Month: August 2010

Mike's Football Bets

Posted on by Mike

With the return of the Premier League this weekend and the major European leagues soon to follow suit, its back into the swing of things football wise.

The temptation when the season re-starts is to rush in and place a whole load of bets as your betting money has been burning a hole in your pocket for a while. It can be a dangerous thing to do as the bookies know this so want you to risk too much straight away.

Most football fans are the same at the start of the new season as no matter how badly their team went last year there is this feeling that things could be different. Often it is for no reason other than the bad memories from last year have now gone – however give it a few weeks and it very often all comes flooding back!

Therefore it’s a gentle start to the season for me this weekend with 1 small main bet and 2 shortlist bets only (these are my next best selections) and more of a watching brief than anything.

A game such as Spurs – Man City is very difficult to predict (City could be anything this year) and with Aston Villa now managerless and usually stronger away from home, the odds-on price for them to beat West Ham this weekend does not appeal.

My 1 main bet actually features a good ol northern derby as pie-eaters Wigan host stag-do central Blackpool in the away sides first ever Premier League game. Even Tony Cascarino could pick out Blackpool as a team to struggle this year but I am keen to exploit the over 2.5 goals market in their games as they are set-up to attack and will definitely let in a lot of goals at the back. Their opponents Wigan are perennially dodgy defensively (Gary Caldwell) but look to have a decent set of strikers this year.

I see goals in this game and don’t quite understand why 5Dimes and SBOBet are offering 2.21 on the over 2.5 goals market and I thought I would show my calculations on why i see it as value. Odds of 2.21 equates the chance of this happening to only a 45% likelihood. Last year Wigan went over 2.5 goals in 58% of games whilst Blackpool did in 59% of games. Thus combined, the 58.5% chance likelihood indicates odds of 1.72 in this market to be more accurate. Consider as well that last season 53% of games in the Premier League went over 2.5 goals and it really sticks out as value. We are being offered 2.21, when the true value lies at around 1.70-1.80. Were it not the first game of the season I would make this more than just a 1 pt bet.

My other shortlist bets include Bolton who play Fulham at home, which is the type of game they always target for 3 points. Even Roy Hodgson couldn’t improve the Cottagers form on the road much and so the -0.25 Asian Handicap on the Trotters with 12Bet appeals at 1.94. Mark Hughes will probably set out Fulham to be very hard to beat so a half loss if it’s a draw is OK.

Blackburn are another team perennially under-rated at home and they seem too large with a 0 Asian Handicap at 2.22 with 188Bet against Everton. The visitors were one of the few teams to win at Ewood Park last year (they threw caution to the wind that day) but Big Sam’s team won’t lose many at home this season.

Main Bet
1 pt Wigan V Blackpool. Over 2.5 Goals. 2.21 5Dimes/SBObet

Shortlist
1 pt Bolton (-0.25 AH) V Fulham. 1.94 12Bet
1 pt Blackburn (0 AH) V Everton. 2.22 188Bet

Whatever you bet on, good luck!

Mike

Mike’s Football Bets

Posted on by Mike

With the return of the Premier League this weekend and the major European leagues soon to follow suit, its back into the swing of things football wise.

The temptation when the season re-starts is to rush in and place a whole load of bets as your betting money has been burning a hole in your pocket for a while. It can be a dangerous thing to do as the bookies know this so want you to risk too much straight away.

Most football fans are the same at the start of the new season as no matter how badly their team went last year there is this feeling that things could be different. Often it is for no reason other than the bad memories from last year have now gone – however give it a few weeks and it very often all comes flooding back!

Therefore it’s a gentle start to the season for me this weekend with 1 small main bet and 2 shortlist bets only (these are my next best selections) and more of a watching brief than anything.

A game such as Spurs – Man City is very difficult to predict (City could be anything this year) and with Aston Villa now managerless and usually stronger away from home, the odds-on price for them to beat West Ham this weekend does not appeal.

My 1 main bet actually features a good ol northern derby as pie-eaters Wigan host stag-do central Blackpool in the away sides first ever Premier League game. Even Tony Cascarino could pick out Blackpool as a team to struggle this year but I am keen to exploit the over 2.5 goals market in their games as they are set-up to attack and will definitely let in a lot of goals at the back. Their opponents Wigan are perennially dodgy defensively (Gary Caldwell) but look to have a decent set of strikers this year.

