England lower leagues: Big Dogs

[allthethings]

Two things I've always heard specifically about the Championship and about the lower leagues in general: Anybody can beat anybody, and weekday games throw up a lot of big upsets. I decided to check these against results, and so far they have been very illuminating. First, these are the results of the lower leagues for which I have odds...all games where the dogs are 4.00 or better: Championship 17-17-32 League One 13-16-34 League Two 12-14-27 Conference 18-29-45 Were you to bet the dogs to win outright and draw (splitting the bet in some fashion), you'd have won some money playing them all. The overall winning percentage of this bet (you win between 1.75 and 2.0 when you get a draw, and between 3.0 and 5.0 or more when you get a win) is 49% (136-138). Of course, not all bets are equal. If the odds were 4.2 or below, you'd have won 55% of the time, if they were between 4.2 and 5.0, you'd win 51%, 5.0 to 6.0 46% and 6.0 and higher 39%. But you'd win more money for the really freak results. Also, the percentage of outright wins shrinks as the odds get better, as you'd expect. The breakdown of 5.00+ bets is 13-33-58, as opposed to 47-43-81 for bets between 4.00 and 4.99. Anyway, the weekday effect is huge. In fact, the weekday results have been so good that it shows the normal weekend results to be quite poor, actually. Here are the dogs' results at better than 4.00: Championship 5-4-3 League One 4-1-2 League Two 1-1-3 Conference 8-11-13 In total, that's 35-21 playing the dogs win/draw (63%). That means on the weekend, the strike rate is 45%. It's been just as good when you only count games of 5.0 and above: Championship 6-2 League One 0-1 League Two 0-1 Conference 9-3 Total: 15-7 (68%). One thing you might be wondering is, why not just play the dogs on the handicap? The answer is that the odds can be very poor, and what's more, when the big favorites win, they often beat the handicap, too. What I've found is that if you're going to play the dogs, you should play them for the big money, not the handicap. If anyone can share odds for the first week of Leagues One and Two, I'd be much obliged. To sum up, big favorites, particularly on weekdays, are not a good bet. Big dogs are.

[kukacomone]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs league two first round http://i.imgur.com/ySZaz.png league one first round http://i.imgur.com/v76FO.png

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs

league two first round http://i.imgur.com/ySZaz.png league one first round http://i.imgur.com/v76FO.png

That's awesome, thanks. Is there a main website here where I can access all past weeks, all leagues?

[kukacomone]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs You are welcome! :) Yes there is, but its Hungarian: http://www.fogadoportal.hu After you selected the league, there is an upper tab, and "Eredmenyek" is what you need.

[ONEDUNME]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Theory sounds really interesting. Good luck:ok

[Alexc]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Interesting. I've recently began paper trailing the league leaders in various leagues including Leagues One and Two, after just thinking abit about how little they're bet on, and how daft it seems considering, obviously, the'll win most their games. So far it's showing a decent profit, but it's early days. I don't know if you're including league leaders in your stats, because, regardless of which day of the week it is, they will usually do the business.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs

Interesting. I've recently began paper trailing the league leaders in various leagues including Leagues One and Two, after just thinking abit about how little they're bet on, and how daft it seems considering, obviously, the'll win most their games. So far it's showing a decent profit, but it's early days. I don't know if you're including league leaders in your stats, because, regardless of which day of the week it is, they will usually do the business.

