Value notes
How to read your closing line value after 100 bets
One bet's CLV is noise. After a hundred, the average and the share of positive results start talking. Which number leads, and what each says.
One closing line value tells you almost nothing. A hundred start to form a picture: the average CLV estimates the size of your edge over the close, and the share of positive results shows how consistently you find it. Read the average first, the share second, and keep collecting either way.
The two numbers that matter
CLV compares the price you took with the market's closing price, and the site's CLV guide defines it against the fair close with the margin removed. Every bet you log produces one figure: positive when you beat the close, negative when it beat you.
After 100 bets you have 100 of those figures, and they compress into two numbers. The average CLV measures depth: how far ahead of the market's final price you typically get. The share positive measures reliability: how often you get there at all.
Why the average leads
A record can be mostly positive and still weak. Five bets at +8%, +6%, -1%, -1% and -1% are 40% positive with an average of +2.2%: the two big beats carry the record. The reverse shape, many small wins and a few large misses, produces a positive share with a negative average, which is the profile of a bettor who beats soft lines and overpays for steam.
Long-run results follow the average, not the hit rate, because stakes multiply the size of each CLV, not its sign. The share positive is the secondary check: it tells you whether the edge is a habit or an accident.
Measure against the fair close
The raw closing price flatters you by the bookmaker's margin. The guide's example shows the gap: taken at 2.20, the raw close at 2.05 reads as +7.32%, while the fair close at 2.11 reads +4.36%, checked 2026-10-02. Log both if you like, but judge yourself against the fair figure. A positive record against the raw close can hide a negative one against the fair close.
When the numbers start meaning something
The guide is blunt about scale: one bet is noise, and the record needs hundreds. A hundred bets is where you start looking, not where you conclude. Three hundred is where the average begins to stabilize for most markets.
Split the record as it grows. CLV by sport, by market and by price range tells you where the edge actually lives; a single blended average hides it. The CLV calculator figures each bet's number; the reading above is what to do with the column it builds.
Average first, share second, fair close always. The close grades every bet; the average grades your process.