I see goals in this game and don’t quite understand why 5Dimes and SBOBet are offering 2.21 on the over 2.5 goals market and I thought I would show my calculations on why i see it as value. Odds of 2.21 equates the chance of this happening to only a 45% likelihood. Last year Wigan went over 2.5 goals in 58% of games whilst Blackpool did in 59% of games. Thus combined, the 58.5% chance likelihood indicates odds of 1.72 in this market to be more accurate. Consider as well that last season 53% of games in the Premier League went over 2.5 goals and it really sticks out as value. We are being offered 2.21, when the true value lies at around 1.70-1.80. Were it not the first game of the season I would make this more than just a 1 pt bet.

My other shortlist bets include Bolton who play Fulham at home, which is the type of game they always target for 3 points. Even Roy Hodgson couldn’t improve the Cottagers form on the road much and so the -0.25 Asian Handicap on the Trotters with 12Bet appeals at 1.94. Mark Hughes will probably set out Fulham to be very hard to beat so a half loss if it’s a draw is OK.

Blackburn are another team perennially under-rated at home and they seem too large with a 0 Asian Handicap at 2.22 with 188Bet against Everton. The visitors were one of the few teams to win at Ewood Park last year (they threw caution to the wind that day) but Big Sam’s team won’t lose many at home this season.

Main Bet
1 pt Wigan V Blackpool. Over 2.5 Goals. 2.21 5Dimes/SBObet

Shortlist
1 pt Bolton (-0.25 AH) V Fulham. 1.94 12Bet
1 pt Blackburn (0 AH) V Everton. 2.22 188Bet

Whatever you bet on, good luck!

Mike

Mikes Football Bets

Posted on by Mike

As the Premier League doesn’t kick-off until next week, I am going to start-off by rounding up my pre-season ante post bets.

In my Weekend Wager column over the past few weeks I have already shared one ante post bet that I like on Stoke to finish in the top half of the table. They have a settled team and lots of under-rated players so the 7/2 on them with Paddy Power and Blue Square appeals.

Another bet previously mentioned is West Brom to be the top newcomer this season at 9/4 with Ladbrokes, who also go best price 4/1 on Newcastle to go straight back down. The top flight will be a lot tougher this year and with Mike Ashley in charge, they are never likely to be far from trouble. I was very tempted by this bet but instead have taken the 3/4 on arch rivals Sunderland to finish above them with Bwin. They are a settled team with a top goalscorer in Darren Bent and a top ten finish won’t be beyond them.

My final bet for the season is on likely whipping boys Blackpool who are 11/8 with VCBet to concede the most amount of goals this season. Considering how manager Ian Holloway loves his teams to attack, they can expect to be on the end of a few good hidings this season like Burnley last year. At the very least we can expect some cracking post-game interviews from ‘Olly’ – check-out these classics from Youtube… Not the best lookin bird, ranting and raving, and my fave – reacting to news his then Plymouth team are playing Real Madrid.

My pre-season bets
0.5 pt Stoke to finish in top half of table. 7/2 Ladbrokes
0.5 pt West Brom top newcomer 9/4 Ladbrokes
1 pt Sunderland to finish above Newcastle 3/4 Bwin
1 pt Blackpool to concede most goals this season 11/8 VCbet

Whatever you bet on, good luck!

Mike's Football Bets This Season

Posted on by Mike

With the Premier League football season just under a week and a half away, it’s time for my football bets to return after the success enjoyed last year.

Last season from October onward I posted my best football bets up at my free Betting Prophet blog and began keeping a full record. These bets were all based upon the advice I highlighted in my ‘next week in football betting’ column in the free Weekend Wager email sent every Friday (enter your email address at the top of this page to pick it up). I also selected regular bets for midweek games as well, which all went up at the blog.

By the end of the season the Premier League focused best bets (my speciality) had returned a profit of 10.66 pts from 64 bets and a total of 78.5 pts staked. The return on investment level was 13.58%. Check out the profit graph from last season below

Along with my main football bets I also began to highlight my next-best ‘shortlist’ selections. These were those bets that don’t quite make the grade for a main selection but I do think offer value.  Only 7 bets via this so far, losing 0.64 pts from 7 pts staked.

