Unders
Have you ever tried watching a game of football for 90 minutes whilst desperately hoping it's the worst game you've ever seen? I'm not merely asking if you've sat through a game like that because we all have, but have you willed the outcome to be like that? I'm going to suggest the answer is probably not. Not unless you're early to the party of betting unders and if that's the case why would you put yourself through it when it goes against all your natural instincts? If you support a team and go home and away around the country you're hoping they win, you're willing your team on. Maybe if you follow a smaller team you might be hoping that you don't get thumped so that might be closer to what I'm talking about here.
Bookmakers price their margins into the overs markets because that's naturally where people gravitate to betting their money. You'd be hard pressed to find a punter that wasn't also a fan of the sport they're betting on. Times where that does happen is generally at a point where things are out of control and you're chasing big losses. We watch sports to be entertained, not bored. That's why bookmakers used to put so much money into in-play adverts in the UK before they were banned. They want you being engaged in the game and believing in positive outcomes to be in a position to profit from them. How many times have you said to someone this has 0-0 written all over it? Now think how many adverts would you have seen at half time offering odds of a game to finish 0-0 or under 2.5 goals? You won't have seen them because they didn't exist. It will always have been player X to score first or Team Y to win even when you know in your heart of hearts they're bets not likely to land. You're swept away with the narratives. Super Sunday should be just that, not a tedious 0-0 draw. It's counterintuitive to promote the opposite because punters naturally wouldn't respond to it and of course that's where the winning bets were likely to be coming from at that point. That's where your advantages lay in prices. Bookmakers don't bother with the same margins on the unders because we're all too busy betting the overs, tipsters are saying the best bet is the overs, we want to be entertained like Roman Emperors overseeing gladiatorial combat - both sides should be going in for the kill. I could have said we're all La Roux but that's maybe a little too niche.
We all have a tendency to overthink games. But football generally goes to type unless one player goes beyond a normal level be that for the better or worse. The forward who scores with every touch Vs the keeper who suddenly couldn't keep a clean sheet if his life depended on it. If you've got the best attack against the best defence the highest probability is that they'll cancel each other out. Whereas the same strong attack against a weak defence should naturally result in more goals. An average attack against an average defence will again most likely result in a low scoring game which is especially true if the same problems exist at both ends for both teams. It's one thing not being able to defend very well but if you've not got the players to take advantage of it then it's not likely to be a high scoring game.
Let's go back to all those games we've sat through 90 minutes just willing for anything exciting to happen and it never does. You leave the ground miserable, bored and wondering why you bothered. If you thought a game you had no interest in at all was going to finish 0-0 you'd swerve it and not watch it. But what if you're right? About the result not swerving it. This isn't just that ‘feeling’ you might have about a game but mathematically when the data backs up what you're thinking. Why aren't you betting the unders? We've already ascertained the margins aren't built in how they are with the overs so you should get a better price. Regular readers will know we're not putting our money into efficient markets such as the premier league and we're looking lower down the English league pyramid or in smaller leagues abroad. I started in League One to see if I could find good relevant examples last season and there were eight sides at the end of the season who averaged less than 2.5 goals per game and in turn there were 3 sides whose average was exactly 2.5
Let's go back a few posts to how just a few results can skew that data. Sorry again to Port Vale fans but their overall average of 2.5 goals will have included the 7-0 opening day thumping by Barnsley. I'm not suggesting you start betting under 2.5 goals in every game for one team but you can find a market which gives better odds such as league one and start to identify games where it becomes the better bet to back. All those sides will actually have consistent runs of not only being under 2.5 goals but if you discount the oddities (the 7-0 thrashings) that figure on an average game is a lot less than 2.5. Yes you're being counterintuitive to everything you're told to believe about football but you're not about to sit and watch these games. If you're sitting hovering over the cash out option then you're making the wrong bet before the games even kicked off. Do your homework, place your money on the dullest game possible you think will be 0-0 and a good under 2.5 goals bet, put the dog on the lead and go out for a nice long walk and check the results when you get in. Because it goes against every sinew of your body, if you're laying money on these games to go under 2.5 goals do it and instantly put the bet to the back of your mind. Seriously why torture yourself following something? Nothing is guaranteed, you've done your homework and as the Beatles would tell you - let it be. If we all start betting the unders then the bookmakers will adjust their prices accordingly and build in the same margins as they do for overs, but because people don't they'll be the better prices. Just don't torture yourself by going out with a group of friends when the game is on and having money on the unders. That's not me saying bet the overs when you're with your friends, just don't bet the unders on a game you want to be entertained by, it'll be utter torture. If you really fancy the unders then bet it and tell your friends you can't come out because you're washing your hair. If you're right then you've not sat through 90 minutes of awful football and you've not listened to your mates moaning about how bad the game was and you've come out financially better off - Win, win, win.