At first I was playing anything over 4.00, but was tired of losing money opposing Crawley (for example; they've gone 6-1 at home as big favorites). So lately I'm playing dogs of 4.00 to 6.00 only. The main question that brought me to this was, "Is any team in a lower league going to win 80 percent of its games?" Another way of posing it is, is any team so terrible that odds of 4.00 and 5.00 (and 9.00) justified? The answer is it depends on the league. If you look at Ireland right now, you'll see that there are some teams so terrible that they can't cover a handicap of 2.5 against anybody. This would be a poor strategy there. But in Championship...or even in the Premiership, where teams six through 20 are interchangeable...you have to ask where such odds come from.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs 5-5 today, naturally, which will bring down our Tuesday averages. As I mentioned, I didn't play against Crawley or Oxford (dogs of about 8.00 and 8.60), so I went 5-3 for +1.75 units on 1-unit bets split between win and draw. Just before game time, Chesterfield approached 4.00, and I nearly took it at about 3.97, but by the time I clicked on it, it had dropped to 3.86 and I didn't take it. FT 1-1.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Updated figures Weekdays Championship 5-4-3 League One 4-4-3 League Two 3-1-7 Conference 8-11-13 Total 20-20-26 (61%) Weekends Total 42-59-117 (45%) All Together Now (49.6%) Championship 17-17-32 League One 13-19-35 League Two 14-14-31 Conference 18-29-45 Come to think of it, 49.6% is a pretty decent percentage for big dogs. While we're at it, note the Premier League figures: Dogs of 4.00 to 6.00 only: 6-9-10 (60%) Dogs of 6.00+: 2-3-25 (17%) Notwithstanding the odd QPR win against Arsenal @ 10.00, the gap between the top tier and second tier in Premier is vast. Not a good system bet, at all. All five leagues: Odds 4.00 to 4.99: 55-52-91 (54%) Odds 5.00 to 5.99: 9-28-42 (47%) Odds 6.00 and up: 6-11-46 (27%) Odds 6.00 and up, without Premier: 4-8-21 (36%)

[froment]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs

That's awesome' date=' thanks. Is there a main website here where I can access all past weeks, all leagues?[/quote'] I like this site that Kukacomone mentioned, see it for first time, and it may be useful! However, here are some data in english: Premier: http://www.betexplorer.com/soccer/england/english-premier-league-2011-2012/results/ Championship: http://www.betexplorer.com/soccer/england/english-league-championship-2011-2012/results/ League 1: http://www.betexplorer.com/soccer/england/english-league-one-2011-2012/results/ League 2: http://www.betexplorer.com/soccer/england/english-league-two-2011-2012/results/ Conference: http://www.betexplorer.com/soccer/england/english-conference-2011-2012/results/ Good luck with your system, it's interesting! :ok

[craigeecraigoo]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs

That's awesome' date=' thanks. Is there a main website here where I can access all past weeks, all leagues?[/quote'] Hi there allthethings, great reading through your post and selections potential. I have found a site that offers the odds for games back to 1998 in lots of lower leagues in Excel format (also includes upcoming odds) at http://www.football-bet-data.co.uk/archive.html Its helped me immensely in my back testing theories so hope its of some use to you.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Today we get Peterborough @ Southampton, Coventry @ Millwall, Bristol City @ West Ham. Before you gag, note: In Championship all season, dogs of better than 5.00 are 8-10-15. On the other hand: Dogs of better than 4.00 are 2-1-4 @ West Ham Dogs of better than 4.00 are 0-2-0 @ Millwall Dogs of better than 4.00 are 0-0-5 @ Southampton Peterborough away as a dog of better than 4.00 are 1-0-2 Bristol City away as a dog of better than 4.00 are 1-0-3 Coventry away as a dog of better than 4.00 are 0-2-1 I'm playing win/draw equal stakes on Coventry, the other two playing win/draw with draw twice as much as win (all three plays one unit each). I don't feel confident at all about this...but that's usually a good sign.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Dogs now 2-2-4 @West Ham. Bristol City getting the draw made me 1-2 on the day, but the staking worked out: +1/2 a unit. I'll take it. I need to look into the question of whether this has progressively become a worse bet as each week passes and the teams' abilities become more clear. I'll look into this and update on or after the weekend.

