1. Choose your bookmakers
Open Settings and, under Show me, tick the bookmakers you have accounts with. From then on the board only shows picks you can actually take, and each pick shows the best price among your bookmakers. You can also limit sports and markets there.
More bookmakers means more picks, because the best price moves around between them, and it helps when a bookmaker limits your stakes. A few are enough to start.
2. Set what a unit is worth
Sharp Bets suggests stakes in units, sized from the edge and the odds. Under Money in Settings, set what one unit is worth to you (1 unit = ...), and stakes show in kronor too. A common starting point is 1% of the amount you have set aside for betting.
Under Money you can also set a weekly limit. My Bets warns you when your stakes for the week go over it.
3. Read a pick
- Best EV: how much better the best price is than the fair odds, in percent (what +EV means). A pick needs at least 2%.
- Pinnacle odds: the sharpest bookmaker's price right now, with "opened" showing its price when the pick was found.
- Fair odds: Pinnacle's price with its margin removed (Shin's method). This is what the edge is measured against.
- Odds Down: Pinnacle's price has dropped since the pick was found, so the market moved towards this outcome.
- Golden: the edge has grown on every check since the pick appeared.
- Wide line: Pinnacle's margin is unusually high, so the fair odds are less certain.
- Why this pick?: the whole calculation, step by step, and how comparable picks have closed.
4. Place the bet, then log it
Tap Place bet to open the match at the bookmaker, and check the price there before you bet: odds are fetched, not streamed, and can move within minutes. If the price has dropped, the edge may be gone.
Once you have placed it, tap + Log on the pick. You can change the stake first. Sharp Bets then follows the price to the start, fills in the closing line and the result for you, and the bet counts in your own statistics.
5. Turn on alerts
Under Alerts in Settings, switch on notifications for this device, and choose which kinds you want: new picks, Golden and Odds Down. Alerts follow your filters, so you only hear about picks at your bookmakers.
On an iPhone, alerts only work in the home-screen app: open sharpbets.se in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, open Sharp Bets from the new icon, and switch alerts on there.
6. Follow up in My Bets
My Bets shows your bets with their closing-line value (CLV): whether the price you took was better than the market's last price before the start. Over many bets, a positive CLV is the best early sign that you are betting with an edge. See our guide to closing line value.
The luck meter compares your profit with what the closing lines say your bets were worth. Short runs swing a lot, so a losing month with a positive CLV is normal, and so is a winning month with a negative one.
Before you start
+EV betting is an edge in price, not a guarantee: single bets lose often, and results only reflect the edge over hundreds of bets. Bet only money you can afford to lose. Is +EV betting for you? helps you decide, and you can follow the board for a week or two without betting first.
If betting stops being fun, Spelpaus lets you exclude yourself from every Swedish-licensed bookmaker, and Stödlinjen offers free, anonymous support.
Common questions
Do I need accounts at all 14 bookmakers?
No. Choose the ones you have under Show me in Settings, and the board only shows picks you can take. More bookmakers give more picks, but a few are enough to start.
Why should I log my bets?
Logging is how you find out whether your own bets beat the closing line. Sharp Bets fills in the closing line and the result for you, so your CLV builds up without a spreadsheet.
Why did the price change when I opened the bookmaker?
Odds are fetched, not streamed, so a price can move between a check and your click. Always check the price at the bookmaker; if it has dropped, the edge may be gone.