The only way to win is not to play
Football betting and odds, discussion and other gambling stuff
- Thread starter ffsear
- Start date
I am. Years ago I won some money betting on A P McCoy to win a race (he cleverly rode a horse to do it). Then I turned £10 into £26 by betting on cricket. I used to bet £2.00 in order to get back about £2.12, but occasionally I would make 3 or 4 quid if a Test match had a particularly big swing in momentum. I withdrew £20 from my betting account and then lost the remaining £6 betting on Sri Lanka in one stupid go, having made a bad bet and tried to rescue the situation by throwing good money after bad.
So I am up by about £25 across the whole of my adult life.
happie chappie
Well-Known Member
The OP’s concept is just a bit of fun – and why not.
Personally I wouldn’t want to bet on such short odds as I often think they represent poor value although I’m no expert on statistics and probabilities. In any case I haven’t got the time to bet in play.
I tend to have a number of weekend football trebles of £15 with odds on each game at 5/4 or better. As it happens I won circa £400 at the weekend but that’s certainly an exception and I wouldn't suggest it as a system. Like most punters I probably lose over the course of the year but I can afford it and I enjoy it.
When I started football betting the available range of bets would be confined to the top four English divisions and then some international matches, eg World Cup and European Championship games. Obviously the odds compilers could spend a lot of time pricing up each game.
Now look at the available on-line bets. There are hundreds with games between teams I’ve never heard in far flung countries. For example, tonight you can bet on Raiders Luxol Women v Kirkop United Women! (KO 7.15 if anyone fancies a punt!)
There’s no way the bookies can accurately price so many matches. They’ll spend the majority of their time setting odds on games where they take most of their money and so have their biggest liability such as the Premier League.
One way of getting an edge over bookie, however slight, is to concentrate on one or two relatively obscure leagues (or sports) then use sites such as Oddschecker (a site that anyone interested in getting value should always use) to find the best odds.
A few years ago I consistently won on the Jupiler League in Belgium as I considered many teams were seriously overpriced. Now I take an interest in the Allsvenskan League in Sweden although with less success. Better luck with the Austrian Bundesliga and Swiss Super leagues though as there are relatively few teams to research and the odds can be quite generous.
Anyway, good luck to anyone who takes on the bookie – I’m always on the side of the punter!!
Personally I wouldn’t want to bet on such short odds as I often think they represent poor value although I’m no expert on statistics and probabilities. In any case I haven’t got the time to bet in play.
I tend to have a number of weekend football trebles of £15 with odds on each game at 5/4 or better. As it happens I won circa £400 at the weekend but that’s certainly an exception and I wouldn't suggest it as a system. Like most punters I probably lose over the course of the year but I can afford it and I enjoy it.
When I started football betting the available range of bets would be confined to the top four English divisions and then some international matches, eg World Cup and European Championship games. Obviously the odds compilers could spend a lot of time pricing up each game.
Now look at the available on-line bets. There are hundreds with games between teams I’ve never heard in far flung countries. For example, tonight you can bet on Raiders Luxol Women v Kirkop United Women! (KO 7.15 if anyone fancies a punt!)
There’s no way the bookies can accurately price so many matches. They’ll spend the majority of their time setting odds on games where they take most of their money and so have their biggest liability such as the Premier League.
One way of getting an edge over bookie, however slight, is to concentrate on one or two relatively obscure leagues (or sports) then use sites such as Oddschecker (a site that anyone interested in getting value should always use) to find the best odds.
A few years ago I consistently won on the Jupiler League in Belgium as I considered many teams were seriously overpriced. Now I take an interest in the Allsvenskan League in Sweden although with less success. Better luck with the Austrian Bundesliga and Swiss Super leagues though as there are relatively few teams to research and the odds can be quite generous.
Anyway, good luck to anyone who takes on the bookie – I’m always on the side of the punter!!
mauvais
on reddit or something
As per Santino, in pure, overall gambling terms, probably. I got various free bets - as in actually free, not deposit-matching shite - from the likes of Sky and won with them. Then I won a couple of times on the National. That's about it.
I look quite a lot less clever if you take into consideration what I did with shares though. Just about in the black there I think.
Athos
Well-Known Member
Short odds don't necessarily mean poor value, but, in order to make any significant return, you either need a massive stake, or, as the OP is proposing, combine a number of them together. Unless you are, on average, finding +EV (an increasingly more difficult proposition as you increase the number of bets), you will just multiply the bookie's advantage.
Also, obscure and illiquid markets are more likely to present arbitrage opportunities.
happie chappie
Well-Known Member
The problem with arbitrage, as you note, is that you have to have a big stake, have the appropriate software and the time to devote to it. Anyway, I think bookies are now on to it and are making it harder and harder to win.
You're correct in saying that the bookies love multiples - the more the selections the better as far as they're concerned. I think their favourite bet is the Yankee. One selection goes down and that's 7 bets lost.
