Using real data from the 2023/24 season I've come up with a hypothetical example of an enhanced bet that a tipster has put onto social media as being a banker. The simple question being - do you take the bet? Please note whilst the data used is accurate, the odds used are entirely fictional for the purposes of this example.
Stevenage are taking on Port Vale at home on October 21st, 2023 and a tipster recommends a bet on the 2.5 goals market for the end result to be 2.5 +
The tip comes with the following data for both sides; Stevenage games have averaged 3.125 goals over the last 8 games. Port Vale averages 3.14 goals per game away from home.
Ladbrokes are offering a bet boost on the game from 4/7 to evens (1.57 boosted to 2.0).
Do you take the bet?
Well hopefully you've been reading each part of the blog posts and by now you'll know if you said yes you're about to walk into a trap. It's OK because like any example I give you the only cost to you is time and hopefully it's teaching you how to question the bet being presented to you.
Any of you reading this who have children will know that generally the two words used when they first learn to talk are no and why. This isn't a parenting advice blog so I'll avoid the discussion about toddlers saying no to everything you ask them to do but the fact they always ask why is really important because at some point in all our lives we all seem to swap from asking why to just accepting what we are told. Most line managers if you ask them why when they've asked you do so something in my experience will give you a look like you've just left a steaming turd in their lunchbox. If only we were all still in touch with our inner child who would ask why should I put my hand in my pocket and take this bet. Or why should I avoid it? Or why can't I have ice cream for dinner? You're an adult now by the way if you want ice cream for dinner knock yourself out. I don't advocate for children betting by the way but you're an adult and this is your inner child helping you not actually making the bet. Female readers probably have also most likely long said goodbye to that inner child unlike most of us men. We just refuse to grow up fully.
What does the data tell us about how those averages were achieved?
Let's start by looking at Stevenage as the home side and let's just revisit that statistic after my newfound parenting column above.
Stevenage games have averaged 3.125 goals in the last 8 games.
Now that statistic was perfectly true but four of those games were played away from home. Those results were against Orient 0-3 (3), Cheltenham 0-3 (3), Bolton 3-2 (5) and Blackpool 3-0 (3). So we should in theory make a note for future reference that Stevenage away could be a possible bet in future for over 2.5+ away but does it have any relevance to their home form?
Their last four games working backwards at home were Wigan 1-0 (1), Oxford 1-3 (4), Charlton 1-1 (2), Carlisle 2-2 (4). Here's another reminder about gambler's fallacy. Just because if I put them in the order they were played they went; over, under, over, under - it doesn't mean you should expect the next to be over. Great if you rolled your eyes at that by the way as if to say yeah we know, but statistically there will be at least one person that reads that and goes oh. What did the old Guiness beer mat have on it? It was something like 67.2% of statistics are just made up on the spot. The shit that stays in my head. Anyways so we now have a total of 11 goals over 4 games and actually that's still good enough for an average of 2.75 which you'd imagine would be good enough reason for you to make the bet.
By now some of you should have spotted the obvious flaw in that data. 50% of the games finished - 2.5 goals.
What if we throw all of Stevenage's home games into the mix where does that leave us? So we now have Portsmouth at 0-0 (0) and Shrewsbury at 2-0 (2). So 13 goals over 6 games. That's an average of 2.166 goals per home game and over 2.5 goals hasn't hit in 4 of those games or 66.66%.
There's an old adage by the way that a good accountant can make the same set of numbers appear in a multitude of entirely different ways depending on who the target audience is (or words to that effect) and bookmakers of course are no different and the sooner you wise up to that fact, the smarter your betting choices become. It's important to stress again that the data presented for Stevenage isn't wrong. The question simply being - is it at all relevant and will you as the average recreational punter bother to try to work that out or will you make a snap judgement call and think that seems a really good price so I'll have some money on it. Remember also in this example it's being tipped by someone as a good value bet - it's a banker meaning the suggestion is the bet cannot lose. FOMO - Fear of missing out. What if everyone else who reads that post also has £10 on it like the screenshot shown (missing that they've not bet it, they've just put the £10 in to show it as an example.) You could do with an easy tenner after you lost the last couple of £5 accumulators to at least get you back level. Easy money. I'm in.
But you're reading this, you know this is like a game show. We don't just want to give you that, look what else we want to give you as well. I don't remember what game show that's from. Probably something with the bloke from Bolton who went onto do Top Gear. Answers on a postcard to…
Right back to the top of the hill and a reminder that; Port Vale averages 3.14 goals per game away from home.
