Author Archives: shakey775

Using a Flow Chart to make unemotional decisions when making a bet

Emotional gambling, hunch betting and chasing losses are just 3 reasons why punters lose and bookies win. How then can we take some of this uncertainty out of the equation and put some solid research together in an ordered and unbiased way that will enable us to make a more informed and unemotional decision of where to risk our money?
Creating a flow chart that defines definite criteria for us to follow is certainly one way and with excel this task can be done with relative ease.

Flow chart for Laying the Draw

The screenshot above is an example of a flowchart I have been working on to help me identify football games where I can trade laying the draw in either the half time or full time markets using set criteria to avoid making uninformed decisions.
While this is still in its development stage I hope you can see the advantages of using a tool such as this may help you in the quest for making a bit of money from the bookies instead of handing good money after bad to them.

excel-changable-flow-chart-for-ltdDownload

You can download this file by clicking the link above

Backing Over 0.5 goals in the First Half

Betting on whether or not there will be a goal in a football match must, to many seem like a pretty sure thing. It is not until you start looking at the statistics that this may not be the cash cow it may look like. With average odds of over 0.5 goals barely reaching 1.15 for a full time result, to be in profit you must win at least 12 times out of 13. When you consider that the average percentage of games that end 0-0 is somewhere around the 8% mark then this doesn’t seem as inviting after all. I recently read on the OLGB forum of a “system” to make £50000 from £10.00 in 3 months making just 1 bet per day, while the maths is sound and the theory is feasible, in reality one game will wipe you out!! Just imagine you are on your last day and you risk your £46,000 and the game ends goalless🤑😭.
Backing over 0.5 goals in the first half provides better odds (averaging at about 1.5) but with this comes the added risk of the shorter time the teams have to score a goal.
If we look at the Spanish La Liga 2 and the games played on the 25th and 26th March 2022 there were 5 games, 2 of which ended 0-0 at half time. If we say that you put £10.00 on each game at odds of 1.5 then your loss would be £20.00 and winnings would be £15.00 leaving you £5.00 down.
As with everything to do with football betting the Bookies do their research and to level the field a bit it would be foolish to not do the same, otherwise you will be just handing over good money after bad. To this end I have created a series of excel workbooks that will hopefully take a bit of the guesswork out of selecting suitable games that have a higher probability of that first goal going in before the half time whistle.
It uses first half statistics from the football leagues and allocates a points system depending on various criteria ranging from time of first goals to number of goals scored in the half.
To demonstrate I have taken the 5 games played in the La Liga 2 on the 27th March :
Mirandes v Ponferradina OGS 10 mins
Burgos v Tenerife OGS 62 Mins
Alcorcon v Valladolid OGS 3 mins
Malaga v Huesca OGS 47 mins
Almeria v Girona OGS 13 Mins
(OGS = Opening Goal Scored)
As you can see 2 of the 5 games ended 0-0 at half time

Mirandes v Ponferradina

If you look at the screenshot from the workbook pictured above you will see a score of 63/110. this was the highest score of all the games today and at half time the score was 2-0
The next highest score for statistics was the game between Almeria and Girona which was 53 points and the OGS was 13 minutes into the game.

Almeria v Girona

With 52 points, the next game was Alcorcon v Valladolid and it took just 3 minutes for our bet to be settled

Alcorcon v Valladolid

2 games had sub 50 scores Burgos v Tenerife (47 points) and Malaga v Huesca (33 points) and both of these games ended 0-0 at half time.

Burgos v Tenerife
Malaga v Huesca

Even with these 5 games there is perhaps a pattern emerging. Games that have scores above 50 points might be worth considering but those games where a sub 50 points score should be discounted out of hand

Todays game between Las Palmas and Leganes carries a point score of 68 making this a definite consideration

Las Palmas v Leganes

I have produced a few of these workbooks so far and have provided download links below

premiership-ltd-statsDownload
championship-stats-ltd-statsDownload
league-1-stats-ltd-statsDownload
league-2-stats-ltd-statsDownload
mls-usa-ltd-stats-1Download
australia-a-league-ltd-statsDownload
spain-la-liga-stats-ltd-statsDownload
spain-la-liga-2-stats-ltd-statsDownload
bundesliga-stats-ltd-statsDownload