Draws
Bookmakers price their margins into the home win or away win because from a psychological point of view they know punters are placing money akin to why they pay money to go watch a game in person, they want to be entertained. They want games where there's a winner. If you want to watch something balanced you'd go watch the gymnastics. (Again see the above point for avoiding betting in efficient markets such as the Premier League, Serie A, Ligue 1 or Bundesliga.) This means by the simple law of deduction that the majority of value without those higher built-in bookmaker margins will be in betting the draw. You might hear people claim that picking a draw is much harder than picking a home win and you'd probably be right. However there is plenty of value to be had in those inefficient markets such as the J league. In the J League this weekend of the 10 games, the smallest odds on the draw are 3.00 on the decimal or 2/1 with a traditional fraction. Tokyo Verdy have played 12 games at home and drawn 7. Remember that's ten games this round where the worst odds are 2/1. If that was true of every round and Tokyo Verdy were even the smallest price of ten games for a £1 bet you'd have laid out £12 and won £14. That's an ROI of 16.66%. Remember what I said in the last point that a team with an average forward line will struggle to score goals against an average defence? You're once more having to go against your natural thought process which is to find a winner but this guide is about betting better and making smarter choices. 30 years ago all you had was the pools coupon and you'd have to find the score draws to win.
Most of the TVs sold in the world are made by the same manufacturers but most people don't know that and will look up to the at TV in front of them and now start to wonder how much they've paid over the odds for a brand name TV when they could have brought the same thing underneath for much less without the badge. So betting and life should become about going against what the crowd is doing and finding that value, be that from betting the unders market or betting draws. How many of you reading this have ever had an iPhone on a monthly contract? I know I have. I've not had an iPhone for well over 15 years though. Twice I had two year contracts that by the time I'd basically paid the price of the phone off it wasn't worth shit because the battery would hold a charge for about twenty minutes. I now buy an android phone for £100 which might last me three to four years before I inevitably seem to drop it and smash the screen and my phone contract is £5 a month. I've no idea what the newest iPhone is per month but it wouldn't surprise me if it was £40. Are you getting 8 times the value from your phone than I am? Does your phone cuddle you when you're miserable, does it give you one off the wrist when you're horny? No, of course it doesn't. You might have a better camera on your phone but I'll bet I'm the better photographer and whatever the capabilities of your iPhone over my phone I'll take the better photographs. So why waste your money every month on a phone, or on brand name purchases in general, or backing a team to win when the real value is potentially elsewhere? Change your thinking, change your habits and you'll not only become a more rounded individual but you'll be a better off individual. Betting and life advice all provided for free, what more can you want from a guide?