This Season’s Target

In the 2010/11 season my aim is to continue to expand upon this and see what kind of profit or loss level I may actually generate over a more substantial number of bets. Whilst the 10.66 pts obtained since October 09 is decent, I want to judge this over a larger number of bets.

Hopefully I can also provide some ‘against the grain’ style betting commentary and suggest a few good angles to take if nothing else.

I will be backing each bet to small stakes myself as I always like to track any such method with my own money. However I wouldn’t advise those of you following do so with anything more than similarly small stakes.

Asian Handicap Focus

The vast majority of my bets are all based around Asian Handicap betting, which is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to bet on football. One of the reasons for this is that the bookmakers margins for these bets are smaller, meaning in principle it’s easier to make a profit.

Don’t be put off either by the name or some of the terms it uses such as 0.25 or -0.5 – It is actually quite simple to follow once you get a grasp of it.  If you have yet to consider Asian Handicap betting, let me encourage you to do so this year – you can read an explanation of what it is and how it works at the following websites:

Wikipedia
Beat The Bookies
SBOBet

Other bet types supplied will be on the outright win and also the under/over goals market.

Next Up

Over the next few weeks I will begin to blog and share my football bets for the coming season, starting with a look at my advice in the Ante-post market.

Bet numbers may be relatively low at the start of the season as I want to see how each team approaches things this year. With the transfer window at the end of August this can also throw things a little. Once the season is up and running properly and things have settled down, expect regular bets from me.

All bets will be posted up at this blog so keep an eye out for my advice whenever there are Premier League fixtures looming.

Mike’s Football Bets This Season

Posted on by Mike

With the Premier League football season just under a week and a half away, it’s time for my football bets to return after the success enjoyed last year.

Last season from October onward I posted my best football bets up at my free Betting Prophet blog and began keeping a full record. These bets were all based upon the advice I highlighted in my ‘next week in football betting’ column in the free Weekend Wager email sent every Friday (enter your email address at the top of this page to pick it up). I also selected regular bets for midweek games as well, which all went up at the blog.

By the end of the season the Premier League focused best bets (my speciality) had returned a profit of 10.66 pts from 64 bets and a total of 78.5 pts staked. The return on investment level was 13.58%. Check out the profit graph from last season below

Along with my main football bets I also began to highlight my next-best ‘shortlist’ selections. These were those bets that don’t quite make the grade for a main selection but I do think offer value.  Only 7 bets via this so far, losing 0.64 pts from 7 pts staked.

This Season’s Target

In the 2010/11 season my aim is to continue to expand upon this and see what kind of profit or loss level I may actually generate over a more substantial number of bets. Whilst the 10.66 pts obtained since October 09 is decent, I want to judge this over a larger number of bets.

Hopefully I can also provide some ‘against the grain’ style betting commentary and suggest a few good angles to take if nothing else.

I will be backing each bet to small stakes myself as I always like to track any such method with my own money. However I wouldn’t advise those of you following do so with anything more than similarly small stakes.

Asian Handicap Focus

The vast majority of my bets are all based around Asian Handicap betting, which is quickly becoming one of the most popular ways to bet on football. One of the reasons for this is that the bookmakers margins for these bets are smaller, meaning in principle it’s easier to make a profit.

Don’t be put off either by the name or some of the terms it uses such as 0.25 or -0.5 – It is actually quite simple to follow once you get a grasp of it.  If you have yet to consider Asian Handicap betting, let me encourage you to do so this year – you can read an explanation of what it is and how it works at the following websites:

Wikipedia
Beat The Bookies
SBOBet

Other bet types supplied will be on the outright win and also the under/over goals market.

Next Up

Over the next few weeks I will begin to blog and share my football bets for the coming season, starting with a look at my advice in the Ante-post market.

Bet numbers may be relatively low at the start of the season as I want to see how each team approaches things this year. With the transfer window at the end of August this can also throw things a little. Once the season is up and running properly and things have settled down, expect regular bets from me.

All bets will be posted up at this blog so keep an eye out for my advice whenever there are Premier League fixtures looming.

