How To Bet: Football Betting Essentials Guide

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…..the list is seemingly endless.

However, many of these markets have large profit margins built in by bookmakers making it extremely difficult to make money from them. In this football betting beginners guide article, I will try and explain some of the main ones you are likely to come across over the course of the season.

Even if you already 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. Continue reading

How To Win Betting On Horse Racing – For Dummies!

Today I have a confession to make that when it comes to horse racing – I must admit it, I am far from an expert on the sport of Kings.

It might be a strange thing for the Editor of the Smart Betting Club to share, but there you have it. I know enough to get by at a racecourse, but were I ever needed to discuss at length the chances of X horse or Y trainer, I would soon be stumped!

This lack of knowledge however has not stopped me making a regular income betting on horse racing, because it is my own belief (and personal experience) that as long as you follow the right racing tipsters and experts and know how to place a bet – it can be done. Let me show you how to win betting on horse racing..for dummies!

Finding The Right Racing Experts

The tricky part in the above statement though is finding the right tipsters in the first place – who exactly should you listen to when it comes to betting on sports you might know nothing about? Continue reading

How To Bet On Corners – Part 2

This is a continuation of our exploration into betting upon corners, where this week we look at the resources you can use to help compile your best bets. You can find the first part of our how to bet on corners article here.

Betting on corners – Websites and resources to help

For the newcomer to corner betting, finding out about the various markets isn’t particular easy but we have a few suggestions to help make it all a bit easier.

Odds Comparison & Bookies

In terms of checking your bets, the best location is often http://www.oddschecker.com, who for all the big games will offer odds comparison on all the major corner markets.

Be warned though that the corners markets do not often appear until around 24 hours before the game starts – in line when the majority of bookmakers offer their own corner odds. Continue reading

Understanding Value Betting & Why Its So Important

How much exactly would you pay for a plain old cup of coffee at Starbucks?

  • Nothing, I’ll make may own and I like tea anyway!
  • £2.00
  • £5.00
  • £20.00

Unless you’re particularly desperate, most people will say either A or B. We all have similar ideas of the value of a cup of coffee and so do Starbucks. Charging £20.00 for a cuppa will soon put them out of business, but what has this got to do with betting?

Its All About Value…

Betting has never been more popular and with the Daily Express reporting this week that its likely to get even bigger thanks to Seb Coe and London 2012, more and more people are looking to understand the topic.

Plenty of people therefore are joining us at the Smart Betting Club for help and the biggest change I see in our members is when they stop thinking in just terms of what will win and start thinking about value betting. Continue reading

Understanding Value Betting & Why Its So Important

How much exactly would you pay for a plain old cup of coffee at Starbucks?

  • Nothing, I’ll make may own and I like tea anyway!
  • £2.00
  • £5.00
  • £20.00

Unless you’re particularly desperate, most people will say either A or B. We all have similar ideas of the value of a cup of coffee and so do Starbucks. Charging £20.00 for a cuppa will soon put them out of business, but what has this got to do with betting?

Its All About Value…

Betting has never been more popular and with the Daily Express reporting this week that its likely to get even bigger thanks to Seb Coe and London 2012, more and more people are looking to understand the topic.

Plenty of people therefore are joining us at the Smart Betting Club for help and the biggest change I see in our members is when they stop thinking in just terms of what will win and start thinking about value betting. Continue reading

How To Bet On Corners – Part 1

One of the best ways to make money when it comes to football betting is to specialise. That is – to drill down into ‘niche’ betting areas where the bookies are vulnerable as they simply don’t have the time to check the odds on every market.

For example, take a look at any Premier League football game with one of the major bookmakers. Each game often has a bewildering array of sub-markets beyond just the simple Team X to beat Team Y traditional bet. Then multiply those markets by the number of games in an average weekend – the amount of markets to bet upon goes into the thousands!

With so many markets the bookies get lazy and use computers and formulas to help them price up some of the more obscure bets – leaving them vulnerable to a shrewd punter with an eye for value!

One such area they are particularly vulnerable in and ripe for exploitation is that of ‘Corners Betting’, which a number of our experts at SBC have been tapping into of late. Which is why we have this first part of a 3 part guide on ‘how to bet on corners’ to share with you.

If you like this article, be sure to check out our full corners betting insight, including our full strategy to make it work and interviews with 4 corner betting experts in Smart Betting Club Issue #67.

Betting On Corners – An Introduction

For those of you new to betting on corners, it’s worth running through some of the basics to get you up to speed.

