Very valid point DaveEdwards. I think it is far more difficult to price up a World Cup match for 2 reasons. 1. games are played in neutral venues and 2. it's difficult to rate teams who rarely play each other.

Something else I have been musing on since Sunday and I think relevant to this discussion. In a highly liquid market such as Sunday's only televised premiership match, Liverpool were way too short. (2.12 versus my calculation of ~ 2.88). Some teams seem to be consistently mispriced. I checked back over last season, and if you blindly backed each team at their starting odds for level profits, Liverpool were by some distance the worst performer. Birmingham were one of the best. This is quite crude analysis, but it did indicate that the market is backing the name and not the form.

I think it is far more difficult to price up a World Cup match for 2 reasons. 1. games are played in neutral venues and 2. it's difficult to rate teams who rarely play each other.


Home advantage..   LOL.  Only a football fan would come up with such a stupid idea!


Why use past analysis ???


You need to be much fore flexable and dynamic.

Dave
What has old past performance to do with current propspects.?
The results of the few most recent matches are probably relatively useful benchmarks in setting prices. Anything else is just useless input imo.
However, your idea that reputation influences prices disproportionately quite often, is a good one.
Whether a betting strategy can be formulated out of that idea is another entirely different matter.
These types of observations tend to self-correct in due course.

Fine as, past performances may not influence todays result, but imo you need your best estimate of todays prices in order to decide whether or not it is worth betting and you wouldn't get that from any other place than what has already happened.

Don't get me wrong now, I would only use the price to decide whether to look further, swerve or in the case of Liverpool lay them anyway as the price was way out of line with what I believed their actual chances to be.

Been punting for over 30 years & imo football is the hardest sport to make any long term profit on,major reason is what supernap said regarding low scores etc.Only chance is in-running
punting imo,how anyone gets in front on match odds is Tom pepper.

The previous 2 comments (thistimenextyear... & fbsdjf) sum it up. There's a lot of waffle on here about liquidity and price accuracy or inaccuracy, but the crux of the matter is that NO-ONE could have predicted the capitulation of the two matches last weekend, or even less so, the home defeat by Barca...all at very long odds.

You can spend hours studying football stats, trends and history, put up graphs and talk the talk all you like, but while there are 22 idiots on the pitch and the 3 match officials liable to get it horribly wrong at any given second of the game (look how much technlogy such as Hawkeye has improved the punter's chances in cricket and tennis), those who BACK teams to win in football will never make consistent long-term profit.

The general lack of goalsm(as mentioned earlier) could be viewed as a good thing. Wasn't It the sudden, late flood of goals in the dying mins of the two games given as examples that completely threw the so-called 'efficient' markets and left everyone shaking their heads in disbelief? But, to repeat, these are not isolated examples. It happens repeatedly.

And another thing...  Match Odds markets are often very much inefficient. Stronger home teams are invariably too short before KO, largely based on history and the sheep mentality that convinces people that if, say, Barca or Man Utd are at home, they must be good value to back at 1.20-1.30.

Hmmm.that's because they are plechy.

Man Utd PL home games last season won 16/19
Barcelona La Liga home games last season won 18/19.

So if you getting odds of 1.20-1.30, you will be in profit come the season's end.

Roger OASIS
Man Utd PL home games last season won 16/19
Barcelona La Liga home games last season won 18/19.
So if you getting odds of 1.20-1.30, you will be in profit come the season's end

It doesn't work like that. That was last season, this is this season.
Every match has to be judged on it's merit.

brendan - No, neither of those have any appeal and I'll not be laying 'em at those prices.

If you re-read my original post, I clearly stated that I will be looking to lay only at very short-prices - the 1.02-1.05, region. If games don't produce those odds in-running, and I accept many will not, then I shall be leaving well alone.

I fully expect both Arsenal and Chelsea to win these games, but I'm not going to back them. They are too short to justify the risk.

turtlehead, you are half correct. He cannot see
anything wrong in more than one in 10,000 as he
looks at things. You are wrong to think he is
talking tripe.

I would be astounded if only 1 in 10000 games was fixed for betting purposes.  Surely the number of games that is fixed is higher than this.  So how can someone say that the prices are only wrong in 1 in 10000 cases?

What is to suggest that laying the team in the lead is better value than backing the draw in these circumstances?