[Matthew]

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Thanks. I don't know exactly what I'm looking at...this is the yield assuming you play all dogs between 4.00 and 6.00? I'm playing dogs in that range as well as higher ones sometimes, plus I'm splitting the bet between draw/win, plus playing home dogs of that much, not just away dogs. I do see there appears to be a very good yield in August...across all four leagues? Across all years? Wasn't clear to me. Interesting, though. If I'm reading it right, the yield becomes good again during and after the winter transfer market, too. Makes sense.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Aha, and this is just weekdays? Interesting. Draws in Conference and Championship stand out. And Friday nights historically better than Tuesdays.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Blackpool up 3-0 at HT @ 4.23. Assuming they hold on and win, Championship big dogs are now 6-5-5 on Tues-Wed games this season.

[Lahrio]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs I would just like to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through your posts over the last few weeks (not just in this thread either). Best of luck this weekend, I might follow this system with my small bets and see how it goes. Best of luck! :ok

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Well, we all know that past results don't guarantee future results...and the strategy has been losing money of late, especially on weekends. The overs in Premier (check that thread for my post today) have been really good for over a month, helping keep me in this game. Updated figures: 4.0 to 4.99 Premier 7-6-8 Champ 10-8-19 One 14-11-26 Two 13-12-20 Conf 14-17-25 Total 58-54-98 (53%) 5.0 to 5.99 Premier 0-3-3 Champ 5-9-12 One 0-6-9 Two 1-2-11 Conf 3-8-9 Total 9-28-44 (46%) 6.0 and above Premier 2-3-26 Champ 3-2-5 One 0-3-2 Two 0-3-5 Conf 3-8-9 Total 6-15-49 (30%) Total 4-12-23 (excluding Prem): 41% Home Dogs (I find this surprisingly poor): 4-6-12 (lower), 2-3-9 (Prem) Weekdays 21-21-28 (60%) Weekends 53-78-165 (44%) (Weekends excluding Prem over 6.0: 51-75-139): 47.5% Total 74-99-193 (47%) Overs Premier 44-20 (69%) Champ 37-36 One 43-28 (60.5%) Two 36-30 Conf 49-43

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs It was a good weekend in the three lower leagues...11-6 in total. Championship went 2-6, continuing its freefall. (Premier had two dogs at under 6.0, and Norwich and Wigan both lost.) Championship is a puzzle...it appears the league is sorting itself out. Through five weeks, dogs had covered at an 18-9 clip...since then, they've gone 21-33. Best at home...Southampton at 6-0, Portsmouth 2-0. Worst is Ipswich (0-3, losses at home to Hull, Crystal Palace and Doncaster). Honorable mention to Leicester, who have notched two wins against Derby and Watford but have lost outright to Reading (4.0), Bristol City (8.1), Millwall (5.5) and Leeds (4.5). Updated figures: 4.0 to 4.99 Premier 7-6-10 Champ 12-8-22 One 15-13-26 Two 13-14-23 Conf 15-19-26 Total 62-60-107 (53%) 5.0 to 5.99 Premier 0-3-3 Champ 5-9-15 One 0-7-10 Two 1-3-11 Conf 3-8-9 Total 9-28-44 (45%) 6.0 and above Premier 2-4-30 Champ 3-2-5 One 0-4-3 Two 0-3-5 Conf 1-4-11 Total 6-17-54 (30%) Total 4-13-24 (excluding Prem): 41% Home Dogs (I find this surprisingly poor): 4-8-13 (lower), 2-3-11 (Prem) Weekdays 21-21-28 (60%) Weekends 57-88-183 (44%) (Weekends excluding Prem over 6.0: 55-84-153): 47.5% Total 78-109-211 (47%) Overs Premier 48-23 (69%) Champ 40-41 One 45-33 (60.5%) Two 38-34 Conf 52-44