To help with this we will use the Genoa V Inter game from the 13th December. The best prices are as follows:

Genoa: 3.50
Inter: 2.32
Draw: 3.35

Next, lets look at the corners betting for this game and one one of the most popular markets – the team to enjoy the most corners during the game. As you might imagine, this is a simple bet on Team A to get more corners than Team B. Although it is worth noting that if corners tally is equal at the end of the game, this bet will lose.

Looking at the markets for most corners, three bookies had priced this up and the best prices for each team were as follows:

Genoa: 2.35
Inter: 2.1
Draw: 7.0

Comparing these prices on most corners to the market on which team will win, the bookies seem to think that Genoa have a much greater chance (2.35) of winning the most corners market than the actual game (where they are 3.50).

Naturally we have to factor in the fact a draw in the most corners market is much less likely than a draw in the actual scoreline, yet that is quite a drop. There must have been something about Genoa and their style of play (and no doubt historical record when it comes to corners to see them such a short price).

Indeed, this short price on Genoa to win the most corners was correct as although Inter won the game 1-0 in a fairly dominant performance, Genoa still went on to win on corners 6 – 4.

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Corners Handicaps Explained

For some fixtures, especially those whereby there is a strong favourite, you also might like to consider betting in the Corners Handicap markets.

To illustrate when such a bet might be appropriate lets study this fixture between Tottenham and Sunderland, where the home side were strong favourites at just 2/5 to win the game.

Reflecting the expected dominance from Spurs, Bet365 also priced up the most corners market as follows: 1/7 Spurs, 11/2 Sunderland and the draw at 10/1.

Many punters quite rightly are not keen to take on 1/7 favourites too regularly and so in this instance, you may want to consider betting with a handicap, that is to say to give Sunderland a head start on corners, which levels out the price and playing field. This can be found in the ‘Corner Handicap’ market, which is also fairly popular.

In the same Spurs- Sunderland game, Bet365 offer the following Corners Handicap market:

In this instance, you are effectively starting the game with Sunderland 4 corners ahead of Spurs. You can then take 21/20 on either Sunderland or Spurs with that in mind or on the 13/2 on it being level pegging.

Often times, this can be a fairly decent market to play if as we see above the outright most corners market is offering stingy odds.

Name: James
Joined: January 2023
Betting on: Horse Racing & Tennis
Following: 4 tipsters

Since January 2023 I’ve made just under 20k, I think I was very fortunate when I started because I initially started with hanbury racing with a £500 bank with a view to add more if I needed to, I ended up having a 50/1 winner on my 2nd day!! It was also a great first 5 months that enabled me to build my bank pretty quickly to start with. I ended 2023 with a 6k bank

Name: Justin
Joined: June 2022
Betting on: Horse Racing, Golf, Greyhounds, Tennis & Football
Following: 10 tipsters

I came across SBC on Twitter and started listening to the podcasts and reading the free reviews available. The reviews were more detailed than anything I had come across before and I had learned quite a bit from the podcast guests.

Name: Stu
Joined: January 2021
Betting on: Horse Racing and Golf
Following: 4 Tipsters

I felt safer, much safer investigating other successful tipsters as all services offered have been proofed and have up to date records of performance.

Name: Serge
Joined: October 2019
Betting on: Horse Racing, Golf, Basketball primarily, some Football (both American & European)
Following: About 15 tipsters across all sports

I joined SBC in order to become profitable with my betting portfolio. For many years I was taking lots of action based on hunches and outdated trends that don’t actually matter, and I was losing. Joining SBC was the first step for me to become a profitable bettor / advantage player.

Name: Tom
Joined: June 2019
Betting on: Horse Racing, Golf and Tennis
Following: Currently 2 tipsters, scaled down from 6

I joined SBC as I come from an analytical background with my job and simply put the analysis they do on tipping services is second to none.

Name: Markus
Joined: December 2019
Betting on: Racing, Football, Basketball, Golf and US-Sports
Following: 30-35 different tipsters or services.

I think I am in a pretty unique position, because I work as bookmaker/trader in my country as my ‘normal job’ for a regular income and also doing betting more or less full-time(which is my investment capital).

Total Corner Markets

Another very popular angle for corners betting relates to the number in each game, with the ‘total corners’ market worth exploring.

The majority of games finish with between 9 to 11 corners, so it’s normal to see markets based on over or under these figures.

