What taking the worst price costs you over a season
Published 10 October 2026. A worked example with hypothetical figures.
Illustration. The stakes, prices and results in this post are hypothetical, chosen to show the arithmetic. They are not measured bookmaker figures.
Illustration: two fans back the same team in all 38 Premier League matches with £100 a game, and both pick the same 19 winners. One takes the best price on offer, 2.10. The other takes 1.95 at the first bookmaker they open. The price is the only difference, and it is worth £285 by May.
Sam and Alex support the same club and have the same habit. Every matchday they put £100 on their team to win. Same team, same stake, same 38 games, and the same 19 wins across the season.
Sam checks a comparison page before each bet and takes the best price, 2.10. Alex opens one app and takes whatever it shows, which in this example is 1.95. It looks like a rounding difference. Here is what it does over a season.
The worked example
Both of them stake £100 × 38 = £3,800 over the season.
| Bettor | Price | Returns from 19 wins | Staked | Season result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam | 2.10 | 19 × £100 × 2.10 = £3,990 | £3,800 | +£190 |
| Alex | 1.95 | 19 × £100 × 1.95 = £3,705 | £3,800 | −£95 |
Every winning bet pays Alex £100 × (2.10 − 1.95) = £15 less than Sam. Across 19 winners that is 19 × £15 = £285. Sam finishes the season in profit at +£190. Alex, with exactly the same picks, finishes −£95.
Why the gap is bigger than it looks
The price sets how often you need to win just to break even. At 2.10 you need to win 1 ÷ 2.10 = 47.6% of your bets. At 1.95 you need 1 ÷ 1.95 = 51.3%. Winning half your bets clears the first bar and misses the second. Nothing about the football changed, only the price.
The takeaway
You cannot control results, but you can control the price. Checking a few bookmakers before each bet costs a minute. In this illustration it is the difference between +£190 and −£95 on identical picks. Prices move, and the gap between bookmakers changes from match to match, so the only reliable habit is to compare every time. The live odds comparison highlights the best price for each outcome, and the line shopping guide explains the habit in more detail.
About these numbers
This is an illustration. The stake, the two prices and the 19-from-38 record are made up to show the arithmetic, and every figure above can be checked from them. They are not measured from The Best Betting Odds snapshots and they are not a claim about any bookmaker. For measured figures, see the ranking stories on the Stories page.