Here is the latest transfer gossip courtesy of The Secret Betting Club’s Ed Darnell.

Where will Tevez go next?

It seems every week the sagas involving Carlos Tevez, Luka Modric, Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas take new twists and turns so I’ll cover these four before moving on and getting into other, faster moving, speculation.

Tevez – He wants to go, City have set a figure of £50million and no one is willing to match it.  This is pretty much the excepted situation so we’ll work on that basis.  Corinthians, his first club, have made a bid in the region of £38m.  They say this is their final offer and so far City haven’t taken it, they’re probably waiting to see if Real Madrid are ready to make a better offer, or if a deal can be struck with Los Blancos involving a player-swap deal.  If no one comes in with a better offer than Corinthians they might take it.  Granted, £38m is cheap for a player of Tevez’s calibre in today’s market but he is desperate to leave and there is little chance of him coming back to haunt his former club if he’s shipped off to the other side of the world, the Brazilian outfit are 5/6 with BlueSquare and 888Sport to capture the forward, City are 5/2 to keep hold and Real Madrid are 4/1 to snap him up with the same bookmakers.

Modric – Again, he wants to go but Spurs won’t sell.  Chelsea are the ‘frontrunners’ in that he wants to go there but it just doesn’t look like Harry Redknapp and Daniel Levy are going to give in – certainly not for anywhere under £30m, maybe more.  He could move on in the closing stages of the window if Redknapp can find a replacement, although personally I’d give Niko Kranjcar a go but that doesn’t seem to be the thinking at White Hart Lane.  It is essentially up in the air and Redknapp and Levy may see sense and cash in, but at the moment Modric looks more likely to stay than leave – although the bookmakers don’t see it like this and the Croat is 4/7 with 888Sport, BlueSquare and Victor Chandler to join Chelsea, or 6/4 with Victor Chandler to stay at Spurs. This looks a pretty decent price to me – especially as Spurs have made such a massive point of insisting he is not for sale.

Nasri – As far as I can see this one is case closed.  Arsene Wenger has said he’d rather keep him for a season and lose him for nothing next summer than sell him for £20m now.  This may seem a little strange but the Gunners don’t really need the money (after recent investment) and he could always change his mind if they’re doing well.  It would probably take money no one is willing to pay, given his contract situation, to prise him from the Emirates and his many suitors will probably hold out until next summer.  Man Utd, though, believe that Nasri is going somewhere – just not to them and in this age of player power it rarely happens that players hell-bent on moving don’t get their way. Ultimately the player rather than Arsenal probably holds the whip hand. The Frenchman is 1/2 to stay a Gunners with 888Sport and BlueSquare, or 9/2 to join Manchester United with the same bookmakers.  Interestingly, Nasri is just 4/6 with SkyBet to move to Eastlands but 9/4 with BlueSquare and 888Sport.

Fabregas – He is going to Camp Nou and I’d rule all other destinations out at this stage.  Barcelona are yet to match Arsenal’s valuation and reports in Spain have indicated they will hold out until the end of the transfer window before trying to push through a deal. It reads like a game of poker where everyone knows the outcome in advance and only the details of the deal are up for grabs.  The bottom line is that Fabregas will be a Barcelona player at some stage and presumably later this summer. That is about it with Fabregas, everything else just seems to be hearsay and random quotes from various Barca players all saying essentially the same thing – “He wants to come here, and we want him” – the same stuff we’ve read for over a year now. PaddyPower are offering 8/13 that he moves on, or 6/5 for Fabregas to stay.

Back to Eastlands…

Man City boss Roberto Martinez is the bookies favourite to sign Atletico Madrid’s Sergio Aguero in a £40m+ deal.  The Argentine may not be an exact like-for-like replacement for Tevez but as one of these modern winger/striker/forward type players he basically fits the bill, and his probable arrival could convince City to part with Tevez.  Real Madrid and Juventus will provide plenty of competition for Aguero AKA Diego Maradona’s son-in-law but City should have the financial clout to win the battle (they could even cut some sort of Tevez related deal with Real to get them to back off).  Aguero is 6/5 to join City, 11/4 to move across Madrid to the Bernabeu or 9/4 to move to Juventus, all with SkyBet.

Liverpool have all but picked up Stewart Downing for £20m – at time of writing personal terms are being discussed- but one question springs to mind ‘why?’.  This is a huge price for the occasional England international and this isn’t the sort of inspiring piece of business that makes you think Liverpool  have a chance of mounting any sort of title challenge.

Downing’s move is expected to see Villa move for Wigan’s £9m rated Charles N’Zogbia, although they will probably face a bit of competition from other similar profile sides.   Villa boss Alex McLeish is also thought to be close to securing keeper Shay Given from Manchester City, after Brad Friedel joined Spurs earlier in the summer.

I’m a little surprised Scott Parker hasn’t moved anywhere yet but I’m sure he’ll leave West Ham before the window closes.  Villa could well be an option for the Hammers midfielder as McLeish has seen a lot of Villa’s creative talent in midfield move on and he’ll be keen to bring a bit of quality to replace the likes of Downing and Ashley Young.  Spurs could be an option too, keeping the midfielder at home in the capital. This could come into play especially if Spurs lose Modric. Chelsea have also been linked with the tiny Croatian playmaker but in all fairness I can’t see it.  However, the Stamford Bridge side are the 10/11 favourites with SkyBet (maybe they know something I don’t), Villa are 2/1, while Spurs are 5/1 with the same bookmaker.  I wouldn’t be rushing in to follow the money in this Modric market.

I could really have included Bolton’s Gary Cahill in the list of lengthy sagas but this one seems to have hit a stalemate, and crucially the Wanderers are essentially looking to sell at this point.  Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Man City have all been linked, with the Gunners seemingly the most likely.  No one seems to want to pay £17m though, but there could be room to manoeuvre later in the window – Arsenal midfielder Denilson is apparently attracting their interest and could potentially form part of a cash-plus-player offer.

In a bit more Wanderers news Stoke are after Matt Taylor, and chances are it is on the money.  It isn’t the first time Tony Pulis has been credited with an interest in the versatile left-sided  defender/midfielderwith the explosive shot. At £1.5million he would be fairly cheap.  Despite the fact, the ex-Portsmouth man, managed to force his way into the Bolton side last season, I’m not sure boss Owen Coyle is a massive fan of Taylor, having inherited him when taking over. The Scot bought Martin Petrov last year and has been linked with a few potential rivals for Taylor’s position.  Coyle is also keen on Man United striker Danny Welbeck, a scorer v Spain and one of the few decent performers for England in the U21 Euros earlier this summer. The youngster is available on loan, and considering the Bolton boss’ penchant for borrowing players from the bigger sides there could be something in this one – although Daniel Sturridge is probably Coyle’s first choice, if possible, Bolton and Sunderland could yet find themselves in a battle to secure Wellbeck’s services.