For example, take the St Johnstone V Aberdeen game, where you can see a whole range of spreads on Oddschecker depending on what bet you wish to take…

There are plenty of markets on show here to illustrate the choice on offer to you such as…

Under 9 corners – Ladbrokes are offering the best priced 7/4 that there will be less than 9 corners.
Under 10 corners – Skybet, Blue Square & 888 Sport are offering 11/10 there will be less than 10 corners.
Over 10 corners – Bet365 are offering evens that there will be more than 10 corners.
Under 11 corners – Victor Chandler offering only 7/10 on less than 11 corners
Over 11 corners – Sporting Bet are offering 7/4 on over 11 corners in this market

There are also a range of other bets you can take such as exactly 10 corners or spreads such as between 9-11 corners with Sportingbet at 6/4.

The shrewd of you may notice the differences in prices between a number of bookies in this market. For example in the over 11 corners market, Paddy Power offer only evens, whilst Ladbrokes and Sporting bet go 13/8 and 7/4. Making it clear how important it can be to shop around when betting on corners.

Often you will find a whole range of other markets if you investigate further, so there are plenty of areas to specialise further such as:

  • Half with most corners
  • Most corners in first/second half
  • Race to 3 corners
  • Half corners over/unders
  • Total corners – home or away team

My advice though would be to steer clear of more random markets such as First or Last Corner or even the Time of first corner as these play into the bookies hands. It would be very hard to predict such an outcome.

—————–

Learn More With A Smart Betting Club Membership

If you enjoyed this article, you can find more like this in the in-depth Pro Gambler Blueprint supplied to all new Smart Betting Club members, which provides everything you need to set up your betting properly.

This 100-page blueprint features advice and guidance from seasoned professional gamblers in seven easy to follow sections:

  • Part One: Solid Foundations – Avoid common newbie mistakes by getting your betting off on the right foot.
  • Part Two: Money Matters – Betting bankroll management and how to maximise your profits
  • Part Three: Mindset and What Makes A Winner– Key lessons on what really matters from betting pro’s
  • Part Four: What To Bet On – Football and Horse Racing absolute essentials
  • Part Five: Being Realistic – Tipsters or Systems? How to decide what suits you best
  • Part Six: You’re The Boss – How to develop your own betting niche and become your own expert
  • Part Seven: Bookie Bashing – How to keep under the bookmaker’s radar

 

Subscribe Now & Gain Instant Access!

We have over 11 years experience of helping people make money betting and have plenty on offer to help you make 2017 your best punting year yet.

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How To Bet: An Expert Guide To In Play Football Betting

Our latest SBC Sports magazine is out now (Issue 64) and to showcase the benefits of a Smart Betting Club membership we are giving you a sneak peak at an extract from this month’s essential In Play special. It features strategies, practical advice and analysis on every part of sports betting’s biggest growth area – betting live and in running.

But that’s not all you’ll find in SBC Sports 64. The magazine also includes the second part of our interview with Malcolm Boyle a former Corals odds compiler and author of Win At Fixed Odds Football Betting. You’ll see an expert’s take on the new NFL season and a comprehensive review and interview with a major tipster offering in-play football betting – the former Malmo and Sweden U21 international Goran Trpevski.

With all this and all the usual tipster results, ratings and much more besides there’s never been a better time to join up. Join the Smart Betting Club today.

………….

But firstly though, just to get in the mood, here are some of the edited highlights from our In Play feature. Continue reading

How To Bet: Under/ Over Goal Betting Explained

One of the most popular modern day betting markets is the number of goals in a game – usually the Over/Under 2.5 goals line.

This sometimes confuses people who are new to football betting as there is obviously no such thing as half a goal!

So what exactly are you betting on when it comes to Over or Under 2.5 goals?

Allow me to explain.

What Does 2.5 Goals Mean?

The term 2.5 goals is used because you are betting on one of the following:

  • 2 goals or less being scored (The Under 2.5 goals market)
  • 3 goals or more being scored (The Over 2.5 goals market)

The number 2.5 is used because it falls in the middle of both markets.

You either think a game will be a low scoring one with 2 goals or less OR you think there will be goals a-plenty, with 3 goals or more.

If you bet on less than 2.5 goals and the game finishes 0-0, 1-0, 0-1 or 1-1 then your bet is a winner.

Yet if bet on less than 2.5 goals and the game finishes 2-1 or higher, then your bet is a loser.

And as the number of goals on average in a football game hovers around the 2.5 marker (although this varies based on trends, leagues and time of year) then its the usual market on offer.

 

Over/Under 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 and More!

The Over/Under 2.5 goals market isn’t the only option available to you though. If we look at the odds for this sample game, we can see a whole range of Over/Under goal lines:

The majority of bookmakers (43) are pricing up the Over/Under 2.5 goals line, but there are also a number at Over/Under +0.5, +1.5, +3.5, and so on.