Recording your bets
Buy a notebook. Buy two. Or if you're more modern, start a word document and an excel spreadsheet. Whatever format you want to use, make sure you're using at least one. Record every bet you make, record the data that lead you to making the bet, include data that lead you to not making a bet. It's all relevant. If you decided the bet had no value or wasn't likely to win but then came in perhaps you had something you didn't realise. Keeping track of your bets means you're forcing yourself to see how much you've lost but more importantly allow yourself to see if there's a pattern to where you're consistently losing money. Hint - in seasons gone by and before you've come to this guide it will be accumulators, betting the team names not the data, betting on feelings of how a game will go in play or that same feeling of how a game will end up or before the game has kicked off. If you claim you never place losing bets you're either not betting or you're lying. I don't mind you lying to me but lying to yourself is costing you financially. The hope is of course you'll find the turning point from placing losing bets to placing winning bets on a consistent basis. You'll see the patterns of bad judgement Vs good judgement. As Einstein would have told you - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the very definition of insanity.
There are a multitude of excel sheets you can copy if you want to get really complex about recording your bets. You choose your level of involvement but the minimum requirement is to record the stake, the odds and what the bet was. Show the working out like your maths teacher always told you to do. Remember to work out both sides. Don't simply believe you're on to a sure thing without considering the possibility that you're wrong.
Now everything is electronic it becomes all the harder to do something as simple as crossing something off a list. This is a tip that comes from horse racing but it can easily apply to football. So having a notebook or if you still buy a newspaper on a Saturday can actually be of real benefit with the following process of elimination vs all that new fangled technology. You're basically trying to give yourself a clearer picture. In a horse race you'd start by crossing off the horses that you think have no chance of winning the race and you begin to narrow down the field. I'm not going to go into the points that would make you cross out a particular horse because this isn't a horse race betting guide and to be fair I don't know an awful lot about betting on horses. You could say I don't know a lot about betting on football to which my counter argument simply runs with maybe not but I do know what is likely to result in the most losing bets and once you've learned on what not to bet on that's going to give you a head start against everyone else. The worst part is it's all really obvious stuff and just pure common sense but we're bombarded with £ signs and talk of potential riches which in reality aren't about to happen for the average bettor. How much you lose before you understand that message fully is up to you and your wallet.
If you're betting on the J league this weekend as an example write all ten fixtures out as your starting point. If you're not as sad as me and don't have a book of data on all the teams, start by finding some good reference points. Decide what market you are aiming to bet on? Unders goals? Maybe you want to see if you can find the potential of that draw as mentioned above. Do you want two horses in the race and can you find value in a 1 or 2, 1X or 2X bet? Remember you don't have to bet. If you don't find anything you like, wait until the following week. Or if you make selections but are still unsure and don't want to commit financially for now then don't back them, Rome after all wasn't built in a day, or do back them but for the minimum stakes and when you're more comfortable move to one of the systems in the next point below. Whatever you do is entirely up to you but for now it's about narrowing down your focus on where you think you're going to find the best bet or bets which marries the market you want to bet on and using everything you've learned from the guide so far. You've crossed through and eliminated options where you think there's no value to identify 3 or 4 games which may fit the general mould of what you want to bet on and then you start to break down the data further to identify whether the bet actually has a realistic chance of winning. I cannot express enough that if you're not sure then don't bet. You're not missing out on anything. Even if the bet you choose to not bet wins then that's OK. Get used to that feeling. There will be far more examples of bets that you don't place that lose so don't get too caught up in one that got away.
If you're feeling fantastically confident about something, it's so sure fire that it couldn't possibly lose, before you place it just ask that simple question to yourself, have I truly considered the opposing side of the bet? Am I feeding myself a narrative that maybe the data doesn't actually back up? It happens and we all do it. Is there something obvious you're missing? Like when Aston Villa ended up having to field their youth team against Liverpool because of COVID to fulfil the fixture. OK so that one’s somewhat extreme but things do happen. Goalkeepers get injured, first choice keepers might be suspended and the reserve goalkeeper is from the youth team or is now a 38 year old journeyman who's not actually played for three years.
Staking
Why is staking important firstly? Well you could have ten winning bets in a week but you're 11th staked wrongly could leave you with a losing week overall even if it was the only bet that lost.