Newcastle have always stressed they’re going to reinvest the money raised from Andy Carroll’s sale into the squad and boss Alan Pardew remains keen to pick up a big name, or at least highly-rated, striker to inspire The Toon Army.  The Geordies have already signed Demba Ba, who should flourish at St James’, and PSG’s Mevlut Erding has been linked with a move to Newcastle for some time now.  The Parisians have already picked up Kevin Gameiro, ironically beating Newcastle to his signature, which could tempt them into allowing Erding to move on to the North East.

Update on the New Boys

I’ve expressed my concerns about QPR before but now they’ve finally made a significant move, of sorts, by securing free agent Jay Bothroyd.  A few Premier League clubs had been linked with the striker – so some must think he can cut it in the top flight, having failed to cut the mustard previously.  Certainly, his  former boss Arsene Wenger is on record as suggesting that he regrets letting Bothroyd leave Arsenal too early. QPR Boss Neil Warnock has also picked up free agent Kieron Dyer. Obviously, the former England midfielder, best known for having the Newcastle team bus re-route to Birmingham after he has left an diamond-encrusted earring in the dressing room, won’t be fit all season but should do the job whenever he is and is probably a decent acquisition.

One of Warnock’s key issues will be replacing Adel Taarabt, if/when he heads for pastures new.  Paris St Germain are keen on the Moroccan and the QPR boss has turned his attentions to Lazio’s Pasquale Foggia as a replacement, according to the player’s agent anyway.  I’ll be totally honest, I don’t know enough about Foggia to make a judgement on this one and I can’t recall seeing him play for Lazio, but he seems surplus to requirements in Rome and if Warnock is genuinely interested he could be well placed to seal a deal.

Swansea are still hunting a new keeper to replace Dorus Devries, who has signed for Wolves. Boss Brendan Rogers is also seemingly resigned to the fact Fulham’s David Stockdale is off the market.  The Cottagers number two was their top target so boss Brendan Rodgers will have to look elsewhere.  The biggest coup the Swans have pulled off this week is keeping hold of Neil Taylor, who has decided to stay at the Liberty despite interest from Newcastle. That reversal could stall any exit for Jose Enrique from Tyneside, with Liverpool, Arsenal and a couple of Spanish sides in the hunt for his signature.

Norwich boss Paul Lambert has already done a fair bit of business and has now indicated he is planning to scour the loan market to bolster his options.  It worked well with Henri Lansbury last year and the Arsenal academy graduate could head back to Carrow Road for another loan stint.

The Transfer Insider is brought to you by the Secret Betting Club. Find profitable betting tipsters, powerful betting strategies and experience a vibrant member’s forum. Join the Secret Betting Club today.

Finally…

Here is a brief table of completed deals, it may not be a 100% accurate at time of publishing but should prove a useful reference tool.

Arsenal:

IN: Gervinho (£11m, Lille)

OUT:  Gael Clichy (£7m, Manchester City)

Aston Villa:

IN: Alex McLeish (manager), Nathan Delfouneso (loan return, Burnley)

OUT: Gerard Houllier (manager), Brad Friedel (Free, Spurs), Ashley Young (£15m, Manchester United)

Blackburn:

IN:

OUT: Phil Jones (£17.5m, Manchester United), Frank Fielding  (undisc, Derby)

Bolton:

IN: Darren Pratley (free, Swansea)

OUT: Johan Elmander (free, Galatasaray), Rodrigo Moreno (loan return, Benfica), Daniel Sturridge (loan return, Chelsea), Tamir Cohen, Jlloyd Samuel, Joey O’Brien (all released), Ali Al Habsi (£4m, Wigan), Daniel Ward (£1m, Huddersfield).

Chelsea:

IN: Andre Villas-Boas (manager)

OUT: Carlo Ancelotti (manager), Michael Mancienne (undisc, Hamburg), Jeffrey Bruma (loan, Hamburg)

Everton:

IN:

OUT: James Vaughan (£2.5m, Norwich)

Fulham:

IN: Martin Jol (manager), John Arne Riise (Fulham).

OUT: Mark Hughes (manager), Diomansy Kamara (free, Eskisehirspor), Kagisho Dikgacoi (undisc, Crystal Palace),             Eddie Johnson , Matthew Saunders, Pascal Zuberbuhler , Zoltan Gera , John Pantsil (all released).

Liverpool

IN: Jordan Henderson (Sunderland, £20m), Charlie Adam (£9m, Blackpool)

OUT: Nikola Saric (released)

Manchester City:

IN: Stefan Savic (undisc, FK Partizan), Gael Clichy (£7m, Arsenal)

OUT:

Manchester United:

IN: Phil Jones (£17.5m, Blackburn), Ashley Young (£15m, Aston Villa), David de Gea (£20m, Atletico Madrid)

OUT: Owen Hargreaves (released), Paul Scholes, Edwin van der Sar (both retired), Ritchie de Laet (loan, Norwich), Wes Brown (Sunderland), John O’Shea (Sunderland(

Newcastle United:

IN: Sylvain Marveaux (free, Rennes), Demba Ba (free, West Ham), Yohan Cabaye (undisc, Lille)

OUT: Kevin Nolan (£4m, West Ham)

Norwich City:

IN: Steve Morison (£2.5m, Millwall), Elliot Bennett (Brighton), James Vaughan (£2.5m, Everton) Bradley Johnson (free, Leeds), Ritchie de Laet (loan, Manchester United), Anthony Pilkington (£1.75m, Huddersfield)

OUT: Matthew Gill (free, Bristol Rovers),

QPR:

IN: Jay Bothroyd (free, Cardiff), Kieron Dyer (free, West Ham)

OUT: Mikele Leigertwood (free, Reading)

Stoke City:

IN: Jonathan Woodgate (free, Spurs)

OUT: Abdoulaye Faye (free, West Ham)

Sunderland:

IN: Keiren Westwood (free, Coventry), Sebastian Larsson (free, Birmingham), Craig Gardner (£5m, Birmingham), Connor Wickham (£8.1m, Ipswich), Ji Dong-Won (Chunnam Dragons), Wes Brown (Manchester United), David Vaughan (free, Blackpool), John O’Shea (undisc, Manchester United)

OUT: Jordan Henderson (£20m, Liverpool), David Healy (free, Rangers)

Swansea City:

IN: Danny Graham (£3.5m, Watford), Steven Caulker (loan, Spurs)

OUT: Dorus de Vries (free, Wolves), Darren Pratley (free, Bolton)

Tottenham Hotspur:

IN: Brad Friedel (Free, Aston Villa)

OUT: Steven Caulker (loan, Swansea), Jonathan Woodgate (released), Jamie O’Hara (£5m, Wolves)

West Brom:

IN: Billy Jones (free, Preston), Gareth McAuley (free, Ipswich)

OUT: Abdoulate Meite (free, Dijon), Scott Carson (undisc, Bursaspor), Ryan Allsop (undisc, Millwall), Gianni Zuiverloon (undisc, Real Mallorca)

Wigan:

IN: Mauro Boselli (loan return), Ali Al Habsi (£4m, Bolton)

OUT: Tom Cleverley (loan return, Manchester United), Steven Caldwell (free, Birmingham)

Wolves:

IN: Dorus De Vries (Free, Swansea), Jamie O’Hara (£5m, Wolves), Roger Johnson (£7m, Birmingham)

OUT: Greg Halford (undisc, Portsmouth)

————————————————

The Transfer Insider is brought to you by the Secret Betting Club. Find profitable betting tipsters, powerful betting strategies and experience a vibrant member’s forum. Join the Secret Betting Club today.

