Merger Time

Rather than running two blogs I thought I would merge the two together. Sporting Value has always talked about the Narrow Victories element of my betting so I feel mentioning research and the reasoning for some selections could benefit readers, and just as importantly, myself. I often find that fully explaining my bets can help the process and diminish errors.

So as an introduction to the merged blogs I thought I would go through the definites, probables and possibles for Saturday’s bets. I also want to show the different ways I can place these bets and how I have enhanced the prices with experience.

Definites

Marseille vs Valenciennes (Ligue 1, Saturday 16:00)

Marseille were one of last season’s bankers for this system and results look like they are returning to pattern. Marseille have only had 3 home games where they have been priced at less than 1.7 this season and they have won 2 of them by 1 or 2 and lost the other (luckily backed Reims in that match, cheers Stewboss!). In 12/13, there was 11 such matches of which 6 were won by 1 or 2, and 5 were either drawn or lost. So in not one of these 14 matches did OM win by more than 2 goals.

Valenciennes have a similar profile on the receiving foot. This season there have been 3 matches where they are the considerable underdog and they have drawn or won 2 of these and lost by 1 to Bordeaux. Again last season gives a more convincing argument, with 6 relevant matches and 5 of those they lost by less than two.

Having read James from Summer of Football’s interview with Tipsters Mind, I really like this quote and feel it is similar to how I choose my selections for Narrow Victories:

Our service specialises in picking value around the evens mark. I am basically looking for games where I feel the outcome is more than 50% likely to occur. If we can do this then over the long run we will make profits.

James Power, Summer of Football

http://tipstersminds.com/en/james-summer-of-football/

So can we get a price around evens? When I first started I used to dutch the 1 and 2 goal winning margin prices on Oddschecker:

Dutching 3.6 and 4.6 (although can’t get on at Ladbrokes gives a price of 2.02.

I then developed a simultaneous equations method of combining the win price with an Asian Handicap +2.5 for the opposition, which generally gives a slightly better price. If you want more of an explanation, read this.

So the win price is 1.6 and Valenciennes +2.5 is 1.15. If I just copy in the Excel line from my spreadsheet, in this case you can see the price is the same.

Team 1	Team 2	Stake	Win	+2.5	St1	St2	Loss1	Loss2	Profit
Marseille	valenciennes	100	1.6	1.15	126.37	175.82	-100	-100	102.20

Staking £126.37 at 1.6 and £175.82 at 1.15 leads to a profit of £102.20 if both situations win. As only one can lose, a maximum of £100 can be lost.

Now we can see both these prices are the same so might as well just back the ditched winning margin bets with less money required. Where we can improve the odds again (in most cases) is to look at the English Handicap markets, in particular the draw element.

While the -1 draw (same as a 1 goal winning margin) is the same, Unibet are offering 5.00 for a 2 goal winning margin, giving dutched odds of 2.09.

And what I have found in the last couple of weeks, the fun does not stop here! BetButler seem to have quite generous EH draw prices.

They offer 3.9 for a draw (+1.0), which after a 3% commission gives a price of 3.81 and combining that with Unibet (or 888sport’s) 5.0 for +2 draw, gives a price of 2.16.

[Now 3.8, 3.71 after commission now 2.13]

It definitely pays to shop around! Obviously I am not going to go through all the explanations and screen grabs for all the selections today, but hopefully you will see where I get the odds from.

AC Milan vs Verona (Serie A, Saturday 19:45)

AC Milan are not having a great season but one aspect of last season’s form is still there. In 12/13 Milan won 9 of the 15 (60%) matches where they were priced at 1.7 or less by a 1 or 2 goal winning margin. This season they have won 3 out of 5 (60%).

Verona were promoted last year so no relevant data but this year when a considerable underdog, they have lost 3 out of 4 by less than 3 goals (75%).

There has been a change of manager at Milan but I believe the fundamentals won’t change instantly so better than 50% chance rule stands, now just a matter of getting a price of evens or better.