Although they sound confusing, some of these these lines are actually relatively easy to understand as follows:

  • Over/ Under 0.5 goals means you want either 1 goal (over) or more or no goals (under).
  • Over/ Under 1.5 goals means you want either 2 goals (over) or more or 1 goal or less (under).
  • Over/ Under 3.5 goals means you want either 4 goals (over) or more or 3 goal or less (under).

Other Common Over/Under Goal Lines

The Over/Under lines don’t stop there, as you can often regularly bet on a whole range of other similar markets.

Many bookmakers for example will offer an Over/Under 2 goals betting market. The difference between this and the Over/Under 2.5 goals line is that you get your money back if the game has exactly 2 goals.

Finally to make this just a little more complex, you can also split your stakes by using the Over/Under 2.25 goals market. One half of your stake will go on the 2.5 goals line and the other half on the 2 goals line.

I appreciate this might sound complex so to help explain more, here is a quick summary guide to the different Over/Under lines and what it all means!

Learn More With A Smart Betting Club Membership

If you enjoyed this article, you can find more like this in the in-depth Pro Gambler Blueprint supplied to all new Smart Betting Club members, which provides everything you need to set up your betting properly.

This 100-page blueprint features advice and guidance from seasoned professional gamblers in seven easy to follow sections:

  • Part One: Solid Foundations – Avoid common newbie mistakes by getting your betting off on the right foot.
  • Part Two: Money Matters – Betting bankroll management and how to maximise your profits
  • Part Three: Mindset and What Makes A Winner– Key lessons on what really matters from betting pro’s
  • Part Four: What To Bet On – Football and Horse Racing absolute essentials
  • Part Five: Being Realistic – Tipsters or Systems? How to decide what suits you best
  • Part Six: You’re The Boss – How to develop your own betting niche and become your own expert
  • Part Seven: Bookie Bashing – How to keep under the bookmaker’s radar

 

Subscribe Now & Gain Instant Access!

We have over 11 years experience of helping people make money betting and have plenty on offer to help you make 2017 your best punting year yet.

 

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Best Regards,

Peter Ling
Smart Betting Club Editor

pete

 

 

 

How To Judge Just How Potent A Tipster Really Is

Those of you who have spent time researching and following different betting tipsters will know how difficult it can be at times to know exactly how much money they can make you. This is because tipsters (especially the Arfur Daley types) often use many different misleading calculations in order to show their own results in a good light.

The good news is that help is at hand as I want to unravel a few such dodgy tipster practices and also show you one calculation we use here at the Smart Betting Club, which gives you the straight facts on any tipster.

Let’s start off with the ugly side of tipster reporting with a few classic examples of misleading figures that some of the worst tipsters use…

  • Selective Results Reporting
  • Claiming the past 3 months results will have made you £5000, when the 3 months prior to that may have lost you £8000! 
  • Poor Return For Your Investment
  • Claiming to have made £1000 profit, however you would needed to have risked £100,000 in order to make that.
    Ridiculously High Stakes

    Tipsters that work to £500 per bet to try and make their profit figures look more impressive.

It can be a jungle out there trying to find the right tipster but one way to ignore these misleading stats is to use a simple calculation called Return on Capital.

Capital One

Return on Capital (or ROC) is a really effective measure that translates how much your money has grown in relation to its starting point. It is a simple percentage figure, which is very easy to calculate – even Robbie Savage could work it out!
Although if Robbie does join us here at SBC, he will see we also produce the ROC each month for every service we monitor.

To explain ROC, say for example you put £5000 into a high interest account and at the end of the year you had £6000. Well your profit is £1000, but your ROC is the percentage increase, which in this instance is 20%.

(To get this figure simply divide 100 by your starting amount – £5000 and then multiply by the profit – £1000).

Sadly, these days you are very unlikely to get anywhere near that amount of ROC from £5000 in traditional savings accounts.

This is why more and more people are turning to alternative ways of investing their money – such as through betting, where with the right people guiding you, the ROC can be very appealing.

The ROC From Our Best Services

To help explain how useful ROC is a bit further, I am going to show you the exact ROC amounts for each of the 9 top-rated racing tipsters we recommended in 2010. If you have yet to do so, you can see all the profit figures for each of these tipsters at this blog post, but in the table below are the exact ROC figures.

To unpack this table further, we recommend a betting bank figure for each service (2nd column) and next to that you can see the points profit for 2010 that this service made. In the final column is the exact Return on Capital amount in percentage terms.