Big Mikes European Final Trade

Big Mike is an ex accountant who likes to use his skill at numbers
to win a few quid from our friends the bookmakers.

He has agreed to let us post up here his thoughts on how best to play some of the bookmaker offers regarding the Champions League Final

—————————————————————-

Apologies but it appears there were a few errors in the content from Big Mike so we have removed it from this page rather than maintain duff info.

Until recently, John was a senior football odds compiler working for a major high street bookmaker. Having left his position to follow his dream of betting on football and racing full-time, John continues to work in the betting industry on a consultancy basis. As a long-time friend of www.progambler.co.uk, John believes that what separates the organised professional bettor from the doughty amateur is a bit of inside knowledge and a lot of discipline and application.

Gambling is a mugs game, you can’t beat the bookies, right? Wrong. There is good money to be made from football betting if you stick to some simple basic rules.

Rule 1, and this is a golden rule, you must shop around for the best value. Open accounts with as many online bookmakers as possible, they nearly all offer free bets to entice you to open accounts with them.

You should have no loyalty to any bookmaker and the sole reason you should be placing a bet with one is because you are getting the best price. People who just use the nearest high street shop haven’t got a chance. Bookmakers have a profit margin of around 10% for most football matches but because different bookmakers offer different prices it is still possible to swing the odds in your favour.

Rule 2, work out a staking plan. Once you have identified a value bet the next question is “how much should I bet?”. The answer to this question is determined firstly, by how confident you are about the bet, and secondly, by how much value you think you are getting. For example, if you toss a coin in the air you have a 50% chance it will be heads and a 50% chance it will be tales. The correct price for each outcome should therefore be evens. But what if somebody offered you 3/1 that the coin would land on heads, you are obviously being offered huge value and if you repeated this bet ten times you would have to be incredibly unlucky not to be in profit at the end.

The answer to the question “how much should I bet?”, in this scenario is “as much as you can afford to lose”. Whatever staking plan you have worked out this would obviously be a maximum bet scenario, you could still lose but you have secured huge value and if you consistently bet when the odds are in your favour you theoretically will make money in the long run.

Rule 3, Never, EVER, chase. We’ve all been there, you’ve had a terrible day and lost a lot of money, the live Spanish game is about to come on and it’s the last game of the day. “Time to get my money back”, you say to yourself and you have a silly bet on Real Madrid at terrible odds. To make things even worse Madrid concede a last minute goal to level the game. They then go and miss a penalty deep in injury time, what a disaster! To make money betting on football it is crucial that you have discipline. Just because a game is on TV doesn’t mean you have to bet on it. If you didn’t identify a value bet in the game at the start of the day then don’t bet on it. We all have bad days and there will be plenty of good value opportunities to get your money back in the next set of fixtures.

You must be selective with your bets.

Rule 4, stick to singles or doubles. It is hard enough predicting the outcome of one match let alone five.

Bookmakers love to promote accumulator bets because they know the more selections you choose the less likely you are to win. No matter how many teams you pick there will always be one result that lets you down. Many people are attracted to these bets by the possibilities of winning a lot of money from relatively small stakes. You will find that if you increase your stakes a little and stick to singles and doubles your profits will increase long term.

Rule 5, pay close attention to team news. An injury to a key striker or a suspended captain can sometimes greatly swing the odds in your favour. As a general rule the higher the level of football the less affect team news will have as the top clubs have large squads full of quality players. The lower league teams however, operate with much smaller squads and can have their chances of winning badly affected by key players being injured or suspended. Be warned however, team news can be misleading. Some clubs actively give out false information in order to gain an advantage over their opponents so it is dangerous to base your bet on team news alone.

Rule 6, choose which markets you bet on carefully. The best markets to bet on are generally the match odds and some of the goals markets. Halftime/fulltime, correct score, first goalscorer and other similar markets have a higher profit margin built in by bookmakers and therefore generally offer poor value. This is not always the case though and occasionally you will find the odd juicy price in these markets.

For example, injuries may result in a midfield player starting up front making him much better value to be first goalscorer. Asian Handicaps are another market which you should make yourself familiar with. The bookmakers profit margin on these markets is a lot lower and so straight away you have more chance of finding value. On BetFair you only pay 1% commission on these markets whereas you pay 5% on most other football markets.

Rule 7, bend the rules in your favour. There are a number of things you can do to achieve this. Firstly make sure you pick up a coupon from your local shops at the start of the week. The prices printed on these coupons are compiled up to a week ahead of the game and are often cut online or on the phone. However the big two on the high street will hold the prices printed on these coupons so you can often find a bigger price on a shop coupon than you will be able to get online or even with the exchanges. If there is a big move for a certain game then they might impose restrictions of between £50-200 per customer, but you should still be able to get on. Likewise, when there is a move online and the match odds are cut you will sometimes find that a bookmaker has forgotten to cut the “draw no bet” or maybe the “halftime/fulltime” price.

It is also worth keeping an eye on long term markets when games are being played as you wouldn’t believe how sloppy some bookmakers can be at suspending markets. This can be especially useful near the end of the season when it is clearer which teams might win the league or be relegated. Bookmakers cannot claim palpable error in these cases either so your bet will be allowed to stand.

Rule 8, keep records of all your bets. It is important to do this so that you know exactly how much money you are making or losing. It will help you decide on your staking plan and make it clear that you should stop if you aren’t making money in the long run.

These rules should help you to tip the odds in your favour. It is possible to make money from betting on football but you will need to invest time and effort.

You will go through good periods and bad, last minute goals will go for and against you but in the long run you can prosper.

You can bet on just about anything happening in
football these days. Goals, corners, bookings, correct
score, first scorer, players to score hat tricks, to
be subbed, to be playing for a different club in six
months time…..etc However, many of these markets
have large profit margins built in by bookmakers
making it extremely difficult to make money from them.
In this article, I will try and explain some of the
main ones we will be using over the course of the
season. Many of you will be fully aware of how these
markets work, but I have had plenty of e-mails over
the course of the season asking me to explain how
Asian handicaps work, what draw no bet means, etc.
Even if you do think you know your stuff, the article
is probably worth a read as there is bound to be
something that you were not previously aware of.

MATCH ODDS:

The most straight forward market and the one I will
generally recommend most bets from. You simply select
“Home win”, “Draw”, or “Away win”. When filling out a
coupon in a betting shop you would mark “1″ for a home
win, “2″ for a away win and “x” for a draw. Most major
bookmakers have a profit margin of between 5-12% built
in. The equivalent market on BetFair is available with
no profit margin but you will have to pay between 2-5%
commission on your winnings.

