Kelly Betting

Kelly Betting

The Kelly Criterion is a mathematical formula used to determine the optimal size of a bet relative to your total betting pot. It’s widely used in betting and investing because it helps to maximize returns 📈 over time while minimizing the risk 📉 of ruin. The Kelly Criterion calculates the percentage of your pot to stake on a particular bet based on the probability of success and the odds offered.

How Does It Work?

An Example

• Your betting pot is £100.
• The bookmaker offers odds of 3.0 (equivalent to a 2 – to – 1 return).
• You estimate a 60% chance of the bet winning.

This means you should bet 40% of your pot, which is £40.

How We Use It In Recommendations

Our algorithm combines league-specific data and a version of the Kelly Criterion to make tailored recommendations. The percentage you see in each match recommendation is the optimal stake size for that bet, based on:

• The odds offered by the bookmaker;
• Our calculated probability of the outcome occurring.

For example:

• If the recommendation says “Bet 2%,” and your pot is £100, you should bet £2.
• If it says “Bet 5%,” and your pot is £500, you should bet £25.

You can see exactly how this looks below with the value bets first being identified, and then the specific Kelly % recommendations. 🔥

Why Use The Kelly Criterion?

1. Maximises Growth: By staking proportionally, it helps you grow your pot faster than flat betting or random betting.
2. Manages Risk: It ensures you’re never staking too much on any one bet, reducing the chance of wiping out your pot.
3. Data-Driven Decisions: The criterion forces discipline, ensuring your bets are based on probabilities and value, not emotions

By following these recommendations and the Kelly Criterion, you can take a smarter, calculated approach to betting, optimising your potential returns while managing your risk effectively.

Sports4Cast Kelly Stats

Below shows a blow by blow account of the stats of our recommendations on a week by week basis. You can see:

• Pot Size – the size of the pot at the start of each week;
• % Pot Stakes – the amount of the pot that we bet each week;
• P/L – the percentage gain or loss that week;
• G/W Matches – the number of matches occurring that week;
• No. Bets – the number of bets recommended;
• Avg Size – the average percentage size of those bets;
• Avg Odds – the average odds the recommendations were made on;
• Bets Won – the bets won each week;
• Avg Win Odds – the average of the winning odds;
• Max Win Odds – the maximum winning odds each week.

You can see that the Algorithm is often recommending a lot of bets each week, and that on average you are laying down around 50% of your pot a week, with this sometimes increasing to nearly your entire pot over a week.

DON'T PANIC! The Algorithm is betting perfectly according to its own advice, which most will not be able to do (although if you are on the website regularly it is possible). And there is also a large universe of matches to be betting on. None of the bets are any better or worse than any of the others, and the same theory applies to all of them. If you follow the advice, and bet on the mispricings identified then you should end up in profit - although clearly this cannot be guaranteed.

So it doesn't matter if you bet on 1 recommendation a week or 50 recommendations a week, the same logic applies. It's just that if you only bet on 1 a week, it may take a little longer for the law of averages to fall in your favour!

Best Practice / How to Use

The website is updated daily, each morning. It takes a little time for the latest information to percolate around the web, but usually by 10AM GMT everything is up to date for that day. So checking the website at around 11AM each day and placing the recommended bets identified would be the optimum strategy if you are trying to cover everything.

However if you don't have the time to do that, then checking a couple of times a week - but probably especially on a Thursday or Friday ahead of the weekend matches - would be perfectly fine. You might not catch every single bet, but you'll very likely cover enough of them to end up profitable.