2020 European Championship - Wrap Up Thread

[harry_rag]

Just reviewing my betting for the tournament seeing what went well and what didn't. I thought it might be useful to have a thread for any thoughts, observations or lessons learned that might be worth bearing in mind for future tournaments. This is a run through the markets I bet on, from best results to worst results, where anything strikes me as noteworthy.

1 - Bookings bets: Overall, betting on player bookings was the most profitable thing for me in the whole tournament (shown a card on fixed odds and booking hotshots/player card minutes on the spreads) but betting on overs for total cards in matches was the second worst market. My conclusion would be that unders is the way to go if betting on total cards but that it's worth paying attention to the player card markets. It's not something I've bet on much before so I'll be trying to get a better understanding of it next season, without having loads of bets on it in the mistake belief that I'm suddenly an expert!

2 - Draws and penalties in knock out games: 2nd and 6th most profitable bets for me. In the absence of any significant changes, this is an absolute no-brainer, there's clear value to be had in backing knockout ties to be draws and to go to penalties in International tournaments.

3 - Corners: My 3rd most profitable market despite only having 7 bets across 4 games. Not a market I tend to bet on much these days, or to do very well on. Very much "as you were". Selective bets where the underdog appears to have been underestimated in terms of covering a low corner line or where you expect both teams to get a lot of corners.

4 - Antepost bets: 5th most profitable but it went down to the wire; would have been a small loss if Italy hadn't won the shootout. Italy e/w and Wijnaldum top Dutch scorer were my only winners from around 20 bets. I think I get a bit carried away researching these markets in the run up to a tournament and should spend less time doing that and a bit more researching teams ahead of the first match. When there are 3 games a day I tend to burn myself out looking at the first one and only glance at the other two. Getting ahead of the game(s) a bit would be useful.

5 - Assists: 8th most profitable market with 4 winners from 23 bets. Generally I've reached the conclusion that it's hard to beat this market as a backer and it's probably not worth trying so I'll be placing very few bets in the coming season. There might be a bit more scope for selective bets in International tournaments at bigger odds if you do your research.

6 - Multi bets/bet builders: 9th most profitable market because I fluked an 18/1 winner from 10 bets (England most corners v Scotland and the 2 Scottish players who were shown a card). I only placed that bet because there was an offer for a matched free bet and I lumped in the 2 players I was backing to be carded with the corners element. Largely these are mug bets that I don't do often but would be wise to wean myself off. One positive though is the possibility to build a bet you actually want at better odds than available elsewhere. I did a bet on one team getting >4.5 corners and the other >5.5 where the odds were preferable to the spread bet I would otherwise have placed. So don't make many of these bets but bear the option in mind where it may offer the best way to back something you already want to bet on.

That covers bets that were profitable so I'll pause there. Any thoughts welcome in terms of things you feel are worth betting on or avoiding in future World Cups and Euros.

[harry_rag]

And the (noteworthy) losers are:

1 - Any time goalscorers - my worst market during the Euros but currently my second most profitable fixed odds bet this year. Been a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde market for me over the last couple of years, I think I'm doing ok with it now I'm being much more selective. Perhaps not a bet to major on International tournaments where there are so many tight games with few goals. Hopefully a market I'll have a better understanding of through the thread I've just started in systems and strategy. I do ok through selective backing and selling player goal minutes on the spreads. Laying could be an angle but it seems hard to get matched at an acceptable price.

2 - Bookings (overs) - as per 1 in the previous post, this wasn't a tournament to be betting on high card totals in and I think there could be mileage in betting unders in future tournaments.

3 - "Exotic" anytime bets - I did 10 of these and they cost me 52 points. Essentially bets on a player to score a header or from outside the area etc. Another bet type that is far more mug than shrewdie and should be filtered out of my bets. I've got more than enough data now to tell me I can't turn a profit at these bets! Slapped wrist time. See also "specials" and "shots on target" bets. I need to pick my battles better and take my ego out of the equation (thinking that I can find an edge in certain markets where I'm probably flogging a dead horse).

4 - Header scored bets - I got tempted in by the bigger than usual odds Hills were offering in this market but ditched it after results tailed off (only to see what felt like header after header flying into the net). I'll take a closer look at how many headers were scored in the end to try and get a better feel for this. The typical 11/8 you see will almost always be poor value. 2/1 or more may well be value in a lot of games. Not a mug market so much as one that needs to be understood better before betting on it again.