GOALS:

There are several different markets relating to goals
that we will be interested in over the course of the
season. The main goals market we will be using will be
Over/Under 2.5 goals. This sometimes confuses people
who are new to football betting as there is obviously
no such thing as half a goal. Basically, if you back
over, then you need three goals to win, if you back
under, then you want no more than two goals. The
profit margin on these bets, as well as most other
markets with just two outcomes, is usually between
6-8%. Some bookmakers, as well as BetFair, offer
over/under 1.5 goals and over/under 3.5 goals and
these markets work exactly the same way. “Total
goals”, is another goals market which I sometimes bet
on. Usually there will be three choices, 0-1, 2-3 and
4 or more. These are pretty self explanatory. This
market can sometimes throw up value if the bookmaker
offering the market goes too high or low on his goals
quote. For example, in La Liga last year, some
bookmakers were not factoring in how many goals
Sevilla and Atletico Madrid were scoring in home
games. This resulted in “4 or more” offering value on
several occasions.

CORRECT SCORE:

Again, pretty self explanatory. It is important to
remember that this is a 90 minutes market only. If you
back a team to win 1-0 in a cup game and it’s 0-0
after 90 minutes then your bet has lost, even if they
go on to win 1-0 in extra time. This is a market I
generally avoid as the bookies enjoy a hefty profit
margin. However, occasionally, correct score markets
do throw up value. Last year for example, the 0-0 draw
was too big in France with PaddyPower for a period and
therefore represented value. Unfortunately this period
also coincided with the number of goals in French
games suddenly spiking, and we were unable to take
advantage. Many bookmakers also offer scorecast
markets, in which you have to pick out the correct
score and the first goalscorer. This is very difficult
to do and consequently large prices are often
available. However, the prices are nowhere near large
enough and it is a terrible bet from a value point of
view.

HALF TIME RESULT – HALF TIME/FULL TIME:

The Half time result is a market I very rarely get
involved in. It’s not that it represents particularly
bad value, it’s just that it is quite tricky to
predict. Trends do emerge from time to time that might
make a bet worthwhile, for example, a team that
doesn’t concede or score many goals might be drawing a
lot of games at half time. If bookies aren’t manually
compiling this market, as many don’t (instead
preferring to use computer programs) then a small bit
of value might emerge.

Half time/Full time is another market I very rarely
bet on. The odds are heavily in the bookies favour and
prices have to be quite a way out of line to become
value. The following is an example of William Hills
halftime/fulltime prices from Peterborough’s pre
season friendly against West Ham:

Peterborough/Peterborough            15/2 (12%)
Peterborough/Draw                    14/1 (7%)
Peterborough/West Ham                20/1 (5%)
Draw/Peterborough                    9/1  (10%)
Draw/Draw                            9/2  (18%)
Draw/West Ham                        10/3 (23%)
West Ham/Peterborough                28/1 (3%)
West Ham/Draw                        14/1 (7%)
West Ham/West Ham                    8/5  (38%)

Total                                    (123%)

As you can see, Hills have built in a 23% profit
margin to this market making it very poor value. There
are occasions when value arises, such as two seasons
ago when a number of Chelsea home games were resulting
in Draw/Chelsea results. Another example of when value
arises is when there is a big move for a team in the
match odds market. Sometimes bookies can be slow to
cut their half time/full time price for a team making
it slight value.

FIRST/ANYTIME GOALSCORER:

Two quite different markets in terms of value. First
goalscorer is generally one best avoided as the margin
is again very big. Forwards are nearly always
artificially short and it is difficult enough
predicting which player will score in a game let alone
who will score first. The introduction of each way
betting with first goalscorers by several bookmakers
in the last couple of years has improved things to
some extent. With each way terms covering the first
three scorers it is fairly similar to an anytime
goalscorer bet. With Anytime scorer bets there often
seems to be value with certain firms, especially
William Hills. It is a relatively new bet and Hills do
not seem to be getting their prices right. I suspect
they are using a computer program and a glance at
bestbetting.com usually shows them to be best price by
quite a way on most players. Anytime scorer bets
should only be considered when there is a high goals
quote as obviously, the more goals there are in a game
the more chance your player has of scoring. One note
of caution however, different firms have different
rules when it comes to anytime goalscorer markets. The
majority class a player as a runner if he takes part
in any part of the game and therefore it is very
important that your player is starting. If he comes on
for the last five minutes and fails to score then your
bet will stand and have very little chance of winning.
William Hills rules on the other hand, state that if a
player does not start the game then he is a non runner
and you get your money back.

TO WIN TO NIL:

This is a variation on the correct score market and
only a few bookmakers tend to offer it. Basically, you
are backing a team to win by any score to nil. It is
best used when you want to back a short priced team
who are solid defensively, or maybe playing a team who
don’t score many goals or who have injury problems up
front. Chelsea are a good example from last year, they
were solid defensively and ended up winning eighteen
league matches “to nil”. This is another market that
is often computer generated and value prices do
occasionally appear.

DRAW NO BET:

Does exactly what it says on the tin. You are backing
a team and taking away the risk of a draw. If the game
finishes level then you simply get your money back.
This market is best used when you fancy a side to win
but they tend to draw a lot of games, or maybe you are
betting in a league where there are a lot of draws
such as the French league. You are sacrificing the
bigger price you would get backing the team to win in
the match odds, for the insurance of getting your
money back in the event of a draw. Exactly the same
bet is available on the Asian handicaps.

ASIAN HANDICAP:

A market that causes a great deal of confusion but
often offers very good value. It got the name “Asian
handicap” because it is the preferred form of betting
in the far east. Profit margins are far lower than
most other markets, often just a couple of percent. I
will try to explain how they work as simply as I can.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand it straight away,
many people don’t, take your time and read over what I
have written a couple of times. You can play around
with it on BetFair too, just pick a game, click on
Asian handicaps and click the “back” box. A bet slip
will appear on the right hand side explaining what you
win or lose from each outcome.

The simplest type of Asian handicap is exactly the
same bet as draw no bet. Both teams will appear with a
+0 next to them, the bet is void in the event of a
draw.

Another type of Asian handicap is to back a team +1 or
-1. You might back an outsider +1 or back a strong
favourite -1. Backing a strong favourite -1 is
basically backing them to win by more than one goal.
If they win by exactly one goal then you lose nothing
and your stake is returned as the one goal margin they
have won by is cancelled out by the -1 handicap. If
they win by two or more then your bet is a winner.

A slightly more complicated Asian handicap is backing
a team to win +1.5 or -1.5. This should be thought of
in exactly the same way as over/under 2.5 goals. If
the team you are backing -1.5 wins by two goals then
your bet is a winner, if they win by only one goal
then your bet is a loser. It is the same as backing a
team -1 only you have no insurance if the team wins by
one goal. Remember if you back a team -1 and they win
by one, then you get your money back, but if you back
them -1.5 and they win by one then the bet is a loser.