The best win and +2.5 prices of 1.5 and 1.23 gives us a price of 2.08. Dutching the 4.1 at BetButler for +1 (3.95 after comm) with 4.8 at Unibet gives an enhanced price of 2.17, which fits the bill perfectly.

Standard Liege vs Oostende (Belgian Jupiler League, Saturday 17:00)

Standard sit top of the Jupiler League but have only won one home match when priced at less than 1.7 by more than 2 goals. In fact 63% (5/8) have been by the magic one or two goals. Last season they won 50% of their relevant home matches  in this way.

Oostende were promoted this season and look to fit the bill quite well with 50% of their relevant away matches being lost by 1 or 2, and only 1 going over that.

Pricewise, the Asian Venn diagram of win and +2.5 gives a price of 2.04, while the best we can do with Dutching winning margins is evens (4.0 and 4.0).

Team 1	Team 2	Stake	Win	+2.5	St1	St2	Loss1	Loss2	Profit
Standard	Oostende	100	1.29	1.4	158.37	145.93	-100	-100	104.30

So given a nominal stake of £100 (max loss), £158.37 @ 1.29 at Pinnacle for Standard win and £145.93 @1.4 with Bet365 is the way here.

Gent vs Kortrijk (Jupiler League, Saturday 19:00)

This season Gent are running at 67% (4/6) and last season were at 50% (5/10). Kortrijk are losing to our circumstances at 67% (2/3) and 60% (3/5) in 12/13.

This time the Venn diagram method gives us a price of 2.15 (1.7 and 1.14). while ditching Unibet’s 5.4 for +2 draw with their 3.85 for a +1 draw gives a price of 2.25, which looks the way to go here. Obviously the 1.7 price is absolute borderline but I prefer this bet to a -0.75 handicap as neither Gent or Kortrijk have been involved in larger victory margin matches at these prices.

Celtic vs Motherwell (Scottish Premier, Saturday 15:00)

Celtic have a very strong home trend this season with 7 of their 9 matches in this price bracket (who am I kidding, they are all in this price bracket!) being won by just 1 or 2 goals. Not one of their home matches has gone over that mark! This is a different story to their away matches, maybe like Bayern they feel secure at home and don’t need to push.

Motherwell lost their only relevant match away (also to Celtic), 1-0 and have only conceded 11 goals in all 10 of their away matches this season.

Given these stats I would not want to take the even money handicap mark of -1.5, but will try to maximise my 1 to 2 goal margin. Using the win/+2.5 prices of 1.34/1.3 gives us 1.94 but dutching the best winning margins of 3.96 (Betbutler +1) and 4.3 (Betbutler +2) gives 2.06.

That covers the definites, next on to the probable. I will most likely back these but might try to get team news, conformational predictions elsewhere from sites like whoscored etc. and go over them again in Football Form Labs to be sure.

Probables

Arsenal vs Fulham (Premier League, Saturday 15:00)

Historically Arsenal haven’t fitted the bill for this type of side but are now running at a 57% strike rate, with only 1 match – back in October against Norwich – going over a 2 goal winning margin.

Fulham are a trickier side to evaluate, especially with Hull 6 Fulham 0 still in the mind! This season they are 2 losses by 1 or 2 and 2 by more, but those two were their last two, Liverpool and Everton.

Certainly Arsenal’s forward problems would point towards a narrow victory but not quite convinced yet!

Pricewise, the win/+2.5 is currently paying out at 2.08 and the ditched winning margins at 2.2 which might be enough, but as an Arsenal fan might just hold fire.

Betis vs Real Madrid (La Liga, Saturday 15:00)

Real Madrid on the road have been good to this system with 6 out of 9 of their away matches in this price range have gone our way and only 1 has gone over. Certainly the impression is that goals are harder to find for Real, but at the same time their defence is quite sound.