How do you determine the size of your bets? The most famous system often quoted is the Kelly Criterion. I downloaded a book which was just shy of 900 pages on that subject so you'll forgive me if I skip that one for now as I can't bring myself to even start to read it right now. I'd long heard the figure of never betting more than 3% of your bankroll but that appears to have changed with modern day bettors to never betting more than 2% of your bankroll. This is quoted from people who seem to be turning over an awful lot of money every month so if you're just having the odd bet every week you might go back to that 3% especially if that means you're more likely to only be betting on matches where you've done your research and think it stands a genuine chance of winning. I'm not going to talk about finding that magical perceived edge and extra value. At the end of the day as highlighted in the last post of this guide, all betting is merely wagering money on your opinion against someone else's. To be fair that's also true of wagering your money with someone else's opinion but it's still opinion Vs opinion. I also say ‘against someone else's’ there as if it's a person. If you're betting on the premier league you're probably now basing your opinion against a computer algorithm. That algorithm may be able to forecast matches in a way you'll never be able to, taking advantage of a mass of data points to decide outcomes but it doesn't mean they will be right. Unfortunately for the computer the match still involves humans and humans make errors which computers cannot predict in advance and account for. That's of course good news for you the bettor.
The one staking plan that really made me stop and think was from one of the most respected football tipsters Kevin Pullein, the man who famously will conclude his betting column with the words - no bet. Sometimes it's better to just keep your money in your pocket than it is to have a bet for the sake of it. His staking plan evolves around what you want to win and the more I've mulled it over in my head since I read it a week ago the more it makes sense. Like everything it will come down to what suits you best. I say respected. Respected by people with that degree of common sense. He's like marmite with his columns because people want betting advice and don't take well to someone going just keep hold of your money. Strange but true. Let's park that question and dig deeper on the plans above.
% of your bankroll
Your average better won't have a bankroll. I never did when I used to bet way more frequently than I do now but in hindsight I wished I had. I was always reloading my account with no sense of control. I never really had any idea of how much it was costing me. So let's say for example you're going to start betting on football from the first weekend of the new season. What is the figure you'd be comfortable with losing each month? That may seem an odd question when you're setting out trying to win but the reality is there's no guarantee you'll end as a winner. So be realistic with the possibility you could lose the lot and that way anything not lost is already an added bonus. So let's say the season lasts ten months and you're comfortable with losing £10 a month. You could deposit £100 into your betting account, you could put £100 into a separate bank account, or probably more sensibly do the second option and then you deposit £10 into your betting account and put a deposit limit for 30 days which means you can't reload your account if you've burned through the entire £10.
Chances are most people reading this are used to betting £1 / £2 accumulators. Well we know from part one of the guide that we're going to be avoiding accumulators all season other than when we're given a freebet which can only be used on accumulators. We're not going to be betting first goalscorers either. In fact, based on betting 2% of your bankroll you're not going to be betting anything near £1 or £2 unless you start winning. Your maximum opening bet is going to be £0.20 which may well come as the ultimate culture shock but by now if you're reading every single post in this guide your expected ROI on football betting is realistically going to be around 3.5% if you followed the advice of the best football tipsters and paid a premium for that information. That’s right if you're only reading this for the first time you're expected return on that £100 bankroll is £3.50. You know all those videos that promise to make you rich. Well guess what? Unless you can trade huge sums of money with a high turnover it's never going to happen. Say you turnover £100,000 of bets in a month and return £3,500 on average then that's going to be a good figure. We'd all like £3,500 a month right? Maybe not when you factor in having to turnover £100,000 a month with no guarantees. If the penny is only now dropping, maybe just don't bet on football at all. If it seems like hard work that's because it is and if something seems too good to be true, guess what - that's because 99.9% of the time it is. Also note that point about charges for tipping services and also read the blog about affiliates who benefit from your losses. It's possible to make money from football betting but the three beat options are to gain a bookmakers licence from the Gambling Commission, charge for tips or earn from other people's misery.