The most complicated Asian handicap is when the
previous two bets are combined and you are given the
option of backing a team -1 & -1.5. Although it looks
very complicated it is actually quite simple. All you
have to do to understand it is split the bet in two.
Half of your bet is for “team A” to win -1 and the
other half of your stake is for “team A” to win -1.5.
If we back team A at evens to win -1 & -1.5 for a £100
stake, then the following will happen:

Team A wins by 2 goals or more = win £100 (Both parts
of the bet have won)

Team A wins by 1 goal = lose £50 (you get your money
back for the first part of the bet but lose £50 on the
second part)

Team A does not win = lose £100 (both parts of your
bet have lost)

Asian handicaps are most useful if you want to back a
short priced favourite to win by a big margin or for
an outsider to only lose by a small margin or to draw.
For example, if you back a team +1 then you have both
the draw and them winning as positive results.

To conclude, the above bet types are the main ones you
should be familiar with. The vast majority of bets
that I recommend will be in the match odds or from one
of the goals markets. There are many other weird and
wonderful markets out there but they are generally
poor value and best avoided. If you would like me to
clarify anything I have written above then please do
not hesitate to contact me

Best Wishes

The Oracle

——————————————–

The Oracle works as an odds compiler for a major uk bookmaker.

He retired from his moonlighting job as a tipster to free up more time for his family. You can read more sage advice from him however in the free soccer betting course available at www.football-bets.co.uk

I’ve had a couple of e-mails from members asking for advice on how to get around bookies limits and how to make sure they are getting the best prices in general. Rather than send individual responses I thought I’d write an article on the subject and send it out to everyone. I hope it proves useful.

In order to maximise your long term profits, it is crucial that you have numerous accounts with different bookmakers and always make sure you are taking the best price. You should have accounts with Ladbrokes, Hills, PaddyPower, StanJames, SkyBet, BlueSquare, B365, BetFred, BoyleSports, sportingbet, Bet Direct, Coral, ToteSport and Victor Chandler as these will be the companies whose prices I recommend. CentreBet are an Australian based firm who have grown quite a bit over the last few years and I also recommend you open an account with them.

All of the above are safe and secure to bet with and all offer various forms of free bets when you first open an account. Most bookmakers bet to around 110% on the match odds of many European leagues. This means that they have worked out the percentage chances of each event occurring in any particular game and added on a 10% profit margin. This makes it very difficult to make profit from betting with just one bookmaker as even if they get their prices wrong, they have to be more than 10% wrong to give you a fair chance of beating them. Those who just use their local high street shop have virtually no chance of long term success.

However, if you have ten accounts with ten different bookmakers, the differences in opinions between the bookmakers on some games can erode the margin you are facing down to practically nothing. When there is a big move for something and certain bookmakers are slow to react the odds can then swing in the punters favour and you can lock in a profit by backing all three outcomes with different bookies. We’ll use a hypothetical fixture between Aston Villa and Everton as an example with the following bookmakers offering the following prices:

SkyBet

Villa 11/10 (48%) Draw 11/5 (31%) Everton 11/5 (31%)

Ladbrokes

Villa 10/11 (52%) Draw11/5 (31%) Everton 11/4 (27%)

BetFred

Villa 4/5 (56%)   Draw 12/5 (29%) Everton 3/1 (25%)

Each bookmaker is betting to 110% but if you take the best prices for each outcome from across the three bookmakers you get:

Villa   11/10 (48%) with SkyBet
Draw  12/5  (29%) with BetFred
Everton 3/1 (25%) with BetFred

these three prices only add up to 102% rather than 110% so straight away by shopping around for the best price you have eroded 8% of the margin. We will continue to use this hypothetical fixture as an example and introduce a scenario where Tim Cahill, Phil Neville, Lee Carsley and Andrew Johnson pick up a virus for Everton the day before the game and are unable to play. BetFred and Ladbrokes pick up on this information and both firms cut their prices to:

Villa     4/6 (60%)
Draw   13/5 (28%)
Everton 7/2 (22%)

SkyBet however, are slow to pick up on this information and do not cut their price until one hour later. Therefore, the best prices available for that hour are:

Villa 11/10 (48%) SkyBet
Draw  13/5  (28%) BetFred and Ladbrokes
Everton 7/2 (22%) BetFred and Ladbrokes

These prices add up to 98% and present punters with an opportunity to lock in a 2% profit regardless of the result by taking the three best prices available.

BetFair is another account EVERY serious gambler should have. They are a betting exchange who allow you to bet against other punters by backing or laying any outcome. Because they are not a bookmaker there is no built in profit margin and they make their money by taking 2-5% of your winnings depending on how many loyalty points you build up with them. The more money you put through the site the less commission you pay. They advertise that on average their prices are 20% better than you can get with bookmakers and therefore it is well worth the relatively small commission charge. This is true to an extent but slightly misleading.

Generally BetFair will be the best price but when it comes to backing a favourite the difference between BetFair and the bookies is rarely 20%. It is generally a big enough difference to make it worthwhile having the bet with BetFair rather than the bookie though. Outsiders on the other hand are often a much bigger price on BetFair than they are with the bookies. You should always check the price on BetFair when I make a recommendation as it may be bigger than the recommended bookmaker price.

Another useful tool for gamblers is shop coupons. These are often printed days in advance of a fixture and the prices will still be available in a shop even though they have been cut online. Some bookmakers are very sly however and will accept your bet on the coupon and then pay you at the new lower price. They are supposed to tell you if a price is no longer available yet the poorly paid and unmotivated staff will often not bother until it comes to paying out. Therefore I only recommend Ladbrokes and Hills shop coupons as if you get the bet on they will pay you at the coupon price.

Messages are sometimes sent to shops telling staff that limits have been imposed on certain teams. Using the Villa v Everton game from before as an example, Ladbrokes might send a message to shop staff that customers can only have a maximum of £100 on Villa at the coupon price of 10/11 and anything over £100 will have to be at 4/6. If you want £200 on Villa then simply say you only want £100 and then walk down the road to the next Ladbrokes shop and put the second £100 on there. Obviously this is much more difficult if you live in rural areas. If there is any sort of dispute with the shop just phone up customer services and complain. I have a friend who used to work for Ladbrokes customer services a few years ago and apparently they have a cupboard full of free bet vouchers to give out to anyone who has a legitimate complaint. They are very keen to keep the customer happy so its always worth giving them a ring.

