I apologise immediately for how this post unfolds but it is going to follow my thought process while I was away in Europe for the Christmas break. Hopefully you find it interesting.
As you know I love analysing our results to see where we are going wrong and where we are going right and an area I highlighted in our 2012 review was that I felt we were doing poorly in France due to the underdog always doing well and perhaps the bookmakers were pricing games wrong. This weekend there was a number of results where heaps of value could be found in France. For example Nice won away to Lille and PSG failed to win at home again.
France aside I started to think about value. In short, value in betting is defined where the odds of something happening are greater than the odds on offer by the bookmaker. Obviously you are likely to find less value in the favourites when betting for the simple reason demand will drive the price down and bookmakers aren't going to risk losing their healthy margins. LIGHT BULB MOMENT FOR ME! OK this isn't rocket science and I'm sure everyone already knows this but if there is greater value in the underdog why aren't we betting on the underdog more?
My next thought process answered this quickly by arguing it would be hard to manage long losing runs, trying to pick out 10/1 winners (Eg Real Sociedad v Barcelona this weekend) and what the hell do I know about picking big priced winners? I've never done it before and have no history of doing so. MY NEXT LIGHT BULB MOMENT!....ASIAN HANDICAP...
Every week I scroll the Asian Handicap markets and laugh each week at some ridiculous handicaps being offered for the underdog. A prime example is the Championship where anyone can beat anyone but an away team can still be given a +1 or +1.5 start. This of course happens in all our leagues and particularly Liverpool's opponents. I started to notice that more often than not the games I mentally picked were coming through more often then not.
Now as a rule I don't pick these type of games for the Summer of Football service because they rarely qualify for selection using my strict criteria. The core of this service is built on home teams winning at average odds of evens where I see value. Its simple, it works and it won't change unless I blow the bank. ;o)
However we do occasionally bet on the underdog and I was staggered to discover our results. The SoF service has made 25 underdog bets (Ie we bet on a positive handicap) and 19 have been winners! 19! THAT IS A 76% STRIKE RATE
So where does that leave my thinking today. Firstly I have no intention of changing the core of SoF as we currently have a winning formulae but I have decided to religiously track my additional selections since January 1 and see if I can find another edge!
Please let me know if you are interested in seeing the results and I will update again here soon
As you know I love analysing our results to see where we are going wrong and where we are going right and an area I highlighted in our 2012 review was that I felt we were doing poorly in France due to the underdog always doing well and perhaps the bookmakers were pricing games wrong. This weekend there was a number of results where heaps of value could be found in France. For example Nice won away to Lille and PSG failed to win at home again.
France aside I started to think about value. In short, value in betting is defined where the odds of something happening are greater than the odds on offer by the bookmaker. Obviously you are likely to find less value in the favourites when betting for the simple reason demand will drive the price down and bookmakers aren't going to risk losing their healthy margins. LIGHT BULB MOMENT FOR ME! OK this isn't rocket science and I'm sure everyone already knows this but if there is greater value in the underdog why aren't we betting on the underdog more?
My next thought process answered this quickly by arguing it would be hard to manage long losing runs, trying to pick out 10/1 winners (Eg Real Sociedad v Barcelona this weekend) and what the hell do I know about picking big priced winners? I've never done it before and have no history of doing so. MY NEXT LIGHT BULB MOMENT!....ASIAN HANDICAP...
Every week I scroll the Asian Handicap markets and laugh each week at some ridiculous handicaps being offered for the underdog. A prime example is the Championship where anyone can beat anyone but an away team can still be given a +1 or +1.5 start. This of course happens in all our leagues and particularly Liverpool's opponents. I started to notice that more often than not the games I mentally picked were coming through more often then not.
Now as a rule I don't pick these type of games for the Summer of Football service because they rarely qualify for selection using my strict criteria. The core of this service is built on home teams winning at average odds of evens where I see value. Its simple, it works and it won't change unless I blow the bank. ;o)
However we do occasionally bet on the underdog and I was staggered to discover our results. The SoF service has made 25 underdog bets (Ie we bet on a positive handicap) and 19 have been winners! 19! THAT IS A 76% STRIKE RATE
So where does that leave my thinking today. Firstly I have no intention of changing the core of SoF as we currently have a winning formulae but I have decided to religiously track my additional selections since January 1 and see if I can find another edge!
Please let me know if you are interested in seeing the results and I will update again here soon
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