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Time for an update with Championship and Conference playing on Tuesday. Some general tactical thoughts: 1. I think the case can be made for just betting the draw, not the win, in games where the dog is 5.0 or higher...it'll hurt when a dog wins outright and you lose your stake on that game, but dogs at those odds are drawing three times more often than winning outright. 2. Championship dogs continue to underperform since the league seemed to stabilize, but they win games outright at a much higher rate (as opposed to draw) than the other English dogs. I've been playing League One, Two and Conference dogs of 5.0 or better at one unit split 2/3 draw 1/3 win (and draw only for the really huge dogs), but splitting the bets 50-50 in Championship. 3. I noticed that the books adjusted their totals in League One, as the overs were really predominating, but since then unders have been the order of the day (typical that the public gets behind overs just as the market starts to correct toward unders). 4. Weekday figures are being dragged toward the mean...was hitting better than 60%, now 56%. 5. If you're looking for a reason why this strategy is sound in general, note odds on Hull tomorrow. Yes, they're playing at Southampton, the ECL's best home team, but Hull are no slouches away at 4-3-2, and they're seventh on the table. Current odds on Hull are just under 6.0, which is unbelievable value. Another headscratcher: Millwall are 21st and Donny 24th, and Doncaster is priced up at 5.26...it doesn't matter how bad Donny are, you just can't justify those kinds of odds just because Millwall are playing at home. I refer you to Sunderland-Wigan on the weekend...last-place Wigan were bet up to 6.01 by the time the game kicked off, but no way did 17th-place Sunderland deserve that kind of action, as the result clearly showed. Anyway, updated figures: 4.0 to 4.99 Premier 9-6-13 Champ 15-10-26 One 18-13-30 Two 16-14-26 Conf 16-21-27 Total 74-64-122 (53%) 5.0 to 5.99 Premier 0-3-4 Champ 6-9-17 One 0-7-12 Two 1-4-12 Conf 3-8-10 Total 10-31-55 (43%) 6.0 and above Premier 3-6-35 Champ 3-2-7 One 0-5-4 Two 0-4-5 Conf 1-4-13 Total 7-21-64 (30%) Total 4-15-29 (excluding Prem): 40% Home Dogs (I find this surprisingly poor): 5-9-17 (lower), 2-3-14 (Prem) Weekdays 23-22-36 (56%) Weekends 69-96-207 (44%) (Weekends excluding Prem over 6.0: 66-90-172): 47.5% Total 92-118-243 (46%) Overs Premier 58-27 (68%) Champ 51-44 (54%) One 49-40 (55%) Two 43-38 (53%) Conf 57-46 (55%) Premier League breakdown of overs: dog's odds under 4.0...18-26 (41%) dog's odds 4.0 to 4.99...24-8 (75%) dog's odds 5.0 to 5.99...6-2 (75%) dog's odds 6.0+...28-17 (62%) Worth keeping in mind that the games with dogs of better than 6.0 have overs set correspondingly high (O3 or O3.5), so these are becoming poorer bets, especially at O3.5.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Holy Christ, what a bloodbath. Championship finished the day 0-5 for a 5-unit loss. Amazingly, the two draws in Conference (Bath draw @ 4.39 and Telford draw at 4.66) meant that I actually finished slightly ahead while going 2-5 there. But then I threw away almost five units on overs in the Conference games...as it turned out, a very poor decision. My taking Braintree at not quite 4.00 was stupid, too. Oh well, live and learn. Maybe. The last two weekday rounds have dropped the percentage to 51%, which is still good, but it's not 62% either. Championship is just a huge disappointment after an incredible start to the season for dogs.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Been a month since I updated this...dogs in each of the leagues have gone backwards, reverting to the mean, so that, essentially, playing all dogs has turned into a break-even proposition. Except... One thing that has become clear to me is that splitting the bets on dogs between win/draw is not the way to go. Simply put, it makes your wins less lucrative, and the way this strategy can gain is by making the wins big ones, to cover your (many) losses. And, I've been getting some big wins. I didn't play Premiership games last weekend, when there were a ton of draws, but I have been playing draws in lower-league matchups where dogs are in the range of 5.0 to 6.0. At their season draw strike rate of 32%, these games are decent bets. In the 4.0 to 5.0 range, wins by dogs are occurring more often than draws--and the important point is that the draws in those games don't pay enough to make it worthwhile. General tendencies: Championship dogs are putting up more wins and draws than the other lower leagues, as befits its reputation for being an "anything can happen" league, even in games where the dogs are pulling 8.0. Big dogs in Leagues One and Two throw up six times more draws than wins in games where the dog is better than 5.0. Conference dogs draw more often than win no matter what the odds, meaning that favorites are grinding out at least a point far more often than favorites in the other leagues. The numbers: 4.0 to 4.99 Premier 11-11-19 Champ 22-11-36 One 21-15-34 Two 18-15-30 Conf 17-24-39 Total 89-76-158 (51%) 5.0 to 5.99 Premier 3-4-8 Champ 6-11-21 One 1-9-13 Two 2-5-13 Conf 4-11-13 Total 16-40-68 (45%) 6.0 and above Premier 3-13-50 Champ 5-3-11 One 1-5-5 Two 0-5-8 Conf 2-6-19 Total 11-32-93 (32%) Total 8-19-43 (excluding Prem): 39% Home Dogs (still poor): 8-14-22 (lower), 3-6-22 (Prem) Weekdays 34-39-73 (50%) Weekends 69-96-207 (44%) So, to sum up: I've boldfaced what I believe to be the important numbers. 1. Splitting the bet means that you essentially break even on the 4.0 to 4.99 range, so you should just play the dogs to win at good odds. 2. You cost yourself money in the long run by playing on the dogs to win above 5.0...better to just take the 4.0 for the draw in those games and cry yourself to sleep when Bristol City wins at Southampton as a dog of 8.0. Here's what I think in general about January: Draws will continue to be good bets in the lower leagues and may even get to be better bets, seeing as how scoring tends to go down in the colder weather and many teams start to play more strategically as their table position becomes a factor in how they approach the league. The transfer period also throws a lot of uncertainty into the mix...I have a good feeling for this strategy in the weeks ahead.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Was headed for a good day, but first sCUNThorpe scored in the 93rd, then short-handed Swindle scored in their 93rd minute. :@