Anyone who has had any success with their betting will know that eventually bookies start to get upset when you start winning on a regular basis. Bookies call these people “unprofitable customers” and they will restrict how much money you can get on by factoring your account down. Going back to the Villa v Everton game again, SkyBets maximum bet per customer on the internet might be set at £1000. An “unprofitable customer” might be factored to half of what a regular customer can get on and might only be allowed £500. Depending on how unprofitable you are you might be restricted to a tenth or even less and at this stage some accounts become literally unusable.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat though and with most bookmakers you can simply open a new account with a different credit/debit card in your own name and carry on regardless. Some might realise its the same account quite quickly and a few will do IP address checks to see where you are placing the bet from and link you to other accounts at that IP address. Your account will last longer if you change your username too as some traders might remember the old one. It’s best to set your username to something unremarkable too, such as a set of numbers or maybe a foreign name as it is less likely to stick in a traders memory. If your username is “bookiebasher72″ or something along those lines, then traders are much more likely to remember you having a bet on that dodgy non league game last week and decide to restrict your account. Another way around bookies limits is opening a “shadow” account in a partner/family members name as this will be very difficult to link to your other account unless they run an IP address check. Obviously get the permission of your partner/family member first

If you do bet in reasonably large amounts the likelihood is that you will soon start to have difficulties with some bookmakers if you follow my selections. If you follow the instructions above though you should be able to sidestep these problems and continue fleecing the bookies. I would recommend using BetFair as much as possible as they will not stop you getting on after a few big winners. If the bookmakers price is only going to pay a couple of quid more than BetFair after commission then it might be worth taking the marginal drop in profit, especially if it means protecting an account that might be on borrowed time. Use shop coupons where you can and use different shops where possible as this will prevent them from monitoring your business.

Best Wishes

The Oracle

———————————————————

The Oracle works as an odds compiler for a major uk bookmaker.

He retired from his moonlighting job as a tipster to free up more time for his family. You can read more sage advice from him however in the free soccer betting course available at www.football-bets.co.uk

The Favourite-Longshot Bias in Football Fixed Odds Betting

Consider a typical Premiership game, Manchester United (home) versus Bolton (away). In an efficient betting market, the prices for the home and away win should reflect all available information about the chances of either side winning, which if available to both bookmaker and punters alike, should then be backed in direct proportion to the probability of each result occurring. Suppose Manchester United was considered to be 6 times more likely to win than Bolton. An efficient betting market might then predict home and away win odds of 1.333 (or 1/3) and 8.0 (or 7/1) respectively, and we would expect punters to bet £1.333 on Bolton for every £8 that was bet on Manchester United. If the draw was priced at 4 (or 3/1), the bookmakers margin, or overround, for this book would be 112.5%. There might be subtle changes in price, in response to varied money flow, but if the market remained efficient, every price would remain close to that predicted by the information available.

Unfortunately for the bookmaker, punters don’t readily conform to normative theories of economic efficiency. Whilst market efficiency implies an equality of expected returns for Manchester United and Bolton alike, many punters express different utility attitudes to bets of equal profit expectancy if the bets have different win probabilities. Put more simply, a risk-loving punter sees more point to a 7/1 shot than a 1/3 shot even though over the long term he won’t win any more or less on either. He sees more benefit or utility in a short term reward of £7 for a £1 stake than making 33 pence even though he is 6 times more likely to win the latter. Consequently, whilst there will still be more money bet overall on Manchester United than Bolton, the bookmaker will see proportionally more money bet on the 7/1 shot than is justified by its objective chances of winning. In this example, for every £8 bet on Manchester United, the actual amount bet on Bolton might well be £1.50 or more

There are all sorts of reasons that might explain why many punters express this attitude, which is beyond the scope of this article. For now it is sufficient to say that if Bolton, as the underdog or longshot is overbet, whilst Manchester United, the favourite, is underbet, the bookmaker will have to shorten his price for Bolton and lengthen his price for Manchester United until they reflect the actual volumes of traded bets and the liabilities he faces. More generally, a bookmaker will have to lower the expected return on longshots whilst raising them for favourites, until they once again provide equal expected betting utility for the population of punters. This market anomaly is more commonly known as the favourite-longshot bias and is simply the result of too much money being bet on longshots, and too little on favourites, relative to their “true” chances of winning.

Just how much are expected returns raised and lowered on favourites and underdogs respectively? An analysis of betting odds taken from the bookmaker William Hill for over 14,000 games played from 2000 to 2007 in the English professional league divisions confirms the presence of a favourite-longshot bias. Backing every home and away result would have yielded, on average, a loss of 12.44 pence for every £1 staked. By contrast, backing all home and away prices greater than 2/1 would have lost the punter 16.75 pence for every £1 staked, whereas betting on all teams with an odds-on price would have lost 9.17 pence. Backing teams at shorter than 1/2 would have lost only 4.86 pence for every £1. A more detailed breakdown of returns against betting price is illustrated in the figure below.

Of course, understanding this favourite-longshot bias will not on its own make a profit for the punter. It should demonstrate, however, that making money from underdogs is that much harder than one might otherwise have expected.

Joseph Buchdahl is the author of the book Fixed Odds Sports Betting: Statistical Forecasting & Risk Management and webmaster of www.Football-Data.co.uk

Fixed Odds Sports Betting investigates:

·Markets in fixed odds sports betting

·The bookmaker’s overround

·Value betting

·Ratings systems for sports prediction

·Profitability and risk

·Singles versus accumulators

·Staking plans and money management

·The favourite-longshot bias

·Sports advisory services

·Betting records and their significance testing

Marketing Points:

·Adopts a numerical approach to fixed odds sports betting

·Provides an in-depth examination of betting risk and money management

·Utilises extensive data analyses and staking plan computer simulations

·Invaluable reading for statistically-literate sports bettors

·Many useful ideas for the more casual punter

·Exposes some of the long-standing myths surrounding fixed odds betting

Nothing beats what your eyes see themselves when it comes to picking winning selections however the right stats and ratings can be a useful tool in every punter’s armoury. Here Darren Davies, launches his new look at ratings with a debut contribution to Progambler.

Onside

‘It’s better with a bet on’, and with Ladbrokes posting pre-tax profits of £235m for 2006, it just gets better and better. And it’s not like the Magic Sign are on their own, Gala Coral is the UK’s biggest private firm, Bet365 have increased their sales from £112m in 2002 to £986m last year, whilst BetFred have doubled their turnover from £387m to £874m in three years. Earlier in April, the eighth annual Profit Track 100, which ranks Britain’s fastest-growing private companies by average profit growth, listed spread betting firm SpreadEx, boosting profits 76% a year from £1.2m in 2003 to £6.4m in 2006, bookie StanJames, increasing its profit 70% a year from £1.1m in 2002 to £5.5m in 2005, and BetFair, where an average of 6m of bets matched every day helped profits surge 61% a year from £8.3m in 2003 to £34.6m in 2006. ’It’s better with a bet on’, as far as the bookmakers are concerned never were truer words spoken.

This article intends to guide the reader through the complex task of denying the bookmakers of some of their hard-earned prosperity. By concentrating on the fixed-odds markets for football betting I will show how it is possible not only to win, but to win consistently and ultimately to make an income. However, before reading on you need to ask yourself this question, ’why do I bet on football?’ If the answer is, ’to make it more interesting’, or ’cause I always back the Hammers’, or worse, ’that bleedin’ scorecast is bound to come in if I don’t’, then stop here and think nothing of it, this article is not for you. If, however, your answer is indeed, ’to make an income’, then read on.

