Maxi Stavros

Day 6 lost. 6 bets: 1 win, 5 losses, -1.7 units down.

Day 6:

Day 5 lost. 5 bets: 1 win, 4 losses, -0.7 units down.

Day 5:

Day 4 lost: 4 bets, 1 win, 3 losses, +0.3 profit.

Day 4:

Day 3 won: 3.3 units profit (have not included bet boost winnings). Running total: 3 bets, 1 winning bet, 1.3 units profit.

Day 3:

Day 2 lost. Total = -2.00 units.

Day 2:

Oh dear, that was a disaster to start. All failed. -1 unit.

Hi Harry. These are all my own picks based on studying form and following different leagues.

I primarily focus on team goal bets nowadays and after a good start to the season thought I’d share one treble each day of teams to score over 1.5 goals. I’ll show a screenshot of the bet and keep a profit/loss record for a month to begin with and see how it’s going. All bets can be considered as a 1 unit stake. First bet:

This is impressive Harry, it's not a market I've ever looked at but it is an interesting one with a lot of angles to maybe exploit to value. Will look forward to following this thread once the season starts.

Thanks for the replies Harry. I singled out football as that is the sport I 95% bet on and love most. But I think it is different to horse racing which is the other big sport for gambling in that horse racing there is a lot more inside info which the punter is not aware of. A trainer, owner and the stableyard are aware if a horse is in good form in training which is really valuable information. I have a friend who works at a racecourse on ground maintenance and he is friendly with a lot of the horse's stableyard staff and he always asks if any of their horses are worth betting on. Last summer he text me to say there was a 66/1 that they really fancied... and it won. Football on the other hand we all get to see the starting line ups, formation, all team's form, head to heads and all sorts of other stats as you mention. We all have access to the same information to make a prediction from. What is apparent in racing is that the odds pre race change massively in the final 10 minutes before a race whereas football odds change very little pre match. I think that demonstrates that football betting is a lot easier to know the true odds than it is for horse racing. It is surely so much harder to accurately set the odds on a large number of horses in a race as opposed to a football match between two teams. I don't personally bet on a tipsters bets but this was just to demonstrate what I believe could be successful in beating the bookies by taking advantage of luck. I do think luck is something that is significant in betting but is not discussed enough. Luck is real in gambling but is so hard to explain why it happens. It is particularly evident in poker and people going on tilt. I am interested in the philosophy of luck, why it happens, how to react to it and benefit from it. I agree there are no true and correct odds in a football match which gives the opportunity to try and find positive value but if you do find value it must be very small that I am not sure it is a worthwhile way to try and make money, afterall you can get savings accounts where you can guarantee 5% interest, yet even that is not enough to keep up with inflation at present.

Is football betting, betting on luck and if so is the answer to being successful to follow lots of different tipsters and place the bets of tipsters who are currently running hot? Is football betting, betting on luck? What I mean by that is it in reality no different to placing a bet on red/black on a roulette spin. You get the odds of Evens and the outcome is random based on red being 18/37 = 48.6% chance, black being 48.6% chance and zero being 2.8% chance. It is no different from having 1000 balls in a bag, 486 being red, 486 being black and 28 zeros and pulling one out and seeing if you have won based on what you bet on. Football betting seems a really well disguised way of betting on luck. Take the first match of the Premier League season - Newcastle v Aston Villa. At the time of writing this on the exchanges Newcastle are 1.75 to win, Aston Villa are 5.2 and the draw is 4.0. In percentage terms, this is Newcastle = 57.1%, Villa = 19.2% and the draw is 25%. I think those odds seem very accurate. One may think Newcastle will win this, they have a quality team and playing at home they should win. Yes they should, 57.1% means that on average they will win this match more times than not winning if it was played 100 times. But the reality is, the outcome is random, any of these results can happen, and the odds make the outcome the same as having 1013 balls in a bag, 571 are Newcastle win, 192 are Villa win and 250 are draw. If you were to pull a ball out it could easily be any outcome and if you picked a ball out 1000 times you should in theory be even. If the odds are set accurately then there is no way you can profit long term unless you are running well and have been lucky. Why is football betting so hard to make long term profits on? I love football and my knowledge is excellent as I love it so much, but in 20 years of betting and trying so many different strategies I have never found a way to make long terms profits. I have followed tipsters and recorded their results and hardly any are profitable long term and isn't the reason for that because the odds are so perfectly set and with sportsbooks there is a margin in the bookies favour, on the exchanges there is commission and therefore with the odds so accurate it is not possible to make long term profits. From my experience of football betting, I hit hot patches and cold patches. Sometimes I literally cannot win a bet and I don't understand why when each match is out of my control. Whereas at times I hit real amazing hot streaks where I literally cannot lose a bet. I recorded 1000 bets I placed on BTTS. My best winning period was when I won 18 of 25 bets with average odds of 1.95. My worst period was losing 20 of 25 bets at average odds of 1.88. How can you go from picking 72% winners to 20% winners when picking using the same sort of strategy? So back to my original point, if to be profitable you need to be lucky and running well, is the best way to make money to follow many tipsters and place the bets of those running hot and then switching between tipsters constantly based on their form?

Really good post Rich, I can relate to what you say so much. I’m in my mid 40s and I too have spent years trying to crack the code with the aim of making a living from sports betting/trading. For me I just find work a waste of our lifetime, all these precious days written off as we are at work from early morning to evening. I hate having a lack of job security and hate being an employee. If I could make a living from gambling it would be a dream. I too have paid for products such as Caan Berry’s pre race trading although I thought his material was pretty poor, didn’t really explain what he was looking for. Ive followed tipsters to see how they do but to be honest all the tipsters I have followed at best just break even. I’ve recorded thousands of bets on spreadsheets to try find out what type of bet works best and trying to find an edge. That’s been my most interesting finds. I’ve not lost the sort of money you mention, I believe I’m down about £5k over the last 10 years. I’m not bothered by that, I do love gambling and it does give me hope. But yeah I understand how you feel, you are at a crossroads not knowing which way to go with betting, seems like you have resigned yourself to the fact there is no answer to cracking the code. It is a question I often ask myself - is sports betting beatable? We all know that casino games like roulette is not beatable, no system can beat the fact that the odds with that zero on the board is always in the casinos favour. The same can be said for football, if the bookies price markets correctly and have a margin then how can it be beatable? Do I think it’s beatable? I think there must be a way otherwise why would betting companies restrict some people’s accounts and why do Betfair issue a premium charge for people up over £250k. But what is it that these people are doing I do not know. But I keep trying to crack the code hoping I will join those people.