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Just off a Saturday that was amazing...plus 15 units on the day, thus justifying (at least for one week) the faith I have in this strategy. At this point I am playing all dogs of 4.00 to 4.99 to win outright in Premier, Championship, Leagues One and Two. On the season, these dogs are 105-194 (35%), with the break-even point being about 70-229 (23.4%). Conference is the only one of these leagues in which dogs at this level are drawing more often than winning, so I'm playing Conference dogs of 4.00 to 4.99 to draw. One note: I played a fair number of games this season where the dog was at 4.0 or 3.9 -- close enough -- as well as some who turned out to be at 3.7 or even 3.6 at kickoff. These are all included in my numbers. Dogs of between 5.00 and 5.99 are still performing well in all five leagues on aggregate, but playing on draw (x) instead of the outright win. Dogs of better than 6.00 are only playing well in Leagues One and Two (12 draws out of 28 games at about 4.00 on average), so that's all I'm playing. I went back and estimated the week-by-week returns on the season following this strategy...naturally the first four weeks, when I was mainly watching rather than playing, were excellent...but it has been consistent over all. There have really only been two terrible slates of games, down 7 and 6 units in those, and nine in minus figures out of 37. There have been nine slates of games in which the profit surpassed 10 units, with the schedule on Aug. 13 being the best ever, at just shy of +21 units. The total for the season is +160 units...of course, past results don't guarantee future results, but I'll continue with it and report here. Overs in Premier are 85-60 (59.6%) in these games in total, but the gains have been primarily limited to matchups where the dogs are 4.00 to 4.99 (35-12, or nearly 75%). Games involving evenly-matched teams, odds-wise, are 30-35 (46%).