The advantage the OP has over the traditional accumulator is that he can cash in at any time and take his winnings. He doesn't have to go all the way to the end. Generally that's not possible with an accumulator although some bookies offer an on-line cash in facility (with the odds again stacked in their favour).
IMHO punters would be far better devoting what is a relatively short amount of time searching out the best odds for their particular bet. It's amazing the number of people who only have an account with one bookie but it's not unusual to see a 4,5 or 6 point difference between the best and worst odds on a football treble.
As for value, in the absence of a rigorous statistical analysis (which I haven't got the time or knowledge to undertake) I use a gut feeling having watched football for 40 plus years, plus league tables and form. I can look at a coupon and see which teams I think are overpriced. Not always right but I've had a fair share of success over the years, although probably still down overall.
Conversely, I can look at a game and identify teams that I think are underpriced - the Premier League is particularly bad in this respect, certainly compared to say League 3, and so I tend to avoid it.
For example, City were quite short odds to win at Villa and I think Chelsea were odds on to win at Stoke despite their poor form. Many punters would have had them down as "bankers" in their accumulators.
La Liga too. Real Madrid were odds on to beat Sevilla on Sunday and most people, forced to have a bet would have backed them. They lost 3-2 after leading 1-0.
Imagine how you would have felt if you'd backed them in-play at incredibly short odds when they were winning!
fractionMan
Custom Title
Winning £1.12 is not my idea of fun tbh.
iamwithnail
Well-Known Member
I'm about 70% up for the season. I made about £500 a couple of years ago, but the method (multiple correct scores betting) was so tedious I wouldn't recommend it. When I went back and looked I'd made less than minimum wage doing it.
Fundamentally though, if you're going to bet on 'sure' things (which tend to mean poor value, if not always), you need to spread your risk by betting on lots of them - putting everything in a market where the price has been pushed down by a lot of people piling in is a route to disappointment.
Athos
Well-Known Member
But by spreading them, rather than combining them i.e. 20 x £1 bests all on very short prices (hopefully where you do think there's value), then taking the total pot and putting another 20 or so bets on the following day etc. i.e. not betting it all on one short odds proposition, and rolling eveything onto another.
Athos
Well-Known Member
Whilst he could cash out any time, that wasn't what the original scheme entailed - he'd be locked in until he hit the £150.
iamwithnail
Well-Known Member
Yes, that's what I mean, sorry - wasn't clear in the original post. That's actually what I do. Somewhere in the region of 50 bets a week, averaged about 6% a week. Couple of disastrous weeks - and I'd done amazingly well midweek last week (strike rate above 80%, well in profit, and the weekend brought me back down to about 4%.
)Actually, a couple of weeks with really bad performance were where i'd tried to (manually, rather than systematically) exclude the ones that I thought were overbacked.
happie chappie
Well-Known Member
Just a matter of interest Russia are beating the Faroe Islands 1-0 in an U21 qualifier.
With 15 minutes to go Russia are priced at 1/500 to win (that's not a typo - it really is 1/500).
Even if Russia win at a canter it's a suicidal bet.
That's what you're often up against betting in-play.
That's just one of the reasons why I never bother.
With 15 minutes to go Russia are priced at 1/500 to win (that's not a typo - it really is 1/500).
Even if Russia win at a canter it's a suicidal bet.
That's what you're often up against betting in-play.
That's just one of the reasons why I never bother.
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iamwithnail
Well-Known Member
That's about liquidity though. It's an under 21s match, and it's Russia/Faroes. If it was England Faroes, there'd still be much better odds, because more people are in the market on both the sportsbook and exchanges.
Athos
Well-Known Member
What price was the draw at that point? And the Faroe's win?
happie chappie
Well-Known Member
Not sure the odds would be better if it was England v Faroes.
Likely (as it would be almost impossible to offer worse odds without the bookie looking stupid) betting would be suspended earlier than at an equivalent point in the Russia game as the bookie would have a much greater liability if England eventually won.
happie chappie
Well-Known Member
Draw was 18/1. Didn't notice Faroe to win price.
Russian won 2-0, scoring second in 76 min.
ice-is-forming
I was born naked, shameless & fucking outrageous..
Wooo Hoo! I actually won 
put $5. on Holy Holmes to beat Rhonda Rousey at odds of 7 to 1. Everyone said I was mental but a knock out in the 2nd round said i wasn't 
put $5. on Holy Holmes to beat Rhonda Rousey at odds of 7 to 1. Everyone said I was mental but a knock out in the 2nd round said i wasn't
ice-is-forming
I was born naked, shameless & fucking outrageous..
I wish i'd bet more lol. Rousey looked like she was on crack at the weigh ins!
Athos
Well-Known Member
Had you gone for £20, you'd have acheived the OP's target, i.e. turning it into £150 (actually £160)!
