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

Which are the most profitable EFL Championship to bet on?

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

Even though fans believe their team will win always come out on top, even the very best have a habit of throwing away points from time to time and this can mean, it is the betting sites that win instead.

While backing your team each week is also fertile ground for some deep analysis. Analysis that comes courtesy of the 2022/23 EFL Championship season. With us taking a retrospective look at the results, we are also going to see if blind faith is a system that can lead to end-of-season profitability.

£1 goes on each team to win their Championship fixture, of which they are 552 in total.

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 and for those who fail to do so, that same expenditure can prove rather costly.

Although the same cannot be said regarding our methodology and with Burnley winning the 2023 EFL Championship title by some distance, they would also be the most profitable club in England’s second tier. 

If you were to stake £46 across the course of last season, backing Burnley throughout would have returned £57.41 in total. Not only is that £11.41 in profit but also nearly a 25% return on your investment.

While the other team that earned automatic promotion to the Premier League was Sheffield United, the Bramall Lane outfit were also one that generated profit via our betting system and if you back the Blades each week, it would have eventually returned £8.62 on top of all your initial stake money.

Paul Heckingbottom’s men finished second in the Championship table but the two automatically promoted sides were split by Blackburn when it comes to profitability. Rovers may have missed out on the play-offs, but they still generate a 19.74% return on investment. 

As for the play-offs, it was Luton who won the richest game of the season and their own regular season performance would have created a decent amount of riches for those who backed them. £46 staked, £52.68 in return – 14.52% when measured in ROI. 

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 more manageable than in the Premier League or La Liga, where the odds offer far less in the way of pre-match value.

Of the 24 teams that contested last season’s EFL Championship, 11 would have generated a profit using our methodology. However, the list does not include the team that lost in the play-off final or the team that finished fourth in the division.

Coventry were the side that fell short at Wembley and after missing out on an invite to the Premier League, they would also fall short regarding overall betting profit. The £46 staked would only return £45.53. Only a loss of 47p but still just over one percent down on your investment.

While Middlesbrough did not fare much better even after their late surge up the table. Michael Carrick took over the club when they were heading towards League One. A fantastic turnaround on the field was unfortunately not enough to claw back an overall profit from the methodology. 

AT THE BOTTOM

If you are a Wigan fan you may want to look away now. Not only did the Lancashire-based outfit succumb to relegation at the end of the season but they also managed to generate a negative return of investment of 29.52%.

Beset by points deductions, the Latics had a season to forget and so would anyone who backed them in each of their 46 competitive skirmishes. An outlay of £46 would only return £32.42 at the end of the campaign, it would also return a -29.52% loss on your investment.

While they would also be joined by Blackpool when it comes to a relegation and lack of profitability double. Like their fellow Lancastrians above, they would also fail to generate more than the initial £46 that was staked. A £26.29 return would mean more than a 20% loss overall.

Two relegated sides in the bottom three of overall loss is not a surprise, the inclusion of Norwich certainly is. After suffering relegation from the Premier League at the back end of the 2021/22 season, the Canaries were tipped to return at the first time of asking.

However, the East Anglian side had a dreadful season by their own standards and would have been responsible for plenty of bust coupons. Failures to win also leads to failures when it came to profitability and they would be responsible for a -23.13% loss on the most recent campaign. 

TIME TO COMPARE

Another way to measure 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 2022/23 Championship table and once again it does not make for good reading for Norwich.

13th in the table in real life, 23rd when it comes to overall profitability. The Carrow Road outfit had a ranking difference of 10 places when comparing the latter to the former and it highlights just how bad a season the Canaries ended up having.

If there is any saving grace, it is the fact that West Brom had the biggest disparity between the two ranks. The Baggies had a late dalliance with the play-off places but would eventually finish ninth in the table. 

Unfortunately for those who would have backed them in every game of last season, the West Midlands outfit would have only finished 20th when measuring profitability and they would also be responsible for a -20.48% loss.

There were only two teams who managed parity with the two metrics and it is rather interesting as to who the duo are. Burnley were the champions and the most profitable team in the division. Wigan propped it up the table and were the least by comparison.

As for the team that had the biggest disparity between they finished and how profitable they were, that honour goes to Huddersfield. They eventually finished 18th in the Championship, they finished fifth when it comes to profitability.

A 13.74% return on investment would have been recorded after backing Huddersfield to win each of their 46 matches. Of course, this system would have been on the road to ruin at the start of last season, it only really came good at the end.

The reason for such a heroic turnaround? None other than a certain Neil Warnock. Called out of retirement to help on his former employers, his survival instincts kept the club afloat in the second tier and after completing the great escape, the managerial icon has the taste for a full campaign.

Whether this returns Huddersfield to another season of profitability remains to be seen. One thing you cannot do is underestimate the powers of their current man in charge, especially when you are looking to back them across every game of their 2023/24 campaign.

Methodology

Staking for returns, profit and loss were set thus:

£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: 

Editorial Information

This article was researched and fact-checked by Dan Tracey who also then added the words - Dan is a multi-talented writer, data analyst and podcaster whose six-year career in the sports data sphere has seen incredible successes. From helping UEFA create their annual technical reports to writing articles for Sports Betting Websites, including sites like TheLinesUS and Goal