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Off a huge weekend, I really wondered whether this strategy would see a correction on Saturday. Nope. The 20.3-unit day was the best since I began committing to this fully. Beyond the overs in Premier (4-0 for me in the 4.00-4.99 games, since I got a push in Sunderland...my book was offering O2 at game time), these were the figures: Premier...1-3 for +0.3 units Championship...1-4 for -1 unit League One...2-5 for +2 units League Two...4-0 for +13.3 units Conference...2-0 for +5.7 units By avoiding dogs of more than 5.0 in Conference, I didn't play on four losing games (although Hayes & Yeading and Ebbsfleet put scares into their hosts). In League Two, I opted not to play on the draw in Swindon-Macclesfield, and that game was closer than expected but ended in a loss that I didn't absorb. I missed one win...in League One, I played the draw in Colchester-Chesterfield, even though the strategy called for picking the outright win. The reason was that the line was fluctuating between 4.9 (pick the win) and 5.1 (pick the draw). In the end, the odds settled at almost exactly 5.0, and I chose the draw since there was no way Chesterfield would win. Anyway, Chesterfield got the upset, and I lost 1 unit where I would have won 3 units. In Premier, I don't play on any dogs of better than 6.0, so I missed the draws by Norwich and Blackburn (and the win by Bolton and the loss by Tottenham). A slate of games Tuesday has me wondering when the correction will come. On the season, big dogs in weekday games are 43-42-93 across all five leagues. I'll have to break these down by odds when I get some time later.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Okay, here's the weekday breakdown. For the purposes of testing out the notion that the weekday games throw up upsets because of the short weeks (typically two days off since the previous Saturday), I just looked at Tuesday-Wednesday games. Here are the totals following my parameters (with estimated units won or lost): Championship...wins @ 4.00 to 4.99: 3-8 (+2.2 units) ...draws where dogs are 5.00 to 5.99 for the win: 3-3 (+6.5 units) ...wins @ 6.00+: 2-6 (+6 units)* *I stopped playing this situation in general, but the results have been good on weekdays, obviously League One...wins @ 4.00 to 4.99: 4-7 (+6.6 units) ...draws where dogs are 5.00 to 5.99 for the win: 0-1 (-1 units) ...draws @ 6.00+: 0-1 (-1 units) League Two...wins @ 4.00 to 4.99: 3-5 (+5.2 units) ...draws where dogs are 5.00 to 5.99 for the win: 0-1 (-1 units) ...draws @ 6.00+: 0-2 (-2 units) Conference......draws where dogs are 4.00 to 4.99 for the win: 6-20 (-5 units) ...draws where dogs are 5.00 to 5.99 for the win: 6-4 (+15 units) ...draws where dogs are 6.00+ for the win: 4-11 (+3 units)* *I stopped playing this situation in general, and don't see any reason to start doing so on weekdays. Looking good in general...the big surprise is that Tuesday dogs in Championship are 1-8, -4.6 units. Tuesday dogs in Championship is what sent me down this road in the first place. Worth noting that Mondays, Championship dogs are 2-1, +5.8 units (tonight's pick would be Leicester to win outright @ 4.54), and Wednesdays they've gone 4-3, +13 units.

[Bedlam]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs :clap Good result tonight! You have put a lot of time & effort into this, thanks for sharing your findings. following with interest.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs

:clap Good result tonight! You have put a lot of time & effort into this, thanks for sharing your findings. following with interest.

By the time I took it, it was 4.25, but I'm not greedy. This strategy has completely changed my style of punting, which was already based on fading the public...I never realized how many big dogs got results until I actually started keeping track.

[allthethings]

Re: England lower leagues: Big Dogs Macclesfield got to 4.00: Preston (ENG-One) 4.45* vs Notts County (ENG-One) Draw (Dagenham and Redbridge (ENG-Two) vs Torquay (ENG-Two)) 4.20* Draw (Wrexham (ENG-Conf) vs Forest Green (ENG-Conf)) 3.47* Adding: Macclesfield (ENG-Two) 4.00* vs AFC Wimbledon (ENG-Two)