdares’ app lists cash out, accumulators, Lucky 15s, specials and antepost markets on horse racing, football, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf and American football, with in-play live odds. Fitzdares Limited holds UKGC account 400, and the licence covers remote general betting on real events. The Lucky 15 and the antepost emphasis are the screens that distinguish Fitzdares from a generic sportsbook: this is a bookmaker built around the horse-racing and antepost markets first, with the rest of the sportsbook beside it.

The premium feel is the screen a punter pays for in price rather than in a fee. A punter whose weekly betting is racing and antepost will be in the right place.

The headline beyond the headline

A welcome offer is the screen a bookmaker opens with. The screen the punter should pay attention to is the one they look at a month after they have signed up: the price margin on the sports they actually bet on, the cash-out policy, the in-play depth, the withdrawal time and the customer-service response when a bet settles the wrong way. None of the ten above is the cheapest bookmaker on every market; none is the most expensive on every market either. A punter who wants the cheapest football prices and the deepest racing product will not find both in the same brand.

The picture behind a prediction

The maths of a price: the margin

The margin is the cut a bookmaker takes out of every market. It is the difference between what the market would pay out if every outcome were priced at its exact probability and what the market actually pays out. At a clean 1.90 / 1.90 two-way line, the implied probabilities are 52.6% on each side, the payout share is 95% and the margin is 5%. In the live market the margin runs from roughly 2% on the deepest horse-racing place markets to north of 8% on a long-shot outright, and a band of 2% to 8% is the shape the live market takes in practice. The 1.90 / 1.90 line is an example, not a quoted price.

The reason a punter cares is that every bet on a market takes the margin out of the punter’s stake. A 5% margin on a £100 turnover is £5 expected cost to the punter, and that is before any win or loss on the bet. The same margin is the difference between a value bet and a non-value bet at any given price.

The maths of a price: the payout

Return is stake multiplied by the decimal odds. Net profit is stake multiplied by (odds minus 1). A £10 single at 3.00 pays £30 — £10 stake back plus £20 profit. A £10 treble at combined odds of 6.00 / 4.00 / 2.50, multiplied to 60.00, pays £600 — £10 stake back plus £590 profit. The numbers are not predictions of what the bet will pay; they are what the bet pays if it wins.

For an each-way bet the stake doubles, because an each-way bet is two equal bets: one on the win, one on the place. A £5 each-way at 10.00 with a quarter the odds for a place of four is a £5 win bet at 10.00 plus a £5 place bet at 2.50. Total stake: £10. Win both: £5 × 10.00 plus £5 × 2.50, or £62.50. Win only: the win leg pays and the place leg loses, so the return is £50. Lose: nothing back.

For a Lucky 15 — 15 bets across four selections — the total stake is the unit stake multiplied by 15. A 50p Lucky 15 costs £7.50. For a Goliath — 247 bets across eight selections — the total stake is the unit stake multiplied by 247. A 10p Goliath costs £24.70. The unit stake is what the punter types; the total stake is what the slip charges.

The maths of an offer: the turnover it asks for

A free bet whose stake is not paid back with a win is worth less than the headline number. A £10 free bet at 4.00 pays £30 — the £10 stake is not returned, the £30 is profit. The expected value depends on the market the bet is placed on, because the market’s margin eats into the expected payout. A free bet at 4.00 on a market with a 5% margin has a different value to the same free bet at 4.00 on a market with a 10% margin. Both are valid offers; they are not the same offer.

A bonus with a wagering requirement asks the punter to turn over a multiple of the bonus before the bonus becomes withdrawable. The promotion rules in force since 19 January 2026 cap bonus wagering at 10x, so a £10 bonus at 50x needed £500 of bets and under the cap needs no more than £100. A £10 bonus at 10x on a £10 stake is 10 bets at the minimum allowed stake; on a £100 stake it is one bet. The wagering factor is what the punter looks at first.

The maths of an offer: the expected cost

Expected cost is the turnover multiplied by the margin of the market the wagering is done on. A £100 turnover at a 5% margin is a £5 expected cost; the same turnover at a 10% margin is a £10 expected cost. The wagering requirement decides how much the punter has to bet; the margin decides how much that betting is worth. Two bonuses with the same headline value and the same wagering factor are not the same offer if the markets they apply to have different margins.

How a punter reads the offers on this page

Sky Bet’s £30 in free bets after a 5p qualifying bet is a thin qualifying condition and a chunky free-bet headline. Hollywoodbets’ acca stake-back is a different shape: it pays the stake back on a losing acca, so the offer’s value depends on how often the punter’s accas lose at the required price. Coral’s bet money — fixed or £40 in free bets for a £20 bet — is a familiar structure on the British market and shows up in similar form on several of the bigger brands; Unibet’s, for example, runs to the same headline. None of these offers is the same as any other, because the markets they unlock and the wagering they ask for are not the same.

The free prediction site question, and how to read it

What a “free bet prediction site” actually is

A free bet prediction site is, in 2026, a bookmaker that runs a free-bet welcome offer and lets the punter place bets on the markets the offer unlocks. The “prediction” in the name is the punter’s reading of the market; the “free bet” is the offer the site uses to attract the punter to its reading. The two have nothing to do with each other except that the punter uses the free bet to back their prediction. A free bet does not improve the probability of a prediction; it changes what the punter pays for the bet.