So working backwards we'll go Portsmouth 2-0 (2), Bristol Rovers 3-0 (3), Cambridge 1-1 (2), Oxford 1-2 (3), Charlton 2-3 (5), Blackpool 0-0 (0) and the real kicker, the opening day massacre away to Barnsley (sorry any Vale fans reading this for the reminder) 7-0 (7). Now just a quick glance with the eyes if you've got them all jotted down would be enough for you to go - well that's roughly 50/50. You might surmise that it's still plausible given there's some really big scorelines in there that there's a chance the game could go over 2.5 goals. Mind you Stevenage have kept a clean sheet in 3 of their 6 games so that's 1:2. Vale haven't scored in four of their games away and they've not scored in their last two.
Good job this isn't the Prisoner's Dilemma game whilst you start to deliberate. Good news - you are deliberating. Some part of your mind has now switched onto the fact that you're betting with real money. What if it isn't a banker and I lose. I've gone from the two £5 accumulator losses and if I lose £10 I'm £20 in the hole. What if I bet £20 and then I'm £40 in the hole. Some of you reading this will go I'd never do that. There will be thousands of punters out there that have not only done the same thing but continue to do so. There's a reason you're told not to chase your losses. Snow balls at the top of a mountain can cause an avalanche. When they get going they just keep getting bigger and bigger and they don't stop until they've done some major damage.
So having started to question the data for the season the question goes back to you again, do you now take the bet?
Fuck the fear of missing out.
Fuck what appears to be easy money.
Fuck chasing your losses.
If you were 99.9% sure you'd take it without researching it further, now upon finding relevant statistics which either back up the bet or in this case suggest it's not a strong bet, you should be at best at a coin toss of indecision by now. If you rely on a coin toss to make a decision by the way just know you'd go best out of 3 and possibly 5 until you justify the decision to yourself. You've already made the decision before the first flip.
Hopefully there's a little voice trying to shout at you. It's desperately going ‘Hang on I what did I read from that idiot that waffles on about betting stuff?’ Let me look. He keeps saying he's trying to save me money. But what if it comes in? I really could do with that tenner, it looks like easy money. That guy though does keep saying if it looks to be good to be true it usually is.
No I'm going to trust myself. I've done the maths, it looks like I'm being lead up the garden path. The data is being skewed on how it's presented. I'm going to not bet it and wait for another day. Hey I'm even going to do myself a massive favour and unfollow the tipster on social media. I might even not look at the result. I don't care about the result. I've no skin in the game. My life won't change on this one 90 minutes of football. Well not today anyway.
So what happened in the game and would you have won the bet or saved yourself a tenner?
Ohhhh how gutted would you have been when the final score was Stevenage 2 Port Vale 2 and you could have had that easy tenner?!?!
I'm shitting you by the way. You were lead down the garden path to not betting it for a reason and the score was of course 0-0.
Now go back to see if they deleted the tip or made a run of excuses as to why it didnt win; Oh it would have won if Vale hadn't hit the woodwork twice and Stevenage had two cleared off the line. Should have been 2-2.
So to reiterate that's real data, but hypothetical offers and odds. However if you read that post once a week for the next ten weeks and went online to try find similar examples from tipsters claiming to be delivering you winning bets time after time, or you just start looking more closely at the enhanced odds on games at the top of your betting apps, you will start to put 2 and 2 together and realise that whilst the answer is 4 it's no fucking relevance to you betting money on an over 2.5 goals market.
Some days the maths will add up on something you've looked at and think it's a really good bet you've picked out by yourself and that bet will lose. If you go back and you double check your data and it still seems good after the result then shrug it off. It happens. That's football betting. Saturday just gone as I write this I had two winning bets in the 88th minute of a game and two losing bets after 92 minutes in the same game when the score went from 2-1 to 2-3. Shit happens that you just cannot legislate for. However you can make allowances for making stupid bets and following poor advice or being lead to believe something has extra value when it holds a lot less than is being presented to you. Of eight bets I had Saturday I had six winners and those two losses. Two came in after 33 minutes of the one game which was an added bonus. Unlike the bets in the T20 final I made which despite winning were in hindsight really fucking stupid bets even with the two I lost here I'd still back them all again next week based on the data I had and the probability of winning in each.
Keep practising!
Keep asking that first question - is the data at all relevant?
Is this too good to be true?
Remember all you need is a pen and paper and an app like Fotmob where you can check past scores for each team. You're not being asked to do rocket engineering.
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