Louis' Local Derbies, 122 bets, -3.9% yield

[MPLouis]

Louis' Local Derbies I don't think there's been a thread specialising in local derbies before, so I've decided to start one. I've found it can sometimes be a profitable niche. The value is usually in backing the away team, and that's what I'll be concentrating on. These are some of the things I'll be looking for when deciding which matches to shortlist - 1. Easy travelling time between the clubs Traditional derbies are normally among clubs close to each other - Man United v Man City, Arsenal v Spurs etc. Alternatively, two clubs might be 40 miles apart, but if there is a direct motorway link, it gives easy access to away fans which can give a match a derby flavour. I will include some games that aren't traditional derbies, but attract a lot of away fans because the other club's ground is easy for them to get to. So these games will have a 'derby-flavour'. I might call them 'derby-ish'. 2. Away club compares well in size with home club I prefer it if the away club compares well to the home club in size and they are likely to bring a lot of fans to the game. For example, I would prefer to back Nottingham Forest playing at Derby than Notts County playing at Derby (if they were in the same division) - at the moment, Forest are a bigger club than County. 3. Away club has a good recent head to head record in this fixture. I like to look at the head to head record on 'soccerway' at the home team's ground. I like the away team to have won more games than they have lost in the last 5 fixtures. Staking Plan For this exercise, I'll have a starting 'bank' of 100 points, and will start with level staking of 2 points per bet. Staking 2% is good discipline and ensures minimum risk of 'bankruptcy' (i.e. losing the whole bank through a bad run). I will be putting my own 'real money' on all bets. Odds I will normally back teams to WIN only. This keeps it simple and I believe produces better value than other markets like DNB or Asian Handicap - perhaps because the home/draw/away market is bigger and more competitive than the others. It means we will have quite a lot of losing bets, but the winning bets will be bigger than DNB or AH+. I am aiming for odds of between 2.0 and 5.0. One way of achieving a profit would be to get average odds of 3.0 or above and win more than 1/3 of games. Leagues I have a preference for the big European leagues, particularly for games where there are likely to be a lot of away fans. Most of the matches will probably be from England (Premiership, Championship, League 1, League 2, Blue Square Premier). Other leagues I like for derbies are Italy, Germany, Austria, Holland and Scotland. I'll also look at lower divisions in Europe. I'll tend to avoid places like South America where there are a lot of derbies, but things are harder to judge. No. of bets I envisage an average of around 5 bets per week. I will try to be selective and keep it down to a small number of bets instead of trying to cover every single derby game, as is my opinion that will increase the overall yield. Some derbies will be better value than others, and I will try to find the best value bets. Aim I am aiming to achieve an average long-term yeld of between 5% and 15%. My research suggests a return in this range is achievable. We'll have some idea of how we're doing after the first 50-100 bets. Comments and questions welcome :)

Edited November 1, 2015 by MPLouis

[MPLouis]

Re: Louis' Local Derbies Staking and Risk of Bankruptcy (Staking as little as 2% per bet can be risky) I thought I'd post something about this, as I've recently been discussing the subject with PL's Datapunter on another thread. The point is that whenever you bet are risking a loss. And ultimately, you risk losing everything - your entire 'bank'. As far as I know, the only way to have NO risk is ... NOT TO BET. I think it's important to get a feel for how much you are risking when you place a bet, especially if it's a regular thing. Datapunter wrote this excellent guide to Basic Betting Money Management a few years ago - http://forum.punterslounge.com/threads/21780-Basics-of-money-management?p=315428#post315428 And he produced a table to illustrate the risk of bankruptcy (losing your whole betting bank). As far as I know, these figures are accurate - http://forum.punterslounge.com/threads/21780-Basics-of-money-management?p=320127#post320127 The table shows, from left to right: Decimal odds (from 1.05 to 20.0) No. of bets (from 150 to 2,500) % stake (from 0.25% to 25%) For my local derby bets in this thread, I anticipate bets with average odds of around 3.0. And I am planning around 5 bets per week. The nearest to odds of 3.0 in the table is 2.85. The table shows that, at odds of 2.85, if you place 500 bets with stakes of 2%, you have more than 10% chance of losing your whole betting bank during the 500 bets. (If your stakes are 1%, the risk goes down to almost 0%). So, if we place 5 x 2% stake bets a week for 2 years (250 bets per year x 2 = 500), there is a 10% chance we'll lose all our money. One simple explanation for this is the 'losing run'. Most people don't have a predictable pattern of winners and losers. There will quite often be a string of winners or a string of losers. The more losing runs you have and the longer they are, the more likely you are to lose all your money. At odds of 3.0, if the odds-setters are right, one bet in every three will win, and two in every three will lose. If 2/3 of your bets lose, you will have a lot of losing runs, and your losing runs will be longer than your winning runs. A run of 5 losers in a row at 2% stakes would mean you lose 10% and a run of 10 losers in a row would mean you lose 20%. These figures assume that you make no profit, and no loss from bets. If you make a profit, your wins will exceed your losses and you will be less likely to go bust. If you make a loss though, it's the other way round. Taking the above into account, I was tempted to reduce the stakes to 1% (1 point from the 100 point starting bank) to massively reduce the risk of losing all my 'bank'. But I'm going to stick to 2%. It's riskier, but if we do well, the bank will grow much faster. The good news is that if we make a profit, the risk of bankruptcy will reduce as the bank grows. Also, if the bank grows and we are cautious about increasing the stake, the stakes will reduce as a percentage of the bank, and so the risk will reduce further. For example, if the bank grows to 150 points, a 2 point stake will be 1.33% instead of 2%. The stake is lower relative to the total, because the bank is bigger. I would envisage doubling the stake if and when the original bank of 100 points doubles to 200 points. The bottom line is that there is a risk of losing the entire bank of 100 points. If we make zero profit, the risk of losing the entire bank could be over 10% during the first 500 bets. In my first post I said that staking 2% ensures 'minimum risk of bankruptcy'. I was wrong - with a possible 10% chance over 2 years the risk is bigger than I thought. But I aim to keep it as low as possible. I am betting real money on these matches. My starting betting bank will be money I can afford to lose. And I aim to reduce the risk of bankruptcy by careful, profitable bet selections and cautious stake increases. Here's the staking plan summarised - Staking Plan Staking will be level 2% of starting bank. This means stakes of 2 points from the starting bank of 100 points. I will consider doubling the stake if the bank doubles to 200 points.