Betis, on the whole keep it quite close for a bottom side with only Barcelona, a different proposition on these rules, winning by more than 2.

Looking at the markets you can get 2.26 combining the win (1.33) with the +2.5 (1.45) but 2.3 dutching Betbutler’s 4.7 on each (4.59 after comm).

This is one of the reasons it is beneficial for me to write this as I had this bet as a probable to start with, I now think it is a definite!

Possibles

These are the ones that have a small sample size but an element of temptation or slightly negative stats but momentum in this direction. It is unlikely I will back these ones, it is just to get a feel.

Manchester City vs Cardiff (Premier League, Saturday 15:00)

At first glance this is not a fixture I would think to look at in much detail, but 43% of City’s games in this bracket fit the bill. A lot of their big victories are against rivals who play more like Arsenal, Spurs and United. Yes Norwich did get thumped 7-0, but Palace and Hull have kept them to 1 and 2 nil.

Cardiff have a 2/3 record here and the Chelsea 4-1 loss was dubious at best with the Eto’o keeper incident and Cardiff did take the lead.

Priced at around 2.25 either way you do it, there is temptation but not enough for me. If Cardiff can keep the score down it would make City an option in the future as they would be a 50% team – last year 60% of their home matches when under 1.7 ended up narrow victories.

Lierse vs Club Brugge (Jupiler League, Saturday 19:00)

Away favourites do work very well on this system, unfortunately there is not quite enough data for this to work for me. Brugge have won 2/3 away matches in this price range by less than 3, but as last year the record doesn’t fit (2/3 by 3 or more) I will leave it alone.

One of the major problems of deciphering away favourites is that there is much less data on the home teams as there are many fewer examples where they are major underdogs at home. Lierse have only encountered this situation once this season and lost 5-0 to Anderlecht. Last season, again, it was only once and they drew 1-1 with the same team!

I hope I haven’t bored you all to tears with this, and even if I have it has been very useful for me. I will try to return on Saturday with Sunday’s picks but no guarantees as my wife is away in Budapest and I am home alone with the kids.

So in conclusion the definites are:

Marseille @ 2.16

Milan @ 2.17

Standard Liege @2.04

Gent @2.25

Celtic @ 2.06

Real Madrid @ 2.3

And the Probable is Arsenal @ 2.2

Good luck all this weekend

Keep on chugging - December review

Well this is more like it, two profitable months in a row. December was not as rewarding as November but achieved its target profit levels. I churned the figures on January 1^st or 2^nd and jotted down some notes but have never got round to writing up the review. This has put me in an awkward situation, especially with the tipster ratings, as things are fluid and January has been quite up and down so far. I have decided to keep the data as December only but the ratings will encompass events that have occurred so far in January.

So how did everyone get on:

Rank	Tipster	Staked	P/L	ROI	ROC
1	Football Investor	103.5	28.9	28%	29%
2	Skeeve	10	7.9	79%	10%
3	The Football Analyst	138.5	6.1	4%	6%
4	Summer of Football	12	1.5	13%	4%
5	Laurent Marty	18	-1	-6%	-2%
6	Narrow Victories	34	-2.3	-7%	-6%
7	Football Elite	39	-9.75	-25%	-20%

Four out of the 7 made some sort of profit, two of them considerable and only one real blowout enabled me to just beat my monthly profit target of £2000. In fact, profit was £2110 on a turnover of £31790 at an ROI of just about 7%. All very good, although at some stages it did look like the numbers would be even more impressive – but don’t they always!

Overall, and remember this is from the start of this years football season (August), the table looks as follows:

Rank	Tipster	Staked	P/L	ROI	ROC
1	Summer of Football	82	16.5	20%	41%
2	Football Investor	312	36.9	12%	37%
3	Narrow Victories	129	5.05	4%	13%
4	Laurent Marty	55.5	2.15	4%	4%
5	Skeeve	82	-9.2	-11%	-12%
6	The Football Analyst	574.5	-18.8	-3%	-19%
7	Football Elite	100	-9.65	-10%	-19%

Overall the combined service has turned over just short of £120k and generated a profit of £2795 at 2% ROI. ROC is at 6.5%, which for 5 months in not bad compared to most investments, but not what I was hoping for so far. But given the start, we are now heading in the right direction.

