OddsNotifier sends +EV betting opportunities by directly comparing real-time 'sharp' odds and 'soft' odds in a single Telegram alert. View sharp drops, alternative lines, max bet limits and graphs to make informed betting decisions.
In this guide we will cover everything you need to know in order to get your OddsNotifier Portal set up, configure profitable feeds, set timezone and recommended stakes and how to understand the Telegram Alerts. First, we need to cover the plans we offer, as what you are able to do hinges on the plan you are on. We created a blog on The Dropping Odds Strategy you might want to read before you get started.
OddsNotifier Dropping Odds Plans
We have three plans: Starter, Pro and Elite. Each plan allows access to different sports, settings and feeds. Understanding these plans is of paramount importance to ensure you get exactly what you need from OddsNotifier. Below is a comprehensive overview of each, the cost and what you need to know about each. All plans come with the option to toggle on the new OddsNotifier Pro Mode, although we advise beginners to start with 'Fixed Limit' alerts.
Starter - £29/month
The Starter plan has 3 feeds. Feeds 1 and 2 are preset and cannot be changed and Feed 3 is empty. Feed 1 contains 300 Football and Basketball Leagues, Feed 2 contains US Sports Player Props and Feed 3 is available to set opening alerts. These are alerts when the bookmaker first opens up their odds for betting.
Pro - £69/month
The Pro Plan has 2 feeds. These are completely empty, ready for you to customise with whatever sports, leagues and settings you want. You are allowed up to 20 configurations inside these feeds. Pro has access to 2 presets (profitable feeds built by our experts ready to plug in and play) which are Football - Big Leagues and Football - Small Leagues. Pro is 2 feeds with full control.
Elite - £149/month
The Elite plan has 10 feeds, unlimited alert configurations and 10 presets (profitable feeds built by our experts ready to plug in and play) covering a variety of sports. All 10 feeds are fully customisable with any sports, leagues and settings you want. Included in the Elite is our EV Scanner, which allows users to scan for value on demand. Priority support is also included in the Elite Plan.
Configuration
Before we start to build our feeds, we need to set some preferences in the Configuration tab. Here you can see what is available to set.
In the configuration tab you can set your preferred Timezone, Language, Recommended Staking on alerts, Odds Format and manage your subscription. The changes you make here will reflect on the Telegram Alerts you receive.
The OddsNotifier Portal
When you purchase a plan with us, you will be able to log in to the OddsNotifier Portal. This is your dedicated dashboard where you can build the feeds to send the alerts you want on Telegram.
Connecting to Telegram
The first thing you will need to do when you sign up for a plan at OddsNotifier is connect the Telegram Bots to your account. This is a very simple process, outlined below.
NOTE: You will only get an error if you have another email or Telegram account already connected with OddsNotifier. Please ensure that if you have an existing account, you use those credentials to avoid needing to contact support.
Here you can see my Feed 5 is NOT connected. To connect, simply click the "Connect to Telegram Feed" button, which will open the bot in your Telegram app and you will receive a message to say that the connection was a success. If you get any errors, it means you have an existing account with us and you will need to contact support to get it resolved. This is the chat icon in the bottom-right of any page on the OddsNotifier website.
Customising Your Feeds
Once you have connected all the feeds you wish to use, you will see a dashboard like this:
As you can see, I am on the Elite Plan, so I have access to 10 feeds which I can customise however I want. You can see an overview of what is inside each feed. Each feed represents each Telegram bot.
To customise a feed, simply click "Add Alert Types For Feed X" which will bring up a prompt to guide you through the setup. Here you can select from our expert presets where you can just enable which you want to use, or select "Advanced Setup" which allows you to build the feed your way, from the start. Below I will run through the Advanced Setup.
Step 1 - Select Alert Type
We have Dropping Odds and Opening Odds. Dropping odds are to get alerts when the odds drop at sharp books and Opening Odds are to get alerts when a bookmaker first adds markets for betting. Opening Odds are pretty clear, so in this example we will be configuring Dropping Odds.
Step 2 - Select Reference (Sharp) Bookmaker
Generally, Pinnacle will be set here. If you have the Pro or Elite plan, you have alternative options, like DraftKings and FanDuel for US Props and SingBet, Sbobet, 12bet and FB Sports for Football and Basketball. For now, we will choose Pinnacle. This is your sharp reference book, your source of truth. We will compare these odds to soft books to find value.
Step 3 - Select Leagues and Markets
Here you can define what sports and leagues you wish to receive alerts for. You can select individual leagues by typing "Football - England - Premier League" or you can just select "Football - All Leagues" if you want everything; the same applies to all sports. Then you need to select the markets you want alerts for. If you are a beginner, we suggest just using ML (Match Winner), Spread (Asian Handicap) and Totals (Over and Under Goals). Finally, define the feed you wish to apply this to. If you edited Feed 1, select Feed 1 here.
