Answered with numbers you can check — including ours.
A value bet is one where your estimate of the probability is higher than the probability implied by the price. It has nothing to do with whether the bet wins. A pick at odds of 5.00 that you believe has a 25% chance is a value bet, and it will still lose three times out of four.
The arithmetic is simple. Decimal odds of 2.50 imply a probability of 1 / 2.50 = 40%. If your model says the true chance is 47%, the price is offering you more than the risk deserves, and that gap is your edge. If your model says 35%, the price is worse than the risk and there is no bet.
One correction most people miss: the raw implied probabilities across all outcomes add up to more than 100%. That excess is the bookmaker's margin, and it has to be removed before the comparison is honest, or every market looks like poor value. Only compare against the de-margined price.
The catch is that value betting only pays over a large number of bets, and only if your probability estimates are genuinely better than the market's. Most are not. This is why a published long-run record matters more than any individual result.
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