Why Fiddling with Markets can be your downfall

Why Fiddling With Markets Can Be Your Downfall

We all like bigger odds on our bets but quite often we pay the price for seeking out those odds and betting on ‘fiddly' markets. 

So much of making a profit in football betting is about finding a niche in which your judgement excels over the bookmaker. 

You need to find that specific bet type that you can achieve consistent success with, (OLBG have listed all the bet types in this betting school article).

There are certain markets that I think are ‘no-goes'. 

Markets that increase your odds by combining more match outcomes that would win your bet are often extremely poor value. 

The one that sticks out the most to me in this respect is the ‘Match Result and Both Teams To Score' market, also known as ‘Win & BTTS'.

Win & BTTS vs Correct Score Betting

This bet type has become synonymous with the ‘big win' seekers and part-time bettors.

They simply flick through their mobile app on a Saturday morning and place an accumulator, mostly just for a bit of fun, without doing any particular research. 

As a result, this market is often very under-priced and poor value, remember this is two bets. 

The last time I checked, 66% of Win & BTTS results in the Premier League over the last 3 seasons were 2-1 or 3-1 wins. 

Now 2-1 is usually priced at around 9/1 best odds and 3-1 around 16/1 (those odds may be considerably bigger if you are backing the underdog). 

Compare that to the usual 3/1 available on a favourite to win and both teams to score and you have a very poor value bet in my opinion. 

You would be much better off backing the correct scores as singles and before you say that you like ‘Win & BTTS' for the multiples why not check out Correct Score multiples. 

The effect of multiplying 9/1 shots together creates some quite gargantuan accumulated odds that will have the bookies running scared. 

You are better off sticking to the old ‘Correct Score' market if you ask me.

Over 2.5 and BTTS vs Over 2.5 or BTTS

This one really gets my goat. 

I think ‘Over 2.5 & BTTS' is a very poor value bet. 

Usually priced at around 6/5 you need any one of 2-1/3-1/3-2 etc. results but these score-lines reflect just a small proportion of total results.

In the 2014/15 Premier League season if you had backed ‘Over 2.5 & BTTS' in every game you would have had just 148 winnings bets out of a total of 380 games.

2019/20 Season Followed Suit

• Over 2.5 Goals = 52%
• BTTS = 51%
• BTTS & Over 2.5 Goals = 38%

At average odds of 6/5 that would have returned a loss of -54.4 LSP last season.

A bet at the price of 6/5 has a 45.4% chance of winning, according to the bookies, yet just 38% of games finished with a result that would have won your bet. 

That is a pretty hefty difference and highlights how the bookies play with percentages and probability to beat 98% of punters. 

There are many other bet types that if backed blindly every game would return loss figures of around just -5 LSP. For example, backing home favourites in every game, which puts that into perspective nicely.

1-1 and 3-0 score-lines are fairly common, both of which would kill an ‘Over 2.5 and BTTS' bet. 1-1 accounted for 9.7% of all results last season whilst 3-0 accounted for 6.3%. 

Those results would prove to be winning bets for ‘BTTS' or ‘Over 2.5' markets respectively.

 In my opinion, it is not worth risking backing ‘Over 2.5 and BTTS' at 6/5 when the average price of 4/5 on ‘Over 2.5' or ‘Both Teams To Score' represents a far safer bet.

Betting Strategies

Without trying to sound like I am preaching to everyone, I do think it is better to stick to the main markets like Handicaps, Match Odds, Both Teams To Score, Half-Time markets and Total Goals.

There are certain markets out there in which some individuals find repeated success but those markets are usually tricky for the bookies to price up. 

The ones I have mentioned above are easy for bookmakers to price with their models and databases of past results and they have sapped all of the value out of the odds as a result. 

I find that Goalscorer markets hold much more value on occasion, especially if you frequently watch football from that specific division which brings me on to my final point.

I think that the key to successful and ultimately profitable betting is finding your niche divisions and competitions rather than your niche markets. 

Bookmakers don't always watch sports but they do watch markets.

 If you can get a feel for say the top division in Mexican Football, Liga MX, then you stand a good chance of making a profit from the simplest of markets.

Take the bookies on with what you know. Their over-rounds are there for a reason, to make finding ‘value' in markets all but impossible unless you have a great knowledge of what you are betting on.

 People have been building models to try and counter-attack the bookmakers for a long time but with limited success as their budgets and time constraints with such an approach are not as great as the bookies.

 In my opinion, trying to find a way of beating the bookies with their own markets is a strategy destined to fail and if it does show success it will only be temporary as the bookmakers will adjust the markets soon enough.