Odds Comparison Sites
Odds comparison sites compare odds offered on betting markets provided by a number of popular bookmakers and betting exchanges. The best price for a particular market is highlighted and so you can quickly see who is offering the best value.
Oddschecker (http://www.oddschecker.com) is a high profile example of an odds comparison site. Oddschecker was launched in 1999 with the aim of allowing its users to instantly identify the best betting value in any market from a selection of over 21 bookmakers and exchanges. Oddschecker was acquired by Sky in 2007. In 2015, Sky sold an 80% stake in its online betting and gaming business (Sky Bet). Oddschecker was part of this deal.
Oddschecker publishes the odds for over 500000 betting markets every month. The main focus is sporting events. "Specials" markets are also covered. For example, Reality TV, Showbiz, Politics and Novelty markets. Oddschecker is free to use. You don’t need to register to use Oddscheckers core service – the odds comparisons. However, additional benefits are provided by registering on the site. For example, newsletters and offers.
By default, Oddschecker factors in the commission betting exchanges charge into the prices it publishes. This enables Oddschecker to provide a fair comparison between bookmaker’s odds and betting exchange odds. (If you want, you can change this behaviour, although you will need to create an Oddschecker account before you can exclude commission from the exchange prices.)
To use Oddschecker, you navigate to the betting market you are interested in and then select the best value odds, which are highlighted in bold. You are then taken directly to the betting slip at the chosen bookmaker or exchange. (Obviously you need a funded account with that bookmaker or exchange to go ahead and place the bet.)
Oddschecker makes it easy therefore to see who is providing the best value odds for individual bets. In the standard interface, however, it is trickier to do this for several selections that are combined to form an accumulator. This problem is addressed with Oddschecker’s bet basket. Build your accumulator by adding your selections to the bet basket. Once you have finished you can open the bet basket to review your selections and see the best odds for your accumulator. This makes picking the best bookie for an accumulator as easy at is is for a single.
Oddschecker uses colour coding to show you whether a selection’s odds are shortening or drifting. If a selection’s odds are shortening, it is attracting bettor’s money and indicates the selection is fancied to do well. Conversely, if a selection’s odds are drifting, it is not particularly fancied.
Oddschecker not only shows you the odds provided by various bookmakers and exchanges, it also shows you the various promotions they have to offer, giving you further opportunity to place value bets.
Oddschecker receives odds directly from the bookmakers and bookies, and aims to publish them in as close to real time as possible. If you place a bet based on inaccurate odds published on the Oddschecker site, you need to consult the relevant bookmaker’s terms and conditions for the relevant error settling procedure.
For users of mobile devices, there is a mobile friendly version of the Oddschecker site (https://m.oddschecker.com) and an Oddschecker app for iOS and Android. The mobile friendly Oddschecker site has fewer bookmakers and exchanges to choose from than the main version of the site. The available odds are displayed in list boxes; the best value odds appear at the top of the list.
The app was launched in 2014 with a TV ad campaign, featuring Oddschecker’s brand characters Inspector Odds and his dog Checker, used to promote and communicate the benefits of the app. The main benefit being "In-App betting", which allows users to select the best value odds and then go on to place a bet with the selected firm without leaving the app, removing the usability problems associated with switching between different bookmaker’s apps.
User of the mobile app have the fewest number of bookmakers to choose from. The initial selection was Bet365, Betfair, BetVictor, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Sky Bet and William Hill.