Sporting Value Confidence Rating (last months rating in brackets)

As I have already mentioned, I will try to keep my comments as relevant to what happened in December, but there a couple of services that I feel I must expand on given their starts to January.

Football Investor – 3.5 (3.5)

This is now the second month in a row that one of my top funded services have topped the monthly charts and what a month it was for Stewboss.

FI managed to make over £2k of the profit this month, equally split over homes and aways.

Row Labels	Count of Profit	Sum of stake	Sum of Profit2
Away	78	5840	1235.2
Home	26	2440	1077.2
Grand Total	104	8280	2312.4

The Combo bets were the undoubted stars, but the adapted Strike Zone system that I follow also produced the goods.

Row Labels	Count of Profit	Sum of stake	Sum of Profit2
Combo	36	3440	1599.2
Euro	13	520	-7.6
SZ	55	4320	720.8
Grand Total	104	8280	2312.4

It is that time of year when the SBC Tipster of the Year awards need voting for and I decided to back Football Investor. FI is now in second place overall, and although he has been outperformed by Summer of Football I couldn’t bring myself to vote for James given that the bank was blown earlier in the year.

Hopefully Stewboss will be enjoying the rest of his Aussie break (still providing the selections I might add) and be back soon to push on to even greater things.

Skeeve – 2.5 (3)

December was a great month for Skeeve with very few selections, but nearly everything he touched turned to gold. A ROI of 79% is incredible and the damage to the betting bank done earlier in the season looked to being diminished. I say looked, as January has been a shocker so far! This has coincided with stakes going back to maximum levels as well.

Skeeve has taken a bit of a battering in the blogs after this latest blow out, and a little support, but I thought I might add my two pennies’ worth!

Since cutting back stakes, the service has been on quite a good run and to me that is not surprising. Skeeve, by its nature, is a very selective niche service and you are not going to get a lot of bets, especially for the money you pay. To get the incredible returns there is quite a lot of risk in terms of bank size. At first glance an 80-point bank seems more than acceptable but as most bets are 4 points, this really is the equivalent of a 20 point bank.

This does not rankle with me for the Asian handicap selections, as they are usually priced at or below even money, but for the doubles, it does seem too high. The odds at this staking level can go over 3.00. I know the doubles have an outstanding record but 519 points staked is not an amazingly large sample, given that some bets are 4 points. In fact in 2013, only 21 4-point doubles were placed. Having read Joseph Buchdahl’s “How to find a black cat in a coal cellar”, there is a chance that the extraordinary profit is due in part to luck as well as the undoubted skill.

It is quite surprising to me as my notes written at the start of the month are very positive with every hope that things will turn around in the much heralded second half of the season, but I don’t feel comfortable staking so much of my bank on these doubles. I have already cut back my TFA bet sizes for similar reasons, i.e. the proportion of my bank going on each selection, but Graeme’s service provides the number of bets to make this a viable option.

I am now asking myself, and this is literally while I am writing this as I was not expecting to be so strong on this issue, where I go now with Skeeve. Do I change to half stakes for the doubles and risk missing out on the great turnaround or carry on regardless? Not sure yet, to be honest, but the upgrade from 2.5 to 3 last month has been returned to 2.5.

The Football Analyst – 3.5 (3.5)

December was solid and at some points it looked better than that but there is still a tendency for a boom and bust ride. Really I need Gordon Brown to declare that these days are over but not quite sure if they are yet. In fact I must say the boom days of early January (listen to me it is still only the 15^th!) enabled TFA to completely eliminate the considerable deficit from earlier in the season and push into the black, but alas last weekend was another bust.

