P&b Gambling University

[Paulo Sergio]

I posted this in another thread before I noticed this one.

The easiest thing to do IMO is stick to the SPL, Divisions 1, 2, and 3 (although caution is needed in the Scottish leagues, it can be a bit of a minefield sometimes), the Premiership, Championship, Leagues 1 & 2, and finally the Blue Square Bet Premier Conference (only this one, not the North and South).

Then look for the top 2-6 teams in the English leagues, and the top 3-4 in Scotland, then check who they are playing. Then the most important thing - checking form. A team could be 2nd in the league but without a win in three games versus a team 18th in the league but unbeaten in four etc. Finally, if the odd's are reasonable, go for it. Double check and once you're sure choose a cheeky 3 or 4 team coupon (I would only pick 5 teams if I felt really confident or the odds were generally quite poor with just 3 or 4 strong favourites).

Take note that I've only done two bets with this method, but won them both.

£2 for £40 and £5 for £75 - both four team coupons.

Probably a common "tactic", but hey.

Edited November 19, 2011 by Paulo Sergio

[blue4578]

Sounds like a cunning plan.

[Swampy]

I posted this in another thread before I noticed this one.

Probably a common "tactic", but hey.

Great tips there. Some other ones:

1. If a guy outside the bookies asks if he can have you wallet, do NOT give it to him.

2. If you're sick all down your coupon you need to throw it in the bin and start a new one, do NOT hand it in at the counter anyway.

3. If you're feeling peckish, many bookies now offer a small "cafe corner" where Kit Kats, McCoy's crisps etc. can be purchased.

[H_B]

Great tips there. Some other ones:

1. If a guy outside the bookies asks if he can have you wallet, do NOT give it to him.

2. If you're sick all down your coupon you need to throw it in the bin and start a new one, do NOT hand it in at the counter anyway.

3. If you're feeling peckish, many bookies now offer a small "cafe corner" where Kit Kats, McCoy's crisps etc. can be purchased.

Cheers meight.

I have a spreadsheet with some better tips than yours, which I am willing to release to a limited audience every week, before charging you for the privilege.

Get in early. As a taster :-

1. With in play betting, you can get some tasty odds. Make sure you check the score though, as sometimes these odds depend on the score at the time. This is crucial.

Also, sometimes the odds change depending on how many men a team has had sent off . My advice is to :-

a) look at the score

b) count the number of men on each side

before placing your bet.

[Marshmallo]

Cheers meight.

I have a spreadsheet with some better tips than yours, which I am willing to release to a limited audience every week, before charging you for the privilege.

Get in early. As a taster :-

1. With in play betting, you can get some tasty odds. Make sure you check the score though, as sometimes these odds depend on the score at the time. This is crucial.

Also, sometimes the odds change depending on how many men a team has had sent off . My advice is to :-

a) look at the score

b) count the number of men on each side

before placing your bet.

It's also important to check how long is left because if there isn't long left then there's less time for stuff to happen.

[blue4578]

There are arb alert services you can sign up to which will alert you to hundreds of arbs per day. Sadly you can't get away with arbing at online bookmakers anywhere near as much as you used to be able to 5-10 years ago.

As for trading on Betfair, some people have this obsession where you have to trade out of a winning position to guarantee yourself a profit. Why? If you let everything ride, you will win some and lose some, but if the bets are good ones in the first place you will end up in front. I've had discussions with idiots who have argued till they're blue in the face that you can't win from betting unless you trade in-running. If you're betting £5,000 a go on Major Leauge Baseball for example, I'd like to see anyone try to trade out in-running at sensible prices because the liquidity on Betfair and other exchanges is virtually non-existent in-running and bookmakers that do offer it have tiny limits and massive margins. Not only that, but if you've several bets running at once, you have very little time to work out what's a fair price to lay, when betting pre-match you've all the time in the world to work out the probability of each outcome occurring. It's good that Betfair now offer pretty much everything in-running to give people the option to trade as an event progresses of course. They've been around since 2001 and for the first several years only a select few markets were in-running.

[blue4578]

Good point about the liquidity but for example AM at the US open vast liquidity everyone who traded made cash,the in-play markets are huge these days especially on golf,footie,cricket and my favourite American Football,easy trades if disciplined and knowing when to get out and when to take your medicine...................happy trading,enjoyed your post

If all you bet on are Andy Murray matches at grand slams, then yes you can probably trade large amounts easily. Try doing the same on the early rounds of the Moselle Open this week. If people win on a market, there are other people who lose. People who say that you can't lose by trading are deluded, because if the market moves against you you end up losing. I've heard far too many people say that trading is some sort of no risk of losing enterprise when it's anything but.

