Betfair Exchange – Betornot

How I Turned £10 into Profit: A Betting Journey Through Wimbledon 2025

Putting my research into practice I set aside a £10.00 “Bank” and at the start of the tournament started laying the top 10 seeded players for a liability of £1.00.
These were in order of seeding:
1. Sabalenka
2. Gauff
3. Pegula
4. Paolini
5. Zheng
6. Keys
7. Andreeva
8. Swiatek
9. Badosa
10. Navarro

Round 1

The 1st round saw 4 of the top 10 seeds lose, namely Gauff, Pegula, Zheng, and Badosa.
Gauff, the No 2 Seed lost in straight sets to Yastremska and I laid her at 1.20 for a stake of £5.00.
Pegula, the No 3 seed, lost to Cocciaretto, again in straight sets, 6-2/6-3 and managed to lay her at odds of 1.13 for a stake of £7.69
Zheng, The No 5 seed, lost to Siniakova 7-5/4-6/6-1 Laying her at odds of 1.60 netting me £1.67
Badosa, the No 9 seed was the final casualty of the 1st round losing to Boulter 6-2/3-6/6-4. She was the biggest odds at 1.70 and with a stake of £1.43
The other 6 top 10 seeded players all made it through to the second round which meant that these 6 cost me a total of £6.00 in liability stakes but with the afore mentioned players falling I had a profit of £15.79 from these matches which gave me a £9.79 net profit from the 1st round matches.

Round 2

6 of the top 10 seeded players were now safely through to the second round and this posed a possible £6.00 loss if all 6 won their matches. Paolini, the No 4 seed, who I had laid at odds of 1.19 for a stake of £5.26 lost to unseeded Rakhimova 4-6/6-4/4-6. Losing £5.00 on the other 5 top 10 seeded players this shock exit of the No 4 seed netted me a small profit of 26p to add to my £9.79 profit from round 1.
Total net profit from the 1st 2 rounds now stood at £10.05 and only 5 of the top 10 players left in the tournament.

Round 3

The sixth casualty was Madison Keys, the No 6 seed lost to Siegemund in straight sets 6-3/6-3. Having laid keys at odds of 1.19 for a stake of £5.25 this netted me £1.25 for the round and a total profit for the tournament so far of £11.30 as the other 4 seeds made it safely through to round 4

Round 4

This round saw the match up of No 7 seed Andreeva and No 10 seed Navarro which meant that my total possible loss from round 4 would be reduced from a highest of £4.00 if all 4 won their matches to £2.00 if Sabalenka and Swiatek both won plus, either a net profit if Navarro (Odds 2.60) won, or a net loss if Andreeva (Odds 1.62) won. In the event Both Sabalenka and Swiatek did indeed win their matches and Andreeva dismissed Navarro in straight sets 6-2/6-3 this gave me a net loss of 37p on this match plus £2.00 loss on the other 2 players making the 4th round my first loss of the tournament of £2.37 making this a total tournament profit so far of £8.93. This also left 3 players in the Quarter Finals and a potential loss in that round of £3.00

Quarter Finals.

The quarter finals saw Sabalenka safely through to the semi finals as did Swiatek giving a loss of £2.00 but Andreeva lost to Bencic which won me £2.05 after laying Andreeva at odds of 1.49. This gave me a round profit of 5p and even though small is still a profit and my tournament total going into the Semi Finals stood at a healthy £8.98

Semi Finals

Sabalenka played Anisimova and at last the No 1 seed fell! Laying her at odds of 1.4 for a stake of £2.50 this gave me a round profit of £1.50 to add to my total as Swiatek dismissed Bencic in straight sets 6-2/6-0
Total profit going into the final now stood at £10.48.

The Final

The odds for Swiatek to win the final were 1.42 which I laid for a stake of £2.38 this meant that if she did win my Tournament profit would be £9.48 or if Anisimova won my profit for the tournament would finish up at £12.86.
Swiatek demolished Anisimova 6-0/6-0 to become the first Polish lady to win the Ladies Title and reduce my profit for the tournament to £9.48.