Value Betting

It may well be that I am preaching to the choir, however the concept of value is so central to any winning punter’s thinking that I would like to reiterate a few basic principles and dispel some commonly held, and widely purported, myths regarding value betting.

Principle #1

In simple terms a punter has identified value when a bookmaker prices the outcome of an event at odds greater than the true odds of that event occurring. The assumption is that a skilled punter can identify such situations, a matter to which we shall return.

Principle #2

Where value has been identified the outcome has to be backed to occur, regardless of whether the punter thinks it will win or not, conversely, where the absence of value has been identified the outcome must not be backed, even when the punter in question believes it to be a stone cold certainty to occur, due to Principle #3.

Principle #3

Backing outcomes at odds greater than their true odds of occurring will guarantee a long-term profit, backing outcomes at odds less than their true of odds of occurring will guarantee a loss and will break your bank in the long run.     Now let’s dispel some commonly held myths.

Myth #1’Value betting means always backing outsiders’. Referring to Principle #1 it should be clear that this is the case only when the outsider in question is priced up by the bookmaker at odds greater than the true odds of it winning, otherwise Principle #2 applies and no bet.

Myth #2’There is no value in backing odds-on shots’. Again, Principle #1 applies, if the selection is overpriced, even at odds-on, value exists and Principle #2 demands a bet. In fact, Joseph Buchdahl, in his book Fixed Odds Sports Betting, argues that there is a such a thing as favourite-longshot bias, which he provides evidence for and that states bookmakers overprice odds-on favourites and underprice longshots, ‘in order to insure themselves against insider information and subsequent excessive liability’.

Myth #3’Value betting removes the element of skill in picking a winner’. Any fool can get lucky, it takes real skill to identify value, bookmakers are nobody’s fools, quite the contrary, and to figure out when they have made a mistake is the consummate punting skill.  To summarise, and to quote Buchdahl, whose approach outlined in his aforementioned book provides the basis for this analysis of football betting,’ Value-bet or don’t bet at all’, and finally and most pertinently, ’Find the value and the winners will take care of themselves’.

Finding the value

We have all experienced that feeling when we look down at the coupon and something just jumps off the paper screaming to be backed, that team, that opposition, and at that price. We know their going to win and we know the price is too big, in these cases follow your instincts every time. For ’feel’ is an important weapon in the successful punters arsenal, that gut feeling, the hunch you get is more often right than wrong and you should follow it every time. However, these experiences are usually few and far between and it can’t be forced, as soon as you start to look for it, by definition, it isn’t there. Give it up.  Often we ’fancy’ a particular team to win (or lose) and start to look for reasons to back (lay) them, usually they are a form team, running particularly hot or cold which is what alerts us and qualifies them as a ’fancy’. We start to look for team news, maybe we look into their home/away form more closely, even look at recent head-to head results, look up the football forums on the internet to see if there is any wisdom to be found in cyberspace. Based upon the results of this analysis we decide to invest some of our hard-earned money, and again, such endeavour is often rewarded.  Both these approaches can be described as a qualitative analysis. Making a judgment based upon available information. Few punters take the next step and quantify these factors, assign them a numerical value, and total them to provide a quantitative measure of the superiority of one football team over their opposition. This is essentially a Ratings System, the sophistication of which is dependant upon the amount of information used to determine the numbers, ranging from the very simple, say league positions and goals scored, to the very complex, incorporating league positions, goals scored and conceded, head-to-head record, match statistics (shots, corners, possession), home/away performance etc etc. Once the number crunching is done, the rating (the number for the away side subtracted from the number for the home side) for the match needs to be translated into the relative chances of a home win, a draw, and an away win, from which a judgment about available value can be made.

Developing a Ratings System I have developed and perfected my own ratings system over the last three years. The first step involves identifying a potentially profitable market, the second to develop a theory as to the factors that influence the outcome and to then quantify them into a ratings system. My first relatively unsuccessful attempts centred around correct score betting and the total goals markets. The former suffered from the huge overounds the bookmakers enjoy on these markets and the latter didn’t provide enough value with regard to the matches that the system was throwing up. The point to note here is that I tested a theory about the outcomes of football matches, what I learnt was not to test it in real time, rather back-test the theory against previous seasons results (much cheaper when the theory is wrong), and to choose markets that favour the punter rather than the bookmaker.Up until recently, pre-internet, it was impossible to bet singles on football matches, it was minimum trebles with the high-street bookmakers. The arrival of the internet and the subsequent competition it introduced to the market meant that betting singles on football matches soon became a reality. This is a punters market for sure; only three possible outcomes, low overound, widely available information, reliable form, lots of competition. Take a look at the table below:

Table 1. English Football % 1X2 2006/07

League	1	X	2
Premiership	47.89	25.79	26.32
Championship	48.19	22.28	29.53
League 1	45.11	25.18	29.71
League 2	44.75	25.72	29.53

The results for this season are consistent with previous seasons. What struck me is that nearly half of all football matches end as a home win. This pattern is repeated year after year and across the football world. This seemed a promising market to investigate further. I theorized as to the factors that influence the outcome of a football match, listed and prioritized them, assigning them relative values and began to back test. A laborious task involving calculating a rating for each team for each match, converting it to a percentage chance of a home win and from there to ‘fair’ odds.The website www.football-data.co.uk provides access to results and statistics from previous seasons for the English, Scottish and major European leagues. Additionally, and crucially they also provide data on the odds available thus allowing an available value judgment to be made once the ratings system has provided the ‘fair’ odds.A good ratings system will model reality; it will predict the outcome of a football match. If, historically, this can be demonstrated it can be used with confidence in the future. My own system, developed through three years of back testing, the final year of which went ‘live’, so to speak, with real money, models

reality like this:

Table 2. Rating System results distribution

Rating	% home wins	# Matches
< -60	7	28
> -60 < -56	0	7
> -56 < -51	25	16
> -51 < -46	41	17
> -46 < -41	13	23
> -41 < -36	20	20
> -36 < -31	15	27
> -31 < -26	31	32
> -26 < -21	32	34
> -21 < -16	31	36
> -16 < -11	23	71
> -11 < -6	29	70
> -6 < 6	37	303
> 6 < 11	44	178
> 11 < 16	41	180
> 16 < 21	54	191
> 21 < 26	49	152
> 26 < 31	44	151
> 31 < 36	50	125
> 36 < 41	46	94
> 41 < 46	50	92
> 46 < 51	52	52
> 51 < 56	60	52
> 56 < 60	60	43
> 60	73	225

For the purposes of Table 2 the ratings from seasons 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2006/07 have been grouped by intervals of 5 and the corresponding percentage of home wins for each interval are shown, together with the total number of matches for each interval. If the ratings system is any good we should see a low percentage of home wins where there is a large negative rating, i.e., the home side has a rating much lower than the away side, whereas we should large positive ratings have a high percentage of home wins, where the home side has a superior rating to that of the away side.  