As for the other markets you mention, golf has virtually no liquidity on any markets except outright winner usually (The Ryder Cup will be an exception to this later this month). The NFL liquidity on Betfair has got worse over the years and for a lot of the games is actually better on Betdaq now. Football is OK for significant televised games, not so good for less high profile ones. Cricket again has good liquidity on live TV games, particularly internationals involving England, but just like golf the liquidity away from the match winner market is usually virtually non existent. I used to make a lot of money betting in-running on cricket on things like Over/Under batsman runs at bookmakers, but you just can't get bets on those markets these days. Of course if you're only betting the odd £10 or £20 here and there it's fine. If you're trying to lay off a £10,000 stake at sensible odds, there are relatively few markets where you can do this easily.

Actually for betting in-running and getting great bets on at good odds, you actually want LESS liquidity because then you'll get people wanting a bet at any price who will take stupid odds. Obviously this only works up to a point, as you're never going to get people betting serious stakes at stupid odds usually (although it does happen occasionally), but if you want to lay an Even money shot at 1/2 in-running for £50, it's quite easy to do on illiquid markets if you put the effort in to follow them. Same theory also applies pre-match. If you are a layer in an illiquid market, you can make a lot of money by laying under the fair price. I remember laying teams at Evens who were 3/1 shots in League One maybe seven or eight years ago, at 2:55pm on a Saturday when there were no more layers in the markets and people just wanted a bet at Betfair. That sort of thing doesn't really happen pre-match any more, but it can easily happen in-running.

As for happy trading, I don't. On at least 99% of occasions, I place my bets before an event starts and leave it at that.

[H_B]

As for happy trading, I don't. On at least 99% of occasions, I place my bets before an event starts and leave it at that.

I found through bitter golf experience that "trading" my way to green cost me more money than letting it ride and taking the wins and the losses.

i.e. I was laying 10/1 shots at 2/1 thinking "great, a profit" then watching them win two or three times in a row and thinking "ah, b*****ds - I could have made proper money there".

Balanced against that of course were the numerous 10/1 shots say who didn't win and never traded at less than 10/1 so were losers.

I still occasionally lay players, but only at much less than Evens (only because I was one of the people who had bet Kyle Stanley this season in his infamous 8 at a Par 5 impossible to lose, but he lost) tournament.

After that I vowed that would never happen to me again.

[ayrmad]

On at least 99% of occasions, I place my bets before an event starts and leave it at that.

Do you use a variable for home field advantage?

Is it fixed for every game in a particular division?

Do you give each home team a different advantage?

Does each home teams advantage vary depending on the strength of the opposition?

I'm in one of my wee number doodling phases and would be interested to know how you use this variable without you actually telling me your actual figures, that's your personal data for you to know and everyone else to fcuk off.

[blue4578]

I found through bitter golf experience that "trading" my way to green cost me more money than letting it ride and taking the wins and the losses.

I'm not saying that you can't trade and make profit of course, but in a lot of situations it leaves you with a lot more work to do, requires much more concentration over a prolonged period and can often end in failure. If you're trying to trade larger sums on more obscure markets, it's impossible to do anyway unless you want to give money away.

Do you use a variable for home field advantage?

Yes.

Is it fixed for every game in a particular division?

No.

Do you give each home team a different advantage?

Yes.

Does each home teams advantage vary depending on the strength of the opposition?

Yes, and also on a few other things. Whether it's a league game or a cup game against higher division opposition is obviously a key factor.

I must add that probably only about 5% of my total betting is on football these days. Home advantage in individual sports is largely not a factor as most tennis matches for example see two players from different countries playing in a third country. Different team sports have totally different trends regarding home advantage. Major League Baseball is an interesting case in point. It's a two-outcome sport, with the home win percentage unusually low for a team sport. This season is a bit strange as no team outside the NL Central (there are five other divisions) has a significantly better home record than away record. Yet if you go back to 2009, most of the better teams in the American League were dominant at home, with the third highest home win percentage in MLB history that season taking into account all teams. This wasn't good for me as I usually back outsiders playing away from home against short priced favourites due to the favourites often being overrated. It would be helpful if such trends stayed the same for years on end, but the fact that they don't at least keeps it interesting, if challenging to predict.

