EFL Championship Most Profitable Clubs - Which Teams Can You Make a Profit Betting On?

The fact remains and will always remain that betting blindly on one club to win each time they play is not a good betting strategy, however, as one might expect, some teams will perform better over the course of a period of time than others, and throw in a couple of shocks and you might find profit to be had with bookmakers.

We have taken a look at results and odds at the time of games in the EFL Championship to come up with some data sets showing just what return you would have gotten from backing a team to win blind in every game.

From the first 8 games of a Championship season to the full season results [Where no team would have produced a profit of course].

Let's start with the first 8 games of the 2022/23 EFL Championship season

10 games have now passed in the Championship league, data is revealing that punters would walk away with a marvellous amount if they back Reading in each of their Championship games on a £1 stake bet. 

Rankings via OLBG have revealed the amount of money punters will win or lose when they put a £1 stake on each Championship team. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brokenkey/, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Punters backing Reading(£10.87), Reading are continuing to lead the profit table with an amount that is more than any other team in the Championship.  

Birmingham are finding it hard to catch up to leaders Reading as they have made less than half of what Reading has. With a current returns profit of £5.32 from a £1 stake on them to win each of their matches this season. Sheffield who have just fallen short of second place can also seem to return a reasonable profit of £4.72 to win all of their matches this season with a £1 stake. 

Mighty Millwall are scraping the bottom end of the profit/loss table with a disappointing amount of -£0.92 loss from a £1 stake bet. Bristol followed behind them closely with a loss of -£1.00, punters may need to be careful when picking teams after putting on a £1 stake bet for them to win. 

Teams that follow in the footsteps of Millwall that are returning a loss from a £1 bet on them to win each of their games this season could also include Bristol (-£1.00), Hull (-£1.13), Luton (-£1.45), Burnley (-£1.53), Rotherham (-£1.60), Watford (-£1.85).

Stoke (-£2.34), Huddersfield (-£3.03), Preston (-£3.32), Swansea (-£3.76), Cardiff (-£4.37), Middlesbrough (-£6.39) and Coventry (£-7.00) also will let down punters in their £1 stake bet each time to win every Championship game this season. 

Wigan (£0.15), Norwich (£1.07), Sunderland (£2.02), QPR (£2.99) and Blackburn (£3.71) are among the 8 teams to return a profitable amount back to punters. 

With the latest data showing that Reading is leading, there is still slight hope for Sheffield United (£4.72), who just missed out on promotion last season, to exceed Reading's standing amount of £10.87.

Meanwhile, there could be disappointment for punters who are placing £1 stake bets on more than half of the league. Amounts ranging from Blackpool at a -£0.85p loss to West Brom at an immense amount of -£8.49.

Profit/loss for every Premier League team from £1 stake to win in each of their league matches this season. 

*Data accounts for profit/loss as a result of a £1 stake on each Premier League team to win their individual league matches. Ie, Millwall were odds of 6/5 to beat Cardiff, which returned £1.20 profit, while they failed to beat Reading and Norwich, which contributed to -£2 from their total earned.

Although backing your team every week is somewhat commendable, that fandom can come at a price. A price that is not only found within ticket and travel costs but also the outlay of betting stakes across the season.

Even though fans believe their team will always come out on top, even the very best have a habit of throwing away points from time to time and this means the betting companies will often win instead.

While backing your team each week is also fertile ground for some deep analysis. Analysis that comes courtesy of the 2021/22 EFL Championship season. With us taking a retrospective look at the results, we will also see if blind faith is a system that can lead to end-of-season profitability.

While to find out if this is the case or not, we have created this methodology:

• £1 stakes
• £1 goes on each team to win their Championship fixture, of which they are 552 in total
• If that team wins the game, their profit is logged and tallied up
• If either team draws or loses, a return of £0 is recorded
• With each team playing 46 matches each, we will then observe the overall profit/loss for each.

Which means now we have created the methodology, the results look something like this: 

They say the Championship can be something of a money pit. With club chairman prepared to spend countless millions in a bid to get the promised land of the Premier League, money itself becomes less of an issue.

If you can earn promotion at the end of the season, that expenditure is worth every penny and there will be further riches that follow. However, only three clubs can climb the ladder each year; for those who fail to do so, that same expenditure can prove rather costly.