Step 4 - Select Expected Value Configurations
Here you can select the comparison bookmaker(s) you want to use. These will be the bookmakers where you are placing your bets, also referred to as 'soft' books. I will be placing bets at Bet365, so I selected only Bet365. You can select multiple soft books here if you will be spreading stakes across them.
Next we need to set our 'Expected Value' configuration. We have three options which I will explain below.
All Profitable Bets
This will send all value opportunities regardless of whether lines are equal or unequal.
Equal Lines Only
This will only send alerts if the line at Pinnacle and your soft book is the same. For example, the line at Pinnacle is Over 2.5 and the line at Bet365 is Over 2.5.
Different Lines Only
This will only send an alert if the line at Pinnacle and your soft book(s) are not the same. These can be particularly valuable if Pinnacle is Over 2.5 and your soft book is Over 2.0.
We fully recommend you start with All Profitable Bets and, as you get used to everything, you can set up an Unequal feed to test.
Next we need to set the Expected Value. This is the difference between the sharp odds and the soft odds. If the fair sharp odds are 2.00 and your soft book is offering 2.20, we can do 2.20/2.00 which gives us 110% Expected Value. We recommend you set this lower to begin with, between 103-105%, and make adjustments from there.
The last thing is the Line Difference Threshold. This is only applicable if you set "Different Lines Only" to target higher line discrepancies between the sharp book and the soft book. I would say this is an advanced setting best left until you are fully comfortable with OddsNotifier.
Step 5 - Advanced Filtering Options
Here we set the intricacies of the feed. You can leave everything as the defaults and that is fine, but if you want to edit these, here is an overview of what they mean.
First, you have the option of fixed limit or percentage drop. We always recommend starting with fixed limit. If you want to learn more about the percentage drop mode, we have a full blog available for you to read. The fixed limit movement threshold in this example is 0.1. This means you will only be sent alerts if the sharp book drops by 0.1 or more, e.g. 2.00 drops to 1.90 or further. At 0.1, a drop from 2.00 to 1.91 will not trigger an alert. We recommend setting an initial threshold of 0.03-0.07 and adjusting from there. Next, we have Minimum and Max Odds and Market Limit, which are pretty self-explanatory. Here you set the lowest and highest odds you want to receive alerts for. The market limit is the max liability the sharp bookmaker will accept in one bet. For example, if the max bet limit is €500, the maximum anyone can wager there is €500 and then the sharp books will adjust the odds before they can wager again. If you set a minimum market limit of €500, you will not receive alerts where the sharp book max is less than this. Why would you set this? You might set this if you prefer higher liquidity markets and do not trust drops at small limits.
Next is the Timing Controls. These are when you want to receive alerts. We will start with Hours Before Match. These are in increments of 1 until you go below 1 hour. If you want to only receive alerts 1 hour before the match starts, enter 1. If you want to only receive alerts 30 minutes before the match starts, enter 0.5. If you only want alerts 15 minutes before the match starts, enter 0.25.
Then we have Hours After Opening. This can be particularly effective on the big Football leagues to get on the opening movements. The later you get alerts on big leagues, the faster the soft books adjust, making it nearly impossible to get +EV positions, so going early can be fruitful. If you set this to 24, you will only receive alerts for the 24-hour period after the markets opened, then nothing after.
Next, we have Mute Hours Before Match Start. Following on from the above, in bigger leagues, it can be extremely difficult to obtain value on match day. This setting allows us to not receive alerts within a set number of hours of kick-off. If we set this to 10, we will not receive any alerts for matches that start within 10 hours.
Finally, we have two checkboxes: "Skip alerts when odds are above opening" and "Show main line on alternate alerts". The former means that if the sharp book opened at 2.00 and the odds are now 2.30, it will not send an alert. This is used for people that like the bet to be moving the 'right way', which is dropping, not drifting. If you only want to see bets where the current sharp odds are below the opening odds, check this box. The latter is simply to show you the main line on the alerts for context on how much value you are getting. We recommend only adding this when you are comfortable reading alerts.
Reading OddsNotifier Alerts - Spread (Asian Handicap)
Now we have configured our settings in the OddsNotifier Portal, we will start receiving dropping odds alerts on Telegram. In this section we will show some alerts, how to read them and what everything means.
Let's work our way through this alert. We get the notification that there is a new odds update (drop) at Pinnacle. We have some details about the match, such as the sport, country, league, date and time.
Then we have the market that the alert relates to, "Spread", also known as Asian Handicap, and the line in brackets (-1.0). The down arrow emoji means odds have dropped and the up arrow emoji means odds have increased. Naturally, we only care about the down arrow emoji to signal that odds have dropped.
NOTE: The spread in brackets (-1.0) always applies to the home team. This means that in this alert the home team spread is -1.0 and the away team spread is +1.0.