Monkeys, Shakespeare and Sods Law When Betting

Posted on by Mike

Have you ever started to follow a betting system or tipster, only to find that as soon as you join it hits a losing run? Well if you have you are not alone let me assure you. Some consider this simply ‘sods law’ and just the way things work, but delving deeper is there anything that can be done to pre-empt such runs?

I am of the firm belief that this is most certainly the case, especially when it comes to relatively new betting products, which we should always be wary of. Let me explain using some monkeys and William Shakespeare…

The Merchimp of Venice

Consider first the theory that in a world with unlimited parallel universes, somewhere a monkey sat on a typewriter has written the complete works of William Shakespeare. The ‘Merchimp of Venice’ if you will!

For this to happen there would be need to be trillions of universes where gazillions of monkeys have typed out utter gobbledygook. But in just 1 out of these infinitive universes, somewhere a monkey purely by chance has randomly emulated the famous bard.

The reason I share this theory is that anything random is possible if given enough occurrences, especially when it comes to making a profit betting.

If enough betting products are spat out in any given month then the law of randomness insists that a good percentage of these will make a profit – purely by chance.

The Maths Part

To give an example, let’s say we have 100 products released (be they systems or tipsters) in any given month. If our law of randomness suggests 50% of any product will make a profit in any given month, then that means 50 out of this 100 will profit in month 1.

Drilling this down to month 2, 50% of the remaining 50 make a profit. Leaving us 25 products in profit for both month 1 and month 2.

In month 3 this goes down to just 12.5 products, month 4 just 6.25, month 5 – 3.125, until we get to month 6 where 1.56 of the initial 100 products have made a profit in each month.

So after 6 months it is conceivable that a maximum of 2 services out of 100 have profited purely from randomness. No skill involved…purely chance!

Danger From Short-term Results

This is why it is so dangerous to read too much into the results of a betting product from just a few months. Could it be that the system that has done so well in its first 3 to 6 months, has benefitted purely by chance?

It could also be that a product has simply over performed and is due a losing spell to correct it. Of course it is also true that it actually does make a profit and is worth following – but doing so after just a few months is very risky. We just don’t know how much is luck and how much is skill.

I always note with real concern when sweeping statements are made about a product based upon just a few month’s results. This is no real period of time to make any concrete decisions and certainly not worth risking your money upon.

That is why here at SBC we only make decisions based upon the long-term performance of any given product. We need to view a service’s achievements over at least a year’s performance or a few thousand bets. Enough results that can help assure us that their edge is based on skill – not luck!

In our Tipster Report we always list performance for the past 6, 12 and all-time results of over 35 services. We update these figures every month so you can see exactly who or what has proven to have real skill (and not just luck) over the long-haul.

Check out our latest report (released last Friday) as a full SBC member.

How To Bet: Using Compounding Staking When Betting

Posted on by Mike

Last week I touched briefly upon the topic of compounding  and I have continued to explore this in a feature article released in SBC issue 51.

In this article I have examined some of the various ways you can compound your stakes, using 3 different SBC recommended services to illustrate 3 example methods.

Each service uses a slightly different compounding approach, tailored to suit their strike-rate and profit level. The first service I look at supplies football advice and over the past 3 seasons, have turned £1000 into £17,369 via their recommended compounding approach.

Another of the 3 services supplies 1 daily racing bet at short odds and has a very good strike-rate of winners. Going back to Dec 2008 this would have turned £1000 into £2925.45 via a very simple method. You are unlikely to find growth of 192.5% like this from any savings account.

Of course, not every service is suited to compounding as the analysis of the laying service in my previous blog showed. Here the compounded bank would have returned a lot less profit than simple level stakes.

Compounding also comes with its own risks and it certainly can’t magic a losing product into a winning one. What it can do though is add steady growth and provide another string to your bow when it comes to your betting profits.

My message therefore is quite simple in that compounding can work, but only when you apply it sensibly. Here are some general rules of thumb.

1. Compounding will always make your returns more volatile even when its increases profits significantly.

2. Compounding works best on high strike rate, small losing run systems & tipsters.

3. Luck plays too big a role with big priced selections, so compounding will generally lead to squeaky bum time.

Check out my full article on compounding including the details on some of the best services to use it with by becoming a Smart Betting Club member.

(p.s. Those of you with iPhones – be sure to check out the new app from Oddschecker for mobile odds comparison for all UK racing meetings.)