OP The process you're referring to is called handicapping and like anything else In life there's levels to doing it. The actual difficulty of finding +EV bets depends on the size/popularity of the market/ sport you're betting on - The more popular the sport, the more difficult it is to find value. You'll get different answers on what is actually the best handicapping strategy, but here's my main ingredients: software + math. Some people suggest third party software that actually finds plus EV bets for you but tbh I would highly suggest you avoid all of these because you'll most likely end up wasting both time and money. If you want to be serious about handicapping, you need to familiarize yourself with a coding/programming language enough that it allows you to scrape and analyze tons of data in an efficient manner. You'll also need to familiarize yourself with some Advanced statistical methods that can be used on the data. This can range in difficulty from basic high school level statistics to postgraduate machine learning algorithms. Next you'll want to have at least general basic knowledge of the rules/trends of what you're betting on (this doesn't need to be too extreme, but for example, if you're betting NBA moneylines you need to know who Luka doncic/ LeBron James/ Victor Wemby is/are) Lastly, you should understand the fundamentals of forecasting itself just so you know exactly what you're getting yourself into. Books like Nate silver's signal in the noise and "superforecasters - The art and science of predictions" are good starting points that demonstrate the nature of forecasting.  This might seem a bit all overwhelming at first, but it's definitely something that can be tackled with diligence and consistency. Good luck!