Row Labels	Count of Game	Sum of stake	Sum of return	Sum of Sacrifice$	Profit
Bsq Prem	8	1360	1651.2	-342.4	291.2
Championship	15	1680	2220.4	80	540.4
League 1	11	1040	704	0	-336
League 2	23	3080	4682.4	-346.8	1602.4
Premiership	19	3200	1848.4	256	-1351.6
SPL	7	720	462.4	0	-257.6
Grand Total	83	11080	11568.8	-353.2	488.8
					0

League 2 has been on an incredible run and if it wasn’t for a considerable loss in the Premier League, the figures would look even better! The Championship also produced solid results.

Row Labels	Count of Game	Sum of stake	Sum of return	Profit
Away	51	5440	6540	1100
Draw	8	1120	545.6	-574.4
Home	24	4520	4483.2	-36.8

This month, it was definitely the aways that produced the bulk of the profit and draws did not really help out with returns, maybe just balancing out the variance, as they should!

Looking at these results, I suppose I have been a bit hamstrung by the design of my portfolio as the double homes and the addition of aways have limited profit growth, but they have been doing the business at other times, so no complaints here.

Summer of Football – 3.5 (3.5)

Another steady month, culminating in a small profit. Solid if unspectacular but after reading the season review, that is a good thing. Given that the service blew the bank with a poor run from January to July, it still ended up in profit and a lot of that is due to a more selective and conservative approach. Obviously it is now January so lets hope history doesn’t repeat itself but I detect a return to the old confidence without trying to overdo it.

Laurent Marty – 3 (3)

A slight losing month, which should have been a break-even one as I missed a bet on Boxing Day when out with the kids at Blenheim Palace. I didn’t trust myself to get the iPhone out while on roller blades – don’t ask, it was bad enough without trying to bet!

There is a slight feeling of a service drifting as it is rare to get a run together but it is not losing money at the moment so shouldn’t complain.

I suppose I would be unlikely to subscribe fresh, especially at the prices that Betadvisor charge, but I still have about 4 months left so hopefully Laurent can convince me to keep with it. Betadvisor have not had a good press in the last month, led by Joseph Buchdahl and also on SBC forums so I need to look into this going forward. I also have my doubts as to whether rugby needs to be part of my portfolio in the long run, but I will go into this further later on.

Narrow Victories – 3 (3)

A slight loss on the month, but given the way these types of bets were going down mid December I think I was lucky to be where I am. At one point the Premier League was down to 44% from 54% on my figures and although it picked up a little at the end of the month, I was not on the right ones!

What I do want to look at is the effect of other tipsters on my selections. As you know I am a relative novice compared to the behemoths of TFA, FI and Football Elite and while I tend to have a shortlist at the start of the week, I tend to wait for all others to make their picks and then see what is left.

To be honest, I do go against Football Elite’s Vulnerable Home Favourites without a second thought but the other selections, well rarely so. So this week I decided to look at how we compared going head-to-head.

For those that haven’t been over to Narrow Victories, I like to back sides priced under 1.7 to win by 1 or 2 goals, if their record shows they are the type of team to do so on a regular basis. I pretty much stick to the big European leagues, although my range is extending all the time.

First of all, Matt over at Football Elite and I clashed on 19 matches (2 recommended bets and 17 VHFs). Of those NV would have won 13, FE 3 and 3 were won more than 2 goals, meaning none of us won.

Now obviously I do not publish many of my selections so people may claim that I am committing the betting sin of aftertimining, but I have no intention of selling these tips or denigrating the tipsters I am comparing with. I am purely working out if I should hold back on my bets, hold their relevant ones, or back both!

With Football Investor, most of the matching selections are due to my portfolio backing Top Flight Elite teams when the price is 4.00 or over. This season there have been 14 clashing bets. NV would have won 7 of them and FI two. Interestingly, NV would have made just under 1 point profit (6% ROI) whereas FI would have made 1.75 points, due to the relative prices for 12.5% ROI.

