Is football betting, betting on luck?

[Maxi Stavros]

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?

 

[harry_rag]

16 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

Is football betting, betting on luck

Any reason to single out football over other sports? I'd say they're all broadly similar including racing although football punters benefit from an abundance of relevant statistics compared to some other sports. Racing is broadly in the same boat but differs slightly (in the way it's so centered around and dependent on betting for its very existence).

16 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

is the answer to being successful to follow lots of different tipsters and place the bets of tipsters who are currently running hot?

No, definitely not, that's a quick route to depleting your bankroll. You'll end up missing the wedding and going to the funeral as the saying goes as you'll start backing a tipster already on a "hot" streak just in time for their luck to even out. If you must follow tipsters (not a popular angle on here) rather than find your own bets then you'd be better off doing due diligence and following a portfolio of tipsters with a proven long term profitable track record and sticking with them through the occasional bad spell. (Even the most profitable systems/strategies can have long losing runs that test the resolve of the most seasoned punter.)

[harry_rag]

19 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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.

Yes and no, but mainly no, because in the case of roulette the true odds are known and so is the expected profit (for the house) from each bet. In sports betting the true odds are not known so it's all based on opinions; what are the perceived "true" odds, which way will most people want to bet, where do the firms think they should pitch the price to maximise their profits. But I'll grant you that most punters' understanding of probabilities and what the prices represent is so limited that the outcome will be the same; an inevitable loss as a result of most bets being struck at worse than fair odds.

 

19 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

Why is football betting so hard to make long term profits on? 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. 

You've answered your own question, but the reality is that the odds are so well set, not perfectly. Well enough to defeat most punters but they are beatable. If they weren't we'd all be able to get as much as we wanted on any bet with any firm and there'd be no such thing as restrictions or account closures. Ignoring match or race fixing or genuine inside knowledge no-one beats the odds in the long term without putting a huge amount of time and effort in.

 

19 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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?  

That's just normal variance that you will see when you look at a big enough sample size. I was looking at some data yesterday (profitable overall) comprising nearly 6000 bets where the worst return from 100 bets was -640 points and the best was +1657. In the short term luck plays it's part in whether you're up or down, in the long term the bottom line tells you whether you're capable of beating the odds or not. Most people aren't and happily accept that; they're recreational punters who don't want to spend hours slaving over a hot spreadsheet. If that weren't the case then bookmaking wouldn't be the viable industry that it is.

[Maxi Stavros]

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. 

[Torque]

18 minutes ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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. 

I'm sure @harry_rag will have plenty to say in reply to the above but I'll respond to one thing that jumped off the page at me. Luck is in no way hard to explain. On the contrary, it's very easy to explain. It's the result of the interaction between probabilities and their associated losing - and winning - runs. Hot and cold streaks really don't mean anything other than that results aren't occurring as expected but the more football matches that are played with an even money favourite, for example, the more closely the winning percentage of those favourites will be 50%.

All luck really is is whether you're on the right side of whatever bet you struck and on the basis that all results are possible and it's impossible to know what will happen, you can only bet when you think the odds are in your favour and accept that losing is inevitable even if that is the case. Winning is also inevitable which means you can have little to no idea what you're doing and still make money on a winning streak. What separates those that are able to make money betting with those who aren't is the ability to assess - more often than not - odds that represent probabilities that are lower than they should be and then bet them consistently in terms of staking over the long term.

[harry_rag]

11 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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.

Yes, I acknowledge there are differences. You have the concept of a "betting stable" where it's legitimate to try and stage a "coup" whereby a horse goes off at huge odds but has a much better chance of winning, There's no such thing (legally) as a "betting team" in football. It's very much caveat emptor for anyone betting on horse racing without the inside track but that's part of the attraction for some in trying to solve the puzzle.

11 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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. 