If the spread in brackets was (+1.0), then the home team would be +1.0 and the away team would be -1.0.
Next, we have the arrow emojis. The down arrow emoji indicates that the sharp odds have dropped (which is what we want) and the up arrow emoji indicates that the sharp odds have increased (not what we want). As you can see in this alert, Reims -1.0 has dropped at Pinnacle from 1.970 (odds in brackets is what it has dropped from) to 1.826 (odds before brackets is odds it has dropped to). This means the sharp book odds on Reims -1.0 is 1.826 and Bet365 are offering the same bet for 1.98, meaning we have positive expected value of 3.33%. This is what we are looking for: +EV opportunities.
The alert also shows the sharp opening odds. This is so you can see which way it has moved since it opened for betting. Reims -1.0 opened at 2.04 and is now 1.826 and Rodez +1.0 opened at 1.781 and is now 1.98, indicating a solid dropping pattern on Reims -1.0.
At the bottom, the alert has some buttons you can press. These are Mute, Lines, Closing, Track, Movements and Graph. Mute allows you to mute alerts if you have already taken a position. Lines allow you to see the odds of alternative sharp lines. Closing allows you to get an alert of what the odds closed at. Track allows you to track the movements of this match in a separate feed. Movements shows you all the key movements so far for the market in the alert and Graph allows you to visualise the movements with limit and odds information. I will go through a couple of the key buttons with illustrations below.
Movements
This button shows how this market has moved since it opened, giving you an overview with limit information in brackets. If limits increased and it kept dropping, that is a really strong sign. The payout is the margin at the sharp book. If the payout is 95.65%, then the margin is the difference to 100%, which is 4.35%. You also have a refresh button to see real-time odds at any point.
Graph
The graph gives you a clear visualisation of the movements and limits so far. The blue line is the odds for the drop in the alert (Reims -1.0) and the yellow line is the sharp bookmaker's max bet limits. On the right, there is a pane to show the numbers behind the graph. You can see the graph for "Other Lines" and use "Refresh" to get the latest odds.
Reading OddsNotifier Alerts - Totals (Over/Under)
With the Spread alerts, the line in brackets applies to the home team. With Totals, it is a little different. Here, the Totals line is (2.75), so it is always Over/Under. In this alert, the over odds have increased from (1.925) to 2.030 and the under has dropped from (1.862) to 1.763. The down arrow still indicates where the sharp odds have dropped and the up arrow still indicates where the sharp odds have increased. The over is always the odds on the left and the under is always the odds on the right. So the alert above is a drop on Under 2.75. Below is how a drop on the Over looks:
As you can see, the Totals line is (3.25) and the down arrow emoji is on the left-hand side odds, which are Overs. To summarise for Totals: the Totals line in brackets (3.25) is Over/Under, the odds on the left are Over and the odds on the right are Under. Everything else is the same.
Reading OddsNotifier Alerts - ML (Match Winner)
This is more straightforward. Simply:
Home Team Odds - Draw Odds - Away Team Odds
Arrow emojis mean the same, the odds in brackets are the same, everything is the same.
Reading OddsNotifier Alerts - Unequal Lines Spread & Totals
Unequal lines are arguably the best alerts you can get. They are, however, less common in the bigger leagues. Here is an example of an unequal Spread alert. As you can see above, Pinnacle is dropping on PSV -1.5 down to 1.826, but at Bet365 we can get -1.25 for 1.80. Fantastic! We are essentially getting a better line for around the same odds.
The same applies to Totals alerts. In this example, Pinnacle is dropping their odds for Over 3.0 to 1.90 and we can get Over 2.75 at Bet365 for roughly the same odds. Not only are we getting the same odds, we are getting a completely better line. These are referred to as 'unequal' lines, where the Pinnacle line and the soft book line are not the same. Targeting these can be highly effective, particularly on non-NBA Basketball and lower league Football.
Final Thoughts, Advice and Recommendations
All our alerts can be broken down into sections as you look at them: Match details, Sharp Book odds, Soft book odds and expected value information. If you enabled it in the configuration tab, the alerts will also show the recommended Kelly stakes, the main line and anything else you have enabled there.
As always, slow and steady wins the race. Start basic, and work your way up. We recommend you start with more liberal settings, as this might involve a lot more alerts, but it will familiarise you the quickest. Use the expert presets, start with the beginner plan and use the preset feeds. Do not overcomplicate it. With OddsNotifier, as a beginner, less is more. The fewer settings you edit, the better.
Free World-Class Group Chat
Regarding strategy, this ultimately varies from user to user depending on their preferences. We have a free group chat that trumps all others. Here, all our experienced users share their wisdom, knowledge and support, and beginners can ask as many questions as they need. We all started from scratch. There is no judgement at OddsNotifier. We welcome everyone and our aim is to help you with your Dropping Odds journey.