The top performer was Service 7, with a whopping 455% increase in 2010. To put that in financial terms, if you had started the year with £5000, this would have become £27,552 by the end of it.

Of course they are by far and away the top performers, but still any of Services 3 through to 9 would have made at least 23.72% up to 147.27% ROC.

Much more than any bank is going to offer you in the current economic climate!

And if you find yourself approached by a tipster claiming results that look too good to be true, be sure to ask them about their own Return on Capital. If they don’t know what this is or refuse to answer, then you may well have dodged a bullet!

Find out More

If you find these kind of stats helpful then you will love our monthly Tipster Report, which gives you the latest ROC for around 35 of the very best tipsters out there. We also calculate other useful figures for you, such as Strike-Rate, ROI and our very own power ranking, which we call ROI+.

All of these stats are provided for the most recent month, past 6 and 12 months as well as all-time performance. You have every possible stat to make the most accurate and informed choice as to the tipster(s) that will make you the most money!

Sign up today for instant access with a Smart Betting Club membership.

How To Bet – Understanding Randomness When Betting & Learning To Cope With It

This is the 2nd in a series of articles we are posting from guest contributor – Herbie Fogg on some of the key concepts to be aware of when betting.  This week’s article looks at understanding randomness when betting, how it works and what to do to cope with it.

These articles are originally produced in our free Friday Weekend Wager emails and form part of our goal to help readers understand better a number of key betting topics.

You can read more about Herbie and his free Key Racing News service here.

Coping with Randomness

If offered odds of 6/5 (2.20) about a coin toss you would instantly recognise a value bet. You know the true odds should be even money (2.00). 6/5 might not sound like a lot, but that’s a 20% margin on a 2 horse race.

If you tossed the coin a few times you might win or lose – but over the long term your edge would assert, and a profit of 20% would arise. It’s a question of staying in the game long enough for the maths to play out.

While you bet and wait for the fruits of any value-based approach to play out, it is worth knowing your break even strike rate (BESR):

1. average odds 6/4 (2.50), a SR of 40.00% is required to break even over time.

2. average odds 10/1 (11.00), a SR of 9.09% is required to break even over time.

Calculating and updating the average odds taken and your BESR, is very useful when compared to your actual strike rate. It gives an instant feel for the bigger picture and whether your current strike rate is good enough to stay alive – or, better still, perhaps indicating that you are well ahead of the game and on an inevitable path to profit.

Statistics like that help you to fight through the gloom of losing runs and stay in the game. And that is harder than you may think, because human beings are not programmed to react well to the harsh reality of randomness.

Coping with randomness

Imagine a large square on the floor divided into 4 columns and 4 rows, a total of 16 squares. If you dropped 16 darts blindly, one by one, the last thing you would expect to see would be one dart having landed smoothly in each of the 16 squares. Life, we know, isn’t that simple.

What you would expect would be darts spread about in a random pattern, perhaps with several in closely grouped clumps.

That is why disease and illnesses have ‘hotspots’ or clusters of cases around the country – and yet people instinctively label this news as sinister, even though that is what randomness actually looks like. It would, after all, be far stranger if the cases were evenly spread.

The important thing to realise, is just how badly people react in the face of randomness – and how the mental pressure of coping is apt to drive us to poor beliefs and decisions. With regard to horse racing, the short answer is we give up (that is what people mean when they talk about value betting being an ‘elusive’ concept).

Playing a value-based approach, usually at bigger odds, means there will be lots of losers and the winners will be randomly spread, not in convenient intervals – but in clumps (like the proverbial buses). In the short term, anything can happen.

But when it all comes together profits can accrue very quickly. Even casinos, with the maths calculated precisely in their favour, suffer losing periods of play but rarely as a result decide to leave the casino business. For them (and us) it is about the confidence of knowing it is worth staying in the game.

Betting bank

Short term results, even for a coin toss, can vary widely. Anyone who sits by a roulette wheel soon discovers that 5 red or 5 black spins is a common thing.

We adopt a value-based approach for a reason, but that turns up the mental pressure – especially when the randomness of good and bad months hits home. Coping with that is not easy without a plan.

As experienced players know, the best way to smooth out the journey is with a realistic betting bank and I strongly recommend this approach, revising stakes just once per year.

The greater the number of points in your bank the less pressure you feel. Personally I use a 200 point bank, but there’s no reason why that could not be more. A betting bank helps you stay in the game until profits are delivered – the name of the game in a professional environment. The difference between winning and losing.

Bon chance,

Herbie

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