This guide attempts to answer the hardest question in gambling which is how do I win money? Millions of us around the world make sports bets on a weekly basis. Some people do this purely for recreation and have no expectation of ever winning money, however most are in it to win some cash.

I think apart from some very unlucky people most find that some bets win and some bets lose. Again from this group most find that they lose over time and the bookies win, so why is this?

Well it all comes down to price. If we assume that a sporting event is not fixed then all gamblers have to approach the event thinking that any result is possible. You should never look at a fixture and assume a result, you don’t know what will happen and neither does the Bookmaker.

However the Bookmaker believes that he knows roughly what the probabilities are for each possible outcome, so if Arsenal are 50% likely to beat Liverpool at home then the actual price required is 2.0.

The Bookmaker needs to make money so they will typically price them at 10/11 or 1.909 in decimals. So if you make 10 bets of £10 each on a Saturday all about 2.0 then probability suggests that 5 will win and 5 will lose. That’s fine if you got 2.0 as you will get back the £100 you started with, however if you have taken 10/11 then you will only get back £95.45.

Even betting on consistent winners like Roger Federer can lose you money in the long run

So if you want to start making money from gambling then you have to stop making betting decisions on what you think will happen, you don’t know! Start making them based on price.

So how do you as an individual determine the true probability and so price of an event? If you have a maths degree from a decent university then you can try and build your own model, however this is unnecessary as the work has been done for you by Betfair.

The money or liquidity available on Betfair is on the whole generated from very large gamblers with very sophisticated  pricing models. These professional enterprises spend huge amounts of money on models and information to accurately determine the true probability and so price of each outcome. If they discover an incorrect price they invest heavily. This has the effect of changing the exchange price dramatically. The new exchange price then represents the correct probability of a result happening.

So if you want to make money from gambling you need to back at a higher price with the Bookmakers than is available at that point in time on the exchanges. So in our example if your 10 selections are all 10/11 at the Bookmakers but the exchange price is actually 1.87, then across the 10 matches you would expect to make money rather than losing it.

You can apply this central principle in three main ways:

Take the top price on your chosen selection

If you fancy Arsenal to beat Liverpool and want to bet that way because you want to watch the game then make sure you take the top price. The difference between top and bottom price can be as much as 30%, no matter how good your instincts are you cannot give away 30% and hope to win.

This means you should open an account with all the Bookmakers on an affiliate website – a favourite of mine is FootyTips365, and review the odds offered by each on a site like Odds Checker so that you can always get the top price on your chosen selection.

Remember to only use Bookies who are credible firms and who actually pay out; they must have history and a UK Gambling licence. I'd advise you not to use firms without these characteristics.

The odds of any outcome, such as Eden Hazard scoring a goal, can vary wildly from Bookie to Bookie

Bet on whatever offers value

This is the best way of making money. A quick run through on a Saturday at 9.00am will show you several examples just on the Premier League where the Bookmakers are a bigger price than Betfair. If you go through every match in every league and every horse race there are hundreds daily.

Bet no more than 5% of your bank on each selection as they will not all win, however over the month you are extremely likely to be winning money. It is possible that everything will lose its just the probabilities are in your favour.

The smaller you bet as a percentage of your bank the more the maths moves in your favour, if you have £100 and only bet £1 a game then over £100 bets you should be up, if you only do 2 bets of £50 each then although the odds are in your favour you could easily lose both bets. Once you choose your bank and staking plan stick with it as if all your bets are arbs you will win money over time.

Place an arbitrage bet or 'sure bet'

The advantage of doing a value bet is that you do not have to pay exchange commission. However if you do not want to take any risk then you can place a lay bet on the exchange so that you win whatever happens.

So for example you could bet £1,000 on United at 2.0 and then lay that off at 1.9 for £1,000 you will make £100 less comm if United win, if you use Betdaq then this is only 2%. The disadvantage is that you end up making twice as many bets and the admin becomes greater. However if you do larger stakes then you can make very good money in this way.

On a totally separate note the author of this article has just released his first game in the App store, its totally free and if you are a fan of Retro Games or Football nostalgia then you will enjoy this trip down memory lane.