To update these files you have to refresh the queries associated with the individual files. To do this simply open the data tab on the ribbon at the top and click the refresh button in the queries and connections box as shown below

There are 4 bits of information that needs to be added manually
These are

1 Half time back odds for the home team on the betfair exchange (insert into cell D15)
2 Half Time back odds for the away team on the betfair exchange (insert into cell H15)
3 The Half Time over 0.5 goals back odds on the betfair exchange (insert into cell D16)
4 Select the favourite team from the game in Cell J1 (this has only 2 options and is a drop list)

I have created and added more workbooks Below

bundesliga-stats-ltd-stats-1Download
bundesliga-2-stats-ltd-statsDownload
bundesliga-3-stats-ltd-statsDownload
columbia-1-league-ltd-statsDownload

Discipline yourself to make Unemotional decisions when making a bet.

“Don’t bet when you are angry”, “Don’t chase losses” these are just two examples fielded by many well meaning (and bookies who have to say it) people in the safe gambling fraternity. Both of these statements, as well as many more are very true and very good advice. But what if you are not angry, losing, or the other myriad of reasons they are saying not to bet? Its your money its up to you. However, how many times have you put money on a football match and lost? 10, 15, more? and was the decision to put the bet on a gut feeling? Or perhaps you felt that the odds for a accumulator were boosted to an unbelievable price that was impossible not to take. The fact that you lost was probably because it was an emotional decision and not based on research or the bookie only stated facts that suggested that the bet would win. This post will focus on a specific bet, or trade if you like, which is “Lay the Draw”
Whether it is a score draw or a no-score draw, in the premiership and championship leagues from 2015-2020 the percentage of all games played in this period that ended in a draw was 26% ish. 1 in 4 games ended in a draw. This means that if we laid the draw in all games we would win 3 times out of 4 – 75% strike rate – how fantastic is that? The trouble is the odds for a draw are usually about 5/2 or 3.50 in new money. This means in money terms that in a perfect world laying every draw at odds of 3.5 for the minimum bet of £2.00 on Betfair we would only win £1.00 in every 4 games and that’s without taking the 5% commission they charge on winning trades taking that off we would be left with just 60p.
The beauty about laying the draw on an exchange is that when there is a goal scored the odds on the draw can raise significantly allowing us to back the draw after the goal is scored for a guaranteed profit.
This process can be automated with the use of specialised software such as BetAngel where a lay bet is placed at the start of a football match and when a goal is scored by either team an offset bet is placed providing us with a profit on the outcome whatever happens after that. The only trouble with this strategy is when no goals are scored and the percentage of no-score draws is about 11%.
I am now coming to the crutch of the post

Research is key to all betting and sticking to certain criteria is paramount to success. To this end I have produced a flow chart, which is still in its development stage, to eliminate the emotional or “gut” decisions made in this particular strategy.
The stats I am using come free from the Soccerstats website (www.soccerstats.com) and focus on previous results and the over/under stats
A flow chart is an ideal tool to provide black and white decision making choices when looking at this type of trade or bet and is available free to download below.

flow-chart-1Download

It is simple to use and as I have said previously it is still in need of tweeking but the trades it has identified for tonights games (23rd Feb 22) are listed below.

I should note that LTD means “Lay the Draw” but using the software mentioned and the specific automation file provided in the following link on the betangel forum

https://forum.betangel.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=13663&start=45

Premiership
Burnley v Tottenham – No Bet
Watford v Crystal Palace – No Bet
Liverpool v Leeds – LTD

Championship
Derby Co v Millwall – No Bet
Fulham v Peterboro – LTD
Huddersfield v Cardiff No Bet
QPR v Blackpool – LTD
Sheffield Utd v Blackburn – No Bet
Stoke v Luton – No Bet

Italy Serie B
Benevento v Como – LTD
Brescia v Ascoli – LTD
Crotone v Cosenza – No Bet
Frosinone v Reggina – No Bet
Lecce v Cittadella – No Bet

Scot Prem
Dundee v St Mirren – No Bet

Lay the Draw then Move Profits to Home & Away Teams Guardian Automation Bot – Flow Chart

The attached word document is a flow chart to help select suitable matches to load into Betangels Guardian software to run this automation bot.
It uses the stats supplied free by soccerstats for almost all games played in the world 😲

flow-chart-1Download