Doing the Math! A decent secondary education and you are more than capable of doing the maths required for this type of analysis. Even if you’re not, Excel is, though a word of caution, Excel only does what you tell it do, it has yet to develop the function that tells you you’re stupid and that you should really be doing it like this! Anyway, looking at Table 2 it seems that the ratings system is doing a decent job of describing reality. Again though we need to move from a qualitative description to a quantative analysis. In order to do this we need to consider the degree of correlation between the ratings and the number of home wins. Excel does this very well in the shape of a scatter graph and the resultant correlation coefficient.

Graph 1. Scatter Graph for Ratings and % of Home wins

The x-axis is the ratings, the y-axis the percentage of home wins and the points the plot for each interval. The regression line passes through these points as a line of best fit and R² is the correlation coefficient of the regression line. The value of R² can fall in the range of –1 to +1, where –1 would indicate perfect negative correlation and +1 perfect positive correlation. R² describes how much of the distribution of the ‘real’ data can be described by the ratings system; the closer to +1 the more of the distribution is described by the system. The R² value of 0.8101 indicates the system is a good description, a good model, of reality. Oftentimes R² can be expressed as a percentage, in this case 81%, however this does not mean that it predicts 81% of the results correctly (no such luck!), rather that it predicts 81% of the variance observed in the results, the remaining 19% of variance is not described by the system and is due to factors outside of the computations involved.The equation of the line is a mathematical description of any point on that line. The equation can be used to predict the percentage chance of a home win when we know the rating of any given match.  Let’s look at an example. Home team rating = 65Away team rating = 37 Match rating = 65 – 37 = 28 Equation of the line: y = 0.428x + 37.063 Where x = match rating and y = percentage chance of a home win. Therefore y, the percentage chance of a home win, is calculated as follows y = 0.428(28) + 37.063 y = 11.984 + 37.063 y = 49.047 We now know that for this match there is a 49.047% chance of a home win, close to 1 in 2, which we commonly know as 50-50 or evens. To convert this percentage to decimal odds we need to do the following calculation, 100/49.047 = 2.04 So, now we know that, according to the ratings system, the ‘fair’ odds for the home win are 2.04. Using decimal odds as opposed to fractions allows easier comparisons to the odds available and subsequent value judgments. Let’s say that our favourite bookmaker has priced the home win up at 2.25, well then we have identified value and Principle #2 demands we have a bet. If however the odds are a miserly 1.87 then there is no value to be found and therefore no bet. Of course if we shop around we might get 2.1, and we’ll probably be able to get 2.24 on BetFair, in each case a bet is warranted.For my own purposes I compare my ‘fair’ odds to the average odds for the home win as shown on BetBrain and take it from there. Conveniently football-data collate this information for ready analysis.

Results

Looking at three seasons results, backing each match where value is identified on BetFair, the results are as follows:

Season	2004/05	2005/06	2006/07
Bets	124	355	443
Profit/Loss	+18.45	+34.57	+12.27
% Yield	14.88	9.74	2.77

Three consecutive seasons of profit, yield is defined as the percentage profit on turnover, and certainly for 2004/05 and 2005/06 this is more than acceptable, for 2006/07 less so. In 2004/05 I back tested only against the Premiership, in 2005/06 the Premiership and the Championship whereas for 2006/07 the data comes form the Premiership, the Bundesliga, Serie A and the Spanish Primera. During this time it has been clear to me that certain sub sets of ratings are performing better than others. This is illustrated by the following table:

Table 3a. Ratings sub sets

Season	2005/06		2006/07
Sub set	Bets	Profit/Loss	Bets	Profit/Loss
<-10	10	-10	33	+25,9
>-10<10	20	+18,85	43	+6,10
>10 < 20	38	+1,93	52	-12,77
>20 < 30	65	+10,95	70	+23
>30 < 40	65	+6,14	58	-18,85
>40 < 50	59	-4,2	30	-2,72
>50	93	+11,9	157	-8,4

Grouping the sub sets into less than or equal to 30 and greater than 30 reveals a clear pattern. That being that returns are maximized by only betting on matches with a rating below 30. Table 3b. Sub set groupings

Season	2005/06		2006/07
Sub set	Bets	Profit/Loss	Bets	Profit/Loss
< 30	133	+21.73 (16.3%)	198	+43.03(21.7%)
> 30	217	+13.84(6.4%)	245	- 29.97(-12.2%)

Note. Detailed results from 2004/05 unavailable Why is this the case? I have no definitive answer, a few theories, that these are for the most case evenly matched teams where home advantage is decisive for example, or that in extreme cases with low or even negative match ratings we are looking at the ‘minnow effect’, where unfashionable teams at the bottom of the leagues play host to one of the top four or five teams in the league and raise their game, or maybe the top teams are somewhat complacent and lower their performance, or a combination of both. Another possible explanation is that these unfashionable teams are under-estimated by the bookmakers; or rather their more illustrious visitors are under-priced based upon reputation, players, coach etc. thereby overpricing the hosts in relation to their actual chances, or ‘fair’ odds. Whatever the explanation there seems to be a niche to be exploited here.

Conclusions

The ratings system produces an average yield of 19%. Any self respecting tipster or system would be more than satisfied with such a return given that it has the potential to generate over 200 bets per season. With three years of supporting data the system can be said to be both reliable and valid, that is the results are repeatable given similar conditions, and that it measures accurately what it is designed to, i.e. the superiority of one team over another, or as one of my favourite adverts on TV used to say about it’s product, ‘it does exactly what it says on the tin..’. Personally speaking, the motivation to develop such a system is not so much about making money but about how to beat the bookmakers at their own game. Of course, it would be disingenuous of me to say that making money isn’t a motivating factor, it is, simple as that, but the satisfaction comes from knowing that I can better predict the correct odds for a football match than the combined forces of the bookmaking fraternity, and given my Dad’s cautionary wisdom, ‘that you never see a bookie on a bike’, then that is no mean feat indeed. In order to help you develop your own system I intend to explore in greater detail the factors that influence the outcome of a football match, what constitutes form, how long form is valid over, how to quantify home advantage and how to quantify the quality of opposition. Additionally I intend to show how to use Excel to both help collate all this information and to do all the number crunching subsequently. Unfortunately a ratings system, a good one at that, isn’t a promise of financial success without the understanding of the importance of a bankroll, of a staking plan or of risk management. Otherwise it all can be a waste of time, effort and of course, money. On a positive note such an understanding can maximize your profits, for example, taking the 2006/07 season and backing all matches with a rating under 30 to level stakes produces a finishing bankroll of 921.4 points from a starting bankroll of 500. However, using a particular staking plan, virtually risk-free, the bankroll swells to an impressive 3407.2 points.  Well worth the effort of time and energy I think you will agree.