If you hit a run of winners from the off you're increasing the value of your 2%. Of course if you're losing you're decreasing the value of your 2%. Remember you've a month ahead so if you've four weekends in the month you'd average it out to ensure you're not betting anymore than £2.50 every weekend. If you finish the month back on £0 so be it. If you've broken into the remaining £90 before the end of month one just know that £100 overall is quickly going to turn into a hole of £200 or £300 with the blink of an eye. Five weekends of betting - £2 maximum. Most people once they're tracking their bets and holding their limits will go to one of two ends of the spectrum; One person will become less calculated and ignore all the advice and start to bet on events they know nothing about, or anything they have a feeling might win with higher odds or as it's more commonly known - chasing your losses. The next person might then start spending far too much time thinking about what they're going to bet on. Yes you should always follow the data, but time is more precious than money at this level of staking. If you're overthinking it, remember spending more time with your partner, children, friends and family is the best bet you'll ever make. Try to find a centre ground but definitely weighted towards the latter of the two. The more you get used to looking for better bets the easier it will become.
Remember you're now going to be recording everything you bet on. Check this each week to see what worked and what went wrong. Too many in play bets where you're still laying money on that feeling? When it's written in front of you it's going to give you that slap you need. Everyone can remember the times betting on that feeling had worked, no one remembers that long list of every time that it didn't.
Expected returns
I'm going to propose an imaginary scenario. You're paid to carry out a questionnaire on behalf of a betting company. You stop everyone that walks past over 18 irrespective of who they are. You're not trying to look for someone that might know anything about gambling, you just want to get a sense for the average person's sensibilities when it comes to gambling.
Five simple questions;
Would you wager £1 for the chance to win £1
Would you wager £2 for the chance to win £1
Would you wager £5 for the chance to win £1
Would you wager £10 for the chance to win £1
Would you wager £20 for the chance to win £1
I've used the word wager rather than bet. That stops those who will simply say ‘I don't bet.’
You could have a range of answers to the questions on a spectrum from yes to no, to include say - a maybe. This isn't about trying to land a man on the moon which clearly requires a huge scientific approach, it's merely a hypothetical you understand.
If you're reading this guide part by part, you should be now thinking of the tennis ball and the brick wall analogy where the size of the hole becomes in your favour. Most average people you'd suggest even with the word wager would say no to all the questions posed above. Then at evens money which is the coin toss equivalent you'd get the most yes’, a few maybes on the 1/2s and then as the cost gets higher the more the answers will be a straight no, but you by now will know with the help of this guide that the higher the cost in this instance the greater the perceived probability of you taking back your £10 and the shiny £1 to boot. You'd be the one saying no to the opening questions and then saying yes at the end the higher that second number gets. You could still lose but a 1/10 is like backing Manchester City to beat Burton Albion at home.
I'm hoping that's a nice segue to the next staking plan which has really made me think all week. So over to Kevin Pullein, he of racing post fame. Regular readers will know I'll use the £1, €1 or $1 example because it's a nice easy figure and keeps it realistic for the majority of people reading these posts.
So you first pick an amount you want to win from every bet you place and your stakes will match accordingly to the one figure. If you're going, is that it? That's what has kept you thinking all week? Well firstly I've of course thought of other things so don't be pedantic it doesn't suit you. Secondly you can read my reasoning or you can go away and mull it over and go on the same journey I went on in my head. Hopefully either way the penny will drop.
So using my £1 example or whatever currency you're betting in, let's cross off the more obvious odds on offer and what you'd stake for that level of return.
Evens £1
£0.50 2/1
£0.25 4/1
£0.20 5/1
£0.10 10/1
£0.05 20/1
That should be pretty logical. The higher the risk the less the stake and vice versa.