Although the same cannot be said when it comes to our methodology and although Huddersfield were pipped in last season’s play-off final, they would manage to be the most profitable club in the second tier.

If you were to stake £46 across the course of last season, backing Huddersfield throughout would have returned £68.19 in total. Not only is that £22.19 in profit but also nearly a 50% return on your investment.

While finishing top of this table would also allow the Terriers to earn a modicum of revenge on Nottingham Forest. Although the City Ground outfit would pip Huddersfield to play-off success at Wembley, they had to make do with second in our profit league table.

Although they had a slow start to the campaign, the arrival of Steve Cooper would certainly see the wins begin to tally up and with the bookmakers being rather slow in terms of showing confidence, it would also mean £9.33 of profit was recorded by the end of the season.

That 20.28% return on investment came by winning 23 matches, which in itself is 50% of all the regular season games that Forest would have played. When you consider how much of a minefield this division can be, this level of profit is rather impressive.

Because there is such ebb and flow in English football’s second tier, the odds can be on the larger side than that of the Premier League. However, the balancing act is an additional risk being positioned against additional reward. 

With any team being capable of beating any other, the ability to generate end-of-season profits is perhaps easier than in the Premier League or La Liga. Here the odds offer far less in the way of pre-match value.

Of the 24 teams that contested last season’s EFL Championship, 13 of them would have generated a profit using our methodology. However, it is not a list that contains the eventual champions Fulham, as they recorded a loss of £2.01.

A negative return on investment of 4.37% will mean very little to those who follow the antics at Craven Cottage and especially as Marco Silva’s men are now plying their trade in the Premier League. 

While the reason for their overall loss can be explained by failing to win 19 of their 46 league outings. With their starting odds seeing them as favourites most weeks, a couple more notches in the win column would have flipped their deficit to a profit instead. 

AT THE BOTTOM

If you are a Barnsley fan you may want to look away now. Not only did the Tykes succumb to relegation at the end of the season but they also managed to generate a negative return on investment of 60%.

A bleak season for the Tykes and a far distance away from the two other clubs in our methodology relegation zone. As West Brom slid down the table, they also eroded any profits they may have made and instead recorded a 25% loss.

While things were not much better across the West Midlands, as Birmingham found themselves wedged between West Brom and Barnsley. A total return of £32.18 at the end of the season, also meant a 30% loss to go with it.

As far as the two other relegated outfits were concerned, Peterborough fared little better than that of West Brom and whereas the Hawthorns outfit made a loss of 25.43%, the Posh recorded one of 25.33%

It was a torrid season for Derby on the field of play but there was at least reason to be cheerful. With their late-season escape bid also generating some surprise wins along the way, it would also mean a 7.17% return on investment was recorded. Then again, this will hardly soften the blow of demotion.

TIME TO COMPARE

Another way to analyse the performance of the 24 teams is to measure their rank in terms of profit and compare it next to their final position in the 2021/22 Championship table. Once again it does not make for good reading for champions Fulham.

Top of the table in real life, just 15th when it came to recording profitability or the lack thereof. With a negative swing of 14 positions, it tells a far different story to the one that they are currently writing in the Premier League.

Hot on their heels are a trio of clubs that have a negative swing of 12 positions. There was no profit when it came to backing Sheffield United and Middlesbrough as they finished in fifth and seventh place respectively. While West Brom’s woe is only further compounded after finishing 10th.

Bournemouth were also another team that saw a rather negative swing being recorded against them. Six places being the difference between eighth in the profit ranks and second in the table. However, the Cherries did record an overall profit of 7.67% on the way to promotion. 

As for the biggest success story, it is one that focuses on Reading. After eventually avoiding relegation under Paul Ince, they also picked up some important victories along the way - not to mention some surprise ones as well. 

Their fourth-place finish in the profit ranks was one that came courtesy of an overall profit of 12.93% and when compared to their finish of 21st in the Championship, it meant a positive swing of 17 positions. 

Just as impressive were Hull and Derby’s positive swings and although it meant little for the latter overall, at least there was some theoretical respite for fans along the way. While for the former, their 11.43% profit would also mean a positive swing of 13 positions. 

As for Barnsley, it was the wrong kind of double for them. Bottom of the table and bottom of the profit ranks. An equilibrium that no supporter of the club would have hoped for at the beginning of the campaign.