[ayrmad]

I'm not saying that you can't trade and make profit of course, but in a lot of situations it leaves you with a lot more work to do, requires much more concentration over a prolonged period and can often end in failure. If you're trying to trade larger sums on more obscure markets, it's impossible to do anyway unless you want to give money away.

I must add that probably only about 5% of my total betting is on football these days. Home advantage in individual sports is largely not a factor as most tennis matches for example see two players from different countries playing in a third country. Different team sports have totally different trends regarding home advantage. Major League Baseball is an interesting case in point. It's a two-outcome sport, with the home win percentage unusually low for a team sport. This season is a bit strange as no team outside the NL Central (there are five other divisions) has a significantly better home record than away record. Yet if you go back to 2009, most of the better teams in the American League were dominant at home, with the third highest home win percentage in MLB history that season taking into account all teams. This wasn't good for me as I usually back outsiders playing away from home against short priced favourites due to the favourites often being overrated. It would be helpful if such trends stayed the same for years on end, but the fact that they don't at least keeps it interesting, if challenging to predict.

Thanks, it'll give me something to work on.

Always thought assigning the same home advantage to every team in a league was not realistic.

[Marshmallo]

Thought I'd stick this in here - basically I have just started using Betfiar, should have done so a while ago really. I understand how everything works but was looking for some advice on strategy. In markets where there isn't a whole lot of liquidity, how agressive would people suggest being with odds?

As an example, take this market: http://www.betfair.com/exchange/mixed-martial-arts/market?id=1.109148985 . I've layed Garcia at 1.60 and already been matched. When I offered it the best price people could back him at was 1.46, and he could be backed at 1.56 with bookmakers. I think the shortest odds to lay him were 1.76 or something. McKenzie could be backed at 2.50 with a bookmaker, and I managed to get 2.67(ish) by laying Garcia, which even after commision is a better price, and covers me in the very unlikely (~2%) chance of a draw.

Should I just be happy with my 1.60, or would people who have experience on Betfair suggest I should have offered lower odds? I realise it will probably depend on individual markets but I would be interested to know how people approach this. Cheers.

[Fraser Fyvie]

Thought I'd stick this in here - basically I have just started using Betfiar, should have done so a while ago really. I understand how everything works but was looking for some advice on strategy. In markets where there isn't a whole lot of liquidity, how agressive would people suggest being with odds?

As an example, take this market: http://www.betfair.com/exchange/mixed-martial-arts/market?id=1.109148985 . I've layed Garcia at 1.60 and already been matched. When I offered it the best price people could back him at was 1.46, and he could be backed at 1.56 with bookmakers. I think the shortest odds to lay him were 1.76 or something. McKenzie could be backed at 2.50 with a bookmaker, and I managed to get 2.67(ish) by laying Garcia, which even after commision is a better price, and covers me in the very unlikely (~2%) chance of a draw.

Should I just be happy with my 1.60, or would people who have experience on Betfair suggest I should have offered lower odds? I realise it will probably depend on individual markets but I would be interested to know how people approach this. Cheers.

What is it you're trying to do? Trade out before the match or just leave it as a bet? In any case, you obviously layed at 1.6 as you thought it was too short. If you had offered lower, you might have got matched, but you might not have. You then run the risk of not being matched at 1.55 for example, then the price going out to say 1.7. It all depends on what you think is the right price, the same with traditional betting. I'd say it's not worth getting involved in low liquidity markets unless it's just a straight bet as you can find yourself in trouble if you can't trade out.

[Marshmallo]

I'm not looking to trade out, very happy with my price as I'd actually have McKenzie as a 60/40ish favourite. As you say though, I may have been able to get a better price, which is what I'm interested in finding out a bit more about. How do people weigh up not getting matched vs getting an even better price? One possible way to look at it is, if the market is less liquid, others who want to oppose my outcome would be willing to accept a lower price just to get a bet.

[Nightmare]

Thought I'd stick this in here - basically I have just started using Betfiar, should have done so a while ago really. I understand how everything works but was looking for some advice on strategy. In markets where there isn't a whole lot of liquidity, how agressive would people suggest being with odds?

As an example, take this market: http://www.betfair.com/exchange/mixed-martial-arts/market?id=1.109148985 . I've layed Garcia at 1.60 and already been matched. When I offered it the best price people could back him at was 1.46, and he could be backed at 1.56 with bookmakers. I think the shortest odds to lay him were 1.76 or something. McKenzie could be backed at 2.50 with a bookmaker, and I managed to get 2.67(ish) by laying Garcia, which even after commision is a better price, and covers me in the very unlikely (~2%) chance of a draw.