I agree that we all have access to most of the same information but there's still such a thing as inside info. Some people have contacts that mean they know about probable line ups, injury and transfer news etc. before the rest of us and can take advantage of it before it's factored into the price. Then there's how much of the information we choose to use and how well we use it. Some people might just look at the league table and the bare "wwdlwd" style last 6 game form while others may go into more depth and perform their own analysis with a view to framing their own indicative prices. I know which one is likely to get the better returns. I'd also say that my most profitable current betting angles are all based on data that I had to collect myself and that wouldn't be available to anyone else unless they chose to collect it at the time.

11 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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 agree that the odds will fluctuate more wildly in a 20 runner horse race than a 3 runner results market but there can still be fairly significant changes in prices between "opening show" and kick off. I see plenty of noteworthy market moves highlighted over a weekend's fixtures. Also, if there were no market movements you wouldn't have so many people trying to make money by trading on the exchanges or writing articles about the concept of "closing line value". There are a lot of different markets on a football game; the goalscorer markets all have 20 runners going to post that are only confirmed an hour before kick off. You see plenty of movement in those markets, trust me. I'd also say that there are plenty of other markets where it's a lot harder to know the true odds than in the simple wdw, btts and overs/unders markets. Try and find an angle in one of those if the more obvious markets are giving you no joy.

 

11 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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 think @Torque has covered off the subject of luck and that you'd need a hell of a lot of it to make a profit from trying to react to and benefit from it. Generally it's best to ignore it and trust the long term results.

 

11 hours ago, Maxi Stavros said:

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. 

If you think that a 5% edge in betting wouldn't be worthwhile then you probably have unrealistic expectations. Anyone achieving that overall is doing really well. That said, no-one should really be focusing on betting as a "way to try and make money" and especially as a way to try and make a living. You should do it because you enjoy it and accept that you might lose money. Very few will get to the stage where they make a long term profit.

[MackenzieMorgan]

Following tipsters can be a good idea to get some insight and diversify your sources. Just keep in mind that even the best tipsters can have their off days. So it's always a good idea to do your own research and make informed decisions. Making consistent profits in football betting can be tough. The odds are usually stacked in favor of the bookies, and those commissions on exchanges can eat into your winnings. But don't give up! Keep refining your strategies and stay disciplined. Oh, and I stumbled upon this website called link removed They've got a free sportsbook platform where you can test your betting skills. Might be worth checking out if you wanna have some fun and practice your betting skills.

[Smiles Tennis]

You say the outcome is random, and it is partially. But as you say the odds are usually accurate, especially on the exchanges and especially closer to the start of the match. The  more money that comes in on a market, the more accurate the price is for that match day/situation. So to make long term profits you need to bet at a higher price than the true price, with the true price being most accurate at the start of the match, when all the money has come in. 

So look at the Arsenal Spurs odds for this weekend. Arsenal are currently at 1.76, but have been backed as high as 1.83. You want to be getting your bets on early, when you think the price will drop before the start. 

If you're betting at 1.83  (54.6% chance) and the price ends up at 1.72 (58.1%) then you have a value bet and long term you should profit, because you're getting paid £83 (or £79 with 5% commission) for a 1.72 bet.

How do you know if the price will drop? You don't, and that's the hard part. You need to usually use information that the general public don't use, because info the public use is already priced into the market. Finding smaller markets is better for this, rather than the Premier league. I read a story about a guy who became an expert in the Conference League (non league what ever it's called now, I don't follow lower football) goalkeepers. He studied them all, watched their games, highlights, form, knew who was important to their team more than others and so when a keeper was missing etc, he knew something most of the public didn't, and knew a team was value or not. 

That's you're edge, I remember another guy in a book who bet on horses, he would go to the track and watch and he noticed that a certain pathway on the course was a bit more worn than other parts or something, so that horse should have an advantage. He backed a high odds winner at 50/1 or something. Again, info that the general public don't have access to. 

Become an expert in a smaller market, or bigger market with info that the general public don't really have, or don't use anyway. If you're looking at how many games go over 2.5 goals on soccer stats or whatever and just using that then you won't have an edge and you won't win long term.