Finally TFA has had 5 matches, all in the Premier League. NV would have won 4 of them, one was a draw and TFA nought. Now obviously this is a miniscule sample and just one winner would make his selections profitable, but I did miss out on 4 winning bets!

So is it time to be bold and place the bets before the others play – certainly the evidence would point that way. And if I did what would I do when they selected opposing bets? Certainly I would have to be brave to ignore these big priced possibilities.

I suppose Man Utd vs Swansea summed up the situation perfectly last weekend. The NV data highlighted a better than 50% chance of Man Utd winning by less than 3 while there also seemed to be value in backing Swansea, especially as they beat them the week before! Tricky decisions to be had, I think I will try to look in more detail on the sister site.

Football Elite – 3 (3)

Now this is a service that really needs a break! December was horrible, even after a good start it is getting quite a rollercoaster feeling to it. Both in December and now January one week can do tremendous damage and we have yet to have an equivalent up-swing to match. Most weeks FE can pootle along picking up the odd point but then it will drop 9 or 10 over a weekend and be back to square one.

Row Labels	Count of Selection	Sum of Profit2
DNB	16	138
Win	23	-1308
Grand Total	39	-1170

December was characterized by a failure of the win only selections, those priced at 3.5 or less. While the DNBs did OK, they dropped just over £1300!

This is another service getting bad press at the moment but I think I will carry on a bit longer, but we do need more consistency and one of those weekends when everything wins!

Other Services

I questioned earlier whether rugby needed to be part of my portfolio, and while need is not the right word, I do wonder if it spreads me too thin. Two of my main loves in life are sports and stats and I know you are not supposed to become emotionally involved in your betting, but I like to know what is going on and roughly why I am betting. Football I get because I spend most of my time following it, rugby less so but living in the Cotswolds people love to talk about it! I have also started following GT Tips Premium just for the American Football but again without the detailed understanding and interest.

What I am trying to say is that I find myself put off these bets much easier if I do not have either an emotional or intellectual stake in them. Some might say this a good thing, but from my point of view, if I want to take things into my own domain in the long run I have to know the markets. I cannot see myself getting inside every aspect of these two sports so I am thinking that we should part ways at some point.

To be honest the sport other than football that I want to become more involved in has to be tennis. Back in 2001 myself and my wife ran a couple of websites about betting on Tennis and F1 and while they were great fun and profitable from a betting point of view, we did not see the business angle and I had to go and pursue a real career. 9 years of teaching maths and I feel I have gone full circle!

Anyway my point is that I have looked to get tennis into my portfolio, so for 2014 I have subscribed to Tennis Ratings tips, which I am glad to say have got off to a good start. In a way I would have loved to use Sportyy but find the cost prohibitive and their record since going all mathematical – which I am all for – does not justify the fee. Tennis Ratings is predominately a trading advisory service, something I am not quite ready for, but is also offering tips with great statistical analysis and detailed explanations for the bets. I will keep you informed of its progress.

With regards to Football Form Labs, I still haven’t decided whether it gains a permanent membership as I can still forget to check if any bets are up, especially on busy weekends. The quality seems to be there but if their investment arm, Fidens, strike the odds can go fast. Maybe I should just give them a wad to invest for me!

Bookie Update

No closures this month, although Toe restrictions becoming tighter. What is surprising is that Betfred restrictions are getting looser! Betfred has never closed an account, just reduced it to single figure bets but I have slowly been upping stakes and getting away with it! Balalnce was up over £2000 before TFA last weekend. Maybe it is a good thing I gave them back a bit, might extend my betting with them a bit longer.

The other interesting bookie angle is that I am using Betbutler for a fair few of my Narrow Victories bets as their English Handicap draw odds nearly always beat their rivals and certainly the winning margin prices. There have been issues with payment in the past so will keep a watchful eye and will update as and when.