Should I just be happy with my 1.60, or would people who have experience on Betfair suggest I should have offered lower odds? I realise it will probably depend on individual markets but I would be interested to know how people approach this. Cheers.

What I do when I know I'm going to have time to pay attention to the odds, is offer speculatively at first (in that case I'd say 1.5 for example), and then just increasingly move them up every few hours or so until the point in which I don't think there's value any more. Then you'll see it, like you were wondering, anyone is willing to take the lower price just to get matched.

Usually I don't have time to pay attention and concentrate on an individual market, though, because I'm trying to cover so many at once, so in that case I do price pretty aggressively. There are times when I've layed o2.5 goals at something like 1.8 and it's gone off at 1.7, but most of the time my aggressive early pricing isn't that rubbish.

[Equalizer]

£1 stake,you pick one key from three if your ticket matches drawn ticket.you then get the chance to open the chest.

probably a few hundred tickets sold a week for each draw.

say like this week,the prize is £3800 and your key doesnt open the chest you get £380 consolation prize.

second prize £50.

next weeks prize will be £3900.even if they sold a thousand tickets.

the first draw was£1000 ?

only asking as i was wondering what the odds would be on somebody not picking the right key after six months

of a weekly draw.

as for quick question thread,feel free to move it

Did anyone test the other two keys on offer to ensure a valid working key was among those on offer ?

[sgm2]

RE the Betfair strategy the best way is to price the event/ market and then add in your margin the same as bookmakers. This way if you are accurate you will make a steady %.

If it is a one off and/ or you have time the method Nightmare suggested is the best way.

[Mr pink]

I'm not saying that you can't trade and make profit of course, but in a lot of situations it leaves you with a lot more work to do, requires much more concentration over a prolonged period and can often end in failure. If you're trying to trade larger sums on more obscure markets, it's impossible to do anyway unless you want to give money away.

I must add that probably only about 5% of my total betting is on football these days. Home advantage in individual sports is largely not a factor as most tennis matches for example see two players from different countries playing in a third country. Different team sports have totally different trends regarding home advantage. Major League Baseball is an interesting case in point. It's a two-outcome sport, with the home win percentage unusually low for a team sport. This season is a bit strange as no team outside the NL Central (there are five other divisions) has a significantly better home record than away record. Yet if you go back to 2009, most of the better teams in the American League were dominant at home, with the third highest home win percentage in MLB history that season taking into account all teams. This wasn't good for me as I usually back outsiders playing away from home against short priced favourites due to the favourites often being overrated. It would be helpful if such trends stayed the same for years on end, but the fact that they don't at least keeps it interesting, if challenging to predict.

Hi,I have read all your posts with great interest and would like to thank you very much for taking the time to post.

I have a very great interest in football betting and may be asking you a question or two concerning other posts but for now I'm hoping you will be kind enough to let me know why it is that nowadays only 5 per cent of your outlay/ bets is on football?

I was very surprised to read that.

Has football become harder to profit from in your opinion?

If so,then obviously that has repercussions for everyone on this forum.

I try to read everything Tony Ansell writes and he doesn't think football is easy to profit from (any more).

If so,what are the reasons do you think? Many thanks

[GeeJay]

A.U.O.

Always Use Oddschecker.

[blue4578]

Sorry just noticed these questions.

why it is that nowadays only 5 per cent of your outlay/ bets is on football?

Since I wrote that things have changed again. The withdrawal from the UK of Pinnacle Sports on November 1st 2014 makes betting on American sports and tennis much more difficult for me. In fact betting on anything is tricky now. I'm right at the threshold of Betfair's Premium Charge, most bookmakers won't take a bet (or at least not for more than pocket change) and other exchanges have no liquidity. I was betting heavily on baseball and tennis at one point, but I stopped needing the money so the antisocial hours saw me give those up even before Pinnacle Sport's withdrawal.

Has football become harder to profit from in your opinion?

Not at all. The only problem for me is getting bets on. The mechanics of betting is just the same, except perhaps the bookmakers aren't as clueless on certain lower leagues as they were 10 years ago.

Bookmakers make too much money from idiots, games of chance and poker. They won't take bets from anyone who remotely looks like they know what they're doing. Betfair's exchange is slowly going down the toilet as it doesn't make them enough money, and thus they have increased their charges while liquidity suffers on various markets. If I could bet as much money as I wanted at the advertised odds all the time, I'd have been long since sitting on my own tropical island drinking cocktails.