Dr. Furface
One small step for me
Meet the man who beat the bookies – and the banks. But the odds are against you
Interesting article here by the Guardian's Simon Inglis (a betting novice) on how he turned a bank of £1000 into £1185 over the course of a year by having just one bet of £20 a week. That's a tidy profit of 18.5% - as he says himself, beat that Nationwide! He did it by betting never higher than evens, and only on head-to-head events (football, tennis etc).
Inspired by this - and by this thread - I've been giving it a go myself the last 2 weeks by betting on the NFL. Last week, rather than one £20 bet, I had 2 x £10 win-only bets on the Panthers to beat the Titans @ 1.41 and the Patriot over the Giants @ 1.32, which together produced a profit of £7.94. Mind you, the Patriots bet very nearly went down, as they only won it with the last kick of the game! But anyway, not a bad start.
This week I thought that a trixie bet for the same amount (4 x £5 bets) might be a better way to go - I figured I should be able to land 2 wins out of 3 odds-on selections, and hopefully all 3 would come in. So I did the Panthers to beat the Redskins @ 1.31, the Chiefs over the Chargers @ 1.58, and the Patriots v the Bills @ 1.29 (playing tonight). If all 3 won I'd stand to make a £22.68 profit.
With the Panthers and the Chiefs both winning last night, Bet365 offered me a cash-out of £35.09 (£15.09 profit). I was reluctant to take it at first, because the Patriots are playing at home (where they're almost invincible), but they have their two star receivers out with injury, and I'm a bit concerned that the Bills - who aren't playing badly - might spring a surprise, so I've taken the offer. That gives me a nice profit of £23.03 so far (meaning that next week I'll be playing with the bookies money, rather than mine!).
The advantage for me of betting on the NFL is that it's a sport I follow (though I'm far from the most knowledgeable fan) but also because the result is hardly ever going to be a draw, unlike football. Sadly it's only a relatively short season, there are only 6 more weeks of regular season games to go, and I expect games will get progressively harder to predict as some teams who qualify early for the play-offs might ease up, while others will fight harder.
Interesting article here by the Guardian's Simon Inglis (a betting novice) on how he turned a bank of £1000 into £1185 over the course of a year by having just one bet of £20 a week. That's a tidy profit of 18.5% - as he says himself, beat that Nationwide! He did it by betting never higher than evens, and only on head-to-head events (football, tennis etc).
Inspired by this - and by this thread - I've been giving it a go myself the last 2 weeks by betting on the NFL. Last week, rather than one £20 bet, I had 2 x £10 win-only bets on the Panthers to beat the Titans @ 1.41 and the Patriot over the Giants @ 1.32, which together produced a profit of £7.94. Mind you, the Patriots bet very nearly went down, as they only won it with the last kick of the game! But anyway, not a bad start.
This week I thought that a trixie bet for the same amount (4 x £5 bets) might be a better way to go - I figured I should be able to land 2 wins out of 3 odds-on selections, and hopefully all 3 would come in. So I did the Panthers to beat the Redskins @ 1.31, the Chiefs over the Chargers @ 1.58, and the Patriots v the Bills @ 1.29 (playing tonight). If all 3 won I'd stand to make a £22.68 profit.
With the Panthers and the Chiefs both winning last night, Bet365 offered me a cash-out of £35.09 (£15.09 profit). I was reluctant to take it at first, because the Patriots are playing at home (where they're almost invincible), but they have their two star receivers out with injury, and I'm a bit concerned that the Bills - who aren't playing badly - might spring a surprise, so I've taken the offer. That gives me a nice profit of £23.03 so far (meaning that next week I'll be playing with the bookies money, rather than mine!).
The advantage for me of betting on the NFL is that it's a sport I follow (though I'm far from the most knowledgeable fan) but also because the result is hardly ever going to be a draw, unlike football. Sadly it's only a relatively short season, there are only 6 more weeks of regular season games to go, and I expect games will get progressively harder to predict as some teams who qualify early for the play-offs might ease up, while others will fight harder.
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Bonesy
9"
ffsear
Well-Known Member
mauvais
on reddit or something
You obviously couldn't achieve that with a retail product like a savings account - 4.9% on £2k with TSB, FWIW - but it's not that difficult to achieve - once - with personal investment. If you know an industry, a company or a domain, then you might be well placed to bet on their success via investment. I made 200% profit doing this a year or so ago, and a little more since.
The risk isn't that high - rather, the risk of losing most or all of it, anyway. The risk of making no profit and simply treading water is considerable. There are also two key difficulties: one, it's something you need upfront capital for, not drip feeding £20 a week into it. The other is that it's hard to do repeatably - so you know about one thing and one company, and you can double your money. Once.
So 20% returns are potentially easy but 20% year-on-year growth is Warren Buffet territory.
(I point this out just to highlight that the bookies is not the only way to achieve such returns)