What “best free bet prediction site” really asks

“Best” is the word doing the work. It can mean the biggest free bet, the lowest wagering requirement, the cheapest margin on the markets the punter bets on, or the fastest withdrawal once the punter wants their money out. None of these is “best” for every punter, and the answer to the question is the one that matches the punter’s betting shape: a small-stake punter wants a low qualifying bet; a deep-pocketed punter wants a high maximum win; a racing punter wants Best Odds Guaranteed; an in-play punter wants a deep in-play product. The ten brands above are sorted by the feature that distinguishes each one; the right brand for a punter is the one whose feature matches the punter’s shape.

The bait in the headline

“Best Odds Guaranteed” is a rule that pays out the bigger of the price taken or the starting price on horse racing; Bet600, William Hill, Coral, BetVictor and Unibet all offer it on UK and Irish racing, and Coral extends it to every UK greyhound race. The word “free” does not mean the bookmaker gives the punter a price they would not otherwise have; it means the bookmaker pays out the better of two prices the punter could already have taken elsewhere. A punter who only backs horses at the off already pays the starting price; a punter who backs early in the morning is the one the rule is built for.

The bait in the bonus

“Risk-free bet” is a phrase that means a stake returned as a free bet if the first bet loses; the stake is not returned in cash, the free bet is subject to the operator’s wagering rules, and the punter has not been refunded — they have been reissued a smaller credit on the operator’s terms. The marketing word “risk-free” is the cut on the marketing version of the offer; the punter’s version of the offer is a stake-back in free-bet form. The audit catches the difference by counting the words, and the punter catches it by reading the terms.

The bait in “AI predictions”

A model is a faster way to weigh the same form and statistics a punter would weigh by hand. The model is useful to the punter who already knows what they are looking for and uses the model to do it faster. The model is not useful to the punter who thinks the model knows something they do not, because the model’s output is its reading of the same public data the punter would read. Anyone selling a prediction as a certainty is selling confidence, not certainty.

The overview of this page

What the page is and is not

This page is a guide, not a tip sheet. It explains how a value bet is built, what the margin takes out of every price, what a welcome offer actually asks the punter to do to clear it, and why no tip is certain. It does not name a winner, does not pick a fixture, and does not promise a return. The licensed brands reviewed above are presented as bookmakers, not as recommendations.

What the punter does with this page

A punter who has read this far knows three things: how a prediction is built, what the margin takes out of every price, and what each of the ten brands offers on its own terms. The next step is the punter’s: choose a brand on the feature that matches their betting shape, read the terms of the welcome offer before claiming it, set a deposit limit at the level they can afford, and register with GAMSTOP if they want to take a break. None of those steps is in this page’s hands.

Frequently asked questions about bookies predictions in 2026

How do you bet on prediction markets?

A prediction market is just another name for a sportsbook market — the bookmaker publishes prices on outcomes of a fixture, the punter backs the outcome they think is most likely, and the stake is multiplied by the decimal odds if the bet wins. The “prediction” sits with the punter, not with the bookmaker. At an exchange the same idea works in reverse: the punter can back an outcome to happen or lay an outcome not to happen.

What does 12 mean in betting prediction?

“12” is a two-way match-result market that removes the draw: the punter backs either the home side (1) or the away side (2) to win, and the draw settles as a loss on either bet. It is a useful market when the punter thinks a draw is unlikely but is not sure which side will win. On a coupon it usually pays a smaller price than the 1X2 home win or away win alone, because the bookmaker has removed one outcome from the market.

How do you win at bet prediction?

No one wins at prediction in the long run by picking winners. A punter wins by finding a price whose probability the punter’s work reads higher than the bookmaker’s work does, staking a small fraction of the bankroll on each bet, and accepting that runs of losers are part of the game. Anyone promising a way to “win” at prediction is selling confidence. The honest version of the same answer is bankroll discipline plus value-bet selection plus time.

What is a value bet and why is no tip ever certain?

A value bet is a price whose implied probability is lower than the punter’s own probability. A 2.00 price implies 50%; if the punter reads the fixture at 55%, the bet has positive expected value. No tip is certain because every input is partial: form goes back to last week at best, statistics go back to last season at best, line-ups are confirmed an hour before kick-off, and the bookmaker’s prices already incorporate most of what is knowable. The only edge is the small gap between the bookmaker’s reading and the punter’s, and that gap closes for most punters within a season.

What is the bookmaker’s margin and how can it be seen in the odds?

The margin is the cut the bookmaker takes out of every market. At a 1.90 / 1.90 line the implied probabilities are 52.6% on each side, the payout share is 95%, and the margin is 5%. In the live market the margin runs from roughly 2% on the deepest horse-racing place markets to north of 8% on a long-shot outright. The way to see it is to add up the implied probabilities of every outcome on the market: the total is more than 100%, and the gap is the margin.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

Return is stake multiplied by the decimal odds. A £10 single at 3.00 pays £30, which is £10 stake back plus £20 profit. A treble at combined odds of 6.00 / 4.00 / 2.50 — multiplied to 60.00 — pays a £10 stake as £600. An each-way bet is two equal bets, so the stake doubles. A Lucky 15 across four selections is 15 bets, so a 50p unit stake costs £7.50. The numbers are what the bet pays if it wins; they are not a prediction of what will happen.

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