Value Betting Strategies: Racing vs Poker Value betting differs greatly between horse racing and Texas Holdem poker but the overall concept is the same. The main difference being that traditionally in horse racing value betting occurs in advance of the race while in poker it happens in the latter stages of play. The concept of value betting on both horses and cards is that if you consistently place bets where you are getting ‘good value’ for your money you will show a profit in the long-term. The chief way of finding value in horse racing is by studying the form of the horses in a race. The more you study and analyse a race the greater the chance that you will find an outlier in the bookmakers prices which represents value. These outliers or value prices occur regularly and are most common in low-grade races on busy days "bookmakers’ odds-compilers don’t have sufficient time to fully analyse every race " when the going changes significantly after the market has formed or when a gamble on one horse significantly distorts the market. A common misconception is that value only applies to higher priced horses when in fact it is just as likely that the favourite is the value bet. This is sometimes the case in large field races where the bookmakers try to bet to a reasonable over-round percentage but are unwilling to put realistic odds to the no-hopers. This causes the horses at the head of the market to be over-priced. Value betting strategies in poker are quite different. They generally occur with only one card to be dealt or after all cards have been dealt. The two basic strategies to value betting on poker are that you are trying to maximise your return on a winning hand or reduce the level of loss on a losing hand. An example of this is when a player is hoping to fill a flush which they know would be a winning hand. They will place a bet in the knowledge that they are currently losing the hand but if they fill their flush they will win. This bet has two purposes, firstly it often blocks the opponent from making a larger bet while at the same time it increases the pot size so that if the player drawing to the flush hits their hand they will be able to make a further bet that their opponent is committed to calling.