The flip side is for the odds on part which is what got me really thinking. Then it really becomes about doing your homework and being disciplined. That's real money management and that's what this guide is about more than anything else. If the average person would answer maybe to wagering £2 to win £1, if that became your entire premise of betting for an entire season, could you stick to it, or would you crack quickly and revert to type? If you're suddenly faced with bets of £5 to win £1, so ⅕ odds or 1.20 on the decimal how many times would you be willing to take that bet? It's the better bet mathematically and from a probability point of view. If you develop that Uber level of discipline and your bank roll is just £10 a month, that could mean you only place two bets every month or 20 in an entire season. If you won every ⅕ shot you'd turn your £100 into £120 which again seems a tiny return but if you managed it you'd be able to claim through discipline you were achieving five times the return as the best football tipsters with their 3.5% ROI. Retraining your brain and your way of thinking is hard. Really hard. It's that little voice going but what if we lose? That little voice should be going but what if we lose every time you bet £2 on a 50/1 accumulator. In fact that voice needs to be asking you why you're not putting the money on the lottery. If you're going to piss in the wind might as well be for millions that you'll never win. Put yourself in the shoes of a marathon runner or a boxer. To not just win, but to win consistently takes maximum effort, concentration and seriously hard graft. The only people who get rich overnight are when they're the sole heirs to a fortune and someone dies.
I've used the easy examples but I appreciate that odds such as 4/7 or 4/11 become harder for some to work out what you should be staking so let's do the maths.
We'll use the 100 pennies in the pound to make it easier again.
Odds of 4/11 to determine the stake to win £1
4 divided by 11 = 0.3636
0.3636 + 1 = 1.3636 (decimal odds)
100 (expected return) divided by 1.3636 = 73.34
73.34 divided by 100 = £0.73 rounded to the nearest figure up or down as appropriate (required stake)
If you want to check your maths £0.73 * decimal odds £1.3636 = £0.9954 which rounded up is your £1 return.
Let's do one more with 4/9
4/9 = 0.4444
Add 1 to make it a decimal odds 1.4444
100/1.4444 = 69.23
You can simplify this last section and remove the last two digits and simply add £0. to the front to give you £0.69
Don't tell me about the bets you've won
This isn't merely a lesson about humility or though maybe it should be. Don't tell me about bets you've won because I don't fucking care. I can't put money on it, the event is gone. I can be happy for you but I'm not likely to learn anything of value from it. However I'd be stupid to not listen to the bets you've lost. I'm not talking about the woe is me if only x,y,z had happened type losses. I'm talking about the losses from people who've thought out the bets in the first place, those who have a valid strategy. Think like a bookmaker. What is going to pay out for me long term. Where am I going to find the margins that will give me the 3.5% returns. You've done your homework and you've been betting the over 2.5 goals market and you're hopeless at it until someone points out you're actually a natural born handicapper for the under 2.5 goals market. If you're not looking for something you'll continue to miss it until it's hopefully pointed out to you. I've lost count of the times in my younger days where someone has pointed out that a girl was really interested in me and I didn't have a clue. I'm like why didn't you tell me? The answer would usually be - because it was fucking obvious. Well it wasn't obvious to me. That's true of all our lives and betting is no exception. That tip originated from poker circles where getting advice on how to have played a hand from players more experienced becomes way more valuable than anything you won. Winning isn't always measured in instant financial terms. Learning is winning, finding like minded individuals is winning, sharing experiences and knowledge is winning. Telling me you won a 50/1 accumulator is no really no fucking good to me because you won't repeat that trick every week I can promise you that for nothing. However if you had lost, showed me your working out and your logic then I might find the part you were missing. I might find a market I've never thought to bet in, be that type of bet or a league which is producing consistent results but maybe you're coming at the problem from the wrong angle.
I joke about finding out you're the best under 2.5 goals handicapper going but there's always an element of truth in that. As I say, think like the bookmaker. This guide has already highlighted that the accumulator was invented by the bookmaker as an easier way to take your money. That they price according to the basic psychology of wanting more not less. So what are the areas I know as a bookmaker will pay off for me every week consistently and how as a bettor can I turn that to my advantage? What am I constantly losing money on and ask yourself that simple question - what if I took the opposite position? You can't do that on an accumulator obviously unless you're a trader or a bookmaker but if you're constantly coming up short on the overs then you are actually good at picking the unders, you've just never had it pointed out to you and why that's an advantage.
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