Kenilworth
"It doesn't work like that. That was last season, this is this season.
Every match has to be judged on it's merit."

Yes but I expect the results to be the same.
Barcelone will have one more blip this season.
Happens to every team.
I suspect Man Utd may have more than 1 blip but again I expect similar results.

Plechy

"One of the best examples of ridiculously low pre-KO odds was the 1.5 about Newcastle to beat Blackpool at home last Saturday. Regardless of the result of their big home win v Villa, this Newcastle side should never be so short against anyone."

Did you lay them then?

plechy you do understand that laying newcastle at 1.5 is the same as backing blackpool/draw at 3, so really you are still backing an outcome? there is no difference (not arguing that the odds weren't too short, i backed blackpool +1 with the big filipino company)

Some terrific guff in this thread in amongst the odd useful comment. Maybe the markets are inefficient.

i did have an opinion prior to the match, i backed blackpool +1 @ 2.23. i also backed man city -1.25 at 2.2 to give balance to the fact that you can make a comment afterwards and still have had the bet

Plechy     14 Sep 10 12:31 
Take last weekend as an examnple.

Without being able to confirm the actual odds just before their collapse (I'm sure someone will be able to though), Man Utd and Preston managed to throw away 2 or 3-goal leads in SUCCESSIVE live Sky matches, let alone what other carnage was happening around the country (even ignoring the overseas leagues).

Presumably in both instances, the teams leading went as low as 1.02 to lay?

So for stakes of £4, a lay of Man Utd and PNE would have yielded £200 less commission.

---------------------

I see these sort of comments on here quite often.  Team X traded at a low point of 1.02 and lost, so 1.02 must be a great lay!  Well yes but you would have had incredibly good timing to lay them @ 1.02.  How many people laid 1.03, or 1.04, or 1.1 or 1.2, or perhaps were going to lay 1.01 and just missed out.

The reality of laying a short price is very different from looking at the market once you know the result.  If you just stick up blind lays @ 1.02 on football you are often just going to get swallowed up as a shot goes into Row Z on 94 minutes and everyone knows the whistle will blow after the ensuing goal kick.  I.e. you will have loads of bets that cannot possibly win.  Will you lay enough 1.02 losers to overcome that?  I sincerely doubt it.

Yes you can definitely make a profit selectively laying the right 1.02s, but you could say that about any type of bet.  Backing all odds-on favs won't make money after commission, but nor will laying all odds-on favs.  This leads many to believe the markets are 'efficient', but there are plenty out there who consistently beat the odds.  Just because the next 1000 even money shots will win 500 and lose 500, doesn't mean all 1000 of them were 'true' even money shots.

Here's a good example of Sod's Law. Last night I trialled my new lay at very short odds theory in 3 Champions League games for very small stakes. I layed Milan, Bayern and Real Madrid with around 80+ mins played at odds of 1.01. All 3 teams were leading 2-0 at the time, so I was hoping for the underdogs to fight back and score at least 2 goals in the last 10 mins + time added on.

Guess what? Not one more goal was scored in any of the 3 games. So I lost £3 attem,pting to win £300 less 5% comms.

Here's the Sod's Law factor:

I had a loose £2.79p rattling around in my account, so I quickly stuck it on a 6-fold CL acca. It was roughly a 6-1 shot (paid approx £18).

I did it, really, as a 'fun' bet while I monitored the score updates on Sky, whilst flicking betwen live games on the other channels. I also did the bet to prove to myself that favourites will always let me down and even more so when I've lumped six of them all together in an acca.

Chelsea, Arsenal, Madrid, Milan, Bayern & Shaktah - all @ odds-on.

Guess what? They all won! Can't remember the last time I had a six-fold come up.

So is anyone now going to advocate six-fold accas on odds-on favs as the way forward? Of course not.

I appreciate all the sensible, considered and helpful replies - thanks. But I'm sticking to my guns on this. I'll keep laying 1.02s where there is a two-goal difference and at least 10 mins left on the clock.

Man city 1.02, 2 nil up @ Salzburg 33mins left [;)]

Plechy
Please think about all this more carefully.
These lays you're planning to continue to make at 1.02.
Well the pros are making them at 1.01.
So you're 100 % under value.
Do you really think or expect to make money long term at this consistent value disadvantage?