Summary

I made the rules at the beginning of the tournament and kept my liability to £1.00 per player and not by market which would have made things complicated in “Match-Up” matches. The chart above shows P/L in £ of each player. It is not actually necessary to have an exchange account as a similar result can be obtained by backing the opponents of the seeded players for your desired stake. As a quick comparison in the Match between Coco Gauff and Yastremska in the 1st round. I laid Gauff at odds of 1.2 giving me a profit of £5.00 but the best odds available to back Yastremska at the bookies was 4/1 (5.0), if you had backed her at these odds your profit would have been £4.00 instead of £5.00

Had I have lost my £10.00 bank halfway through the tournament then I would have stopped and that would have been that, but having researched this, the trends suggested that the Ladies tournament provided the better chance of profit than the Gentleman’s tournament using this strategy. I am sure that many of you reading this will scoff at the stakes involved saying is it worth it. I don’t really care what you think! this was a practical exercise where I had an idea and put it to the test with a bank that I was prepared to lose. I have now increased that bank by nearly as much again of which I will utilise by increasing the liability to £1.20 for the WTA 250 Hamburg Ladies Open and laying the top 8 seeded players

Disclaimer

If you liked this content please “like” so I can get some feel for the effort I am putting into this being beneficial to others who are looking to make a couple of quid but no fortunes.

Please gamble responsibly and don’t bet more than you can afford. The content of this post is historical fact and in no way guarantees the out come of future tournaments.

ASB Classic 2025 Tournament Results and Insights

The ASB Classic is the first WTA 250 tournament of the year on the WTA 250 Tour. Comprising of 32 players competing for tour points and prize money that will advance their world standings as the points accumulate. As with other posts in this series I will be looking at the fate of the top eight seeded players for each tournament furthering my own research into making small profits by laying these players to a fixed liability of £1.00 (which is 10% of a starting bank of £10.00) at the Betdaq exchange, where at present I enjoy a 0% commission rate.
The top 8 seedes in order of rank were for this tournament as follows
1. Keys. M
2. Mertens. E
3. Anismova. A
4. Sun. L
5. Tauson. C
6. Raducanu. E
7. Osaka. N
8. Volynets. K

Both Mertens and Raducanu withdrew from the tournament before the start due to injury.

Round 1

With just 6 of the top 8 seeds starting the maximum loss if all seeded players won in the 1st round would be £6.00. Both the 3rd and 4th seed lost their first round matches. Sun (4) losing 6-3/3-6/6-3 and Anisimova (3) losing 2-6/6-2/6-3. The table below shows the P/L of the first round matches where each of the seeded players were laid to a £1.00 liability.

Round 1 resulted in a small loss of 34p and 4 players advancing into the 2nd round.

Round 2

With 4 of the top 8 seeds progressing into the second round and a 34p loss from the 1st round our maximum loss if all players won the second round would be £4.34. Unfortunately for our laying strategy this is exactly what happened. The table below shows just this.

A total loss of £4.34 after round 2 still leaves us £5.66 of our £10.00 bank intact and is ample to now see us through to the end of the tournament.

Quarter Finals.

The quarter finals have eventually seen the match up of 2 of our seeded players, Touson and Keys so we now know that our Maximum loss for the Quarter finals is not £4.00 as in the second round but £2.00 plus whatever the outcome of the matched up seeded players returns. This could be a profit if the favourite has short enough odds and loses or a small offset loss if she wins
In the event of it No 8 seed Volynet loses to Parks and in the Match up match between Touson and Keys, Keys was the odds on favourite to win the match but Touson won it in straight sets 6-4/7-6. This produced an overall profit of £1.95 for the Quarter Finals round as shown in the table below.

If we add this profit to our previous losses in the 1st and second rounds we still have a loss of £2.39.

Semi- Finals

With just 2 of the seeded players in the semi finals and each playing another player our maximum loss for the semis is just £2.00 if both players advance to the final. And this is exactly what happened unfortunately. Both players won in straight sets Tauson winning 6-4/6-3 and Osaka 6-4/6-2. This brought our total tournament loss to £4.39 with a similar situation as in the quarter finals where two of the seeded players play each other. The table below shows the semi final results

The Final.

The tournament organisers must have been very pleased with themselves as the seeding worked and 2 of the seeded players meet in the final but depending on which one wins will either increase our tournament loss or decrease it depending on the odds. Osaka was the odds on favourite at 1.53 and if she wins then our tournament loss would be increased. If however she were to lose to the “underdog” Tauson who had lay odds of 2.79 then we would win more from Osaka’s loss than from Tauson’s Win and it would decrease our overall tournament loss. The table below shows just what happened.

As you can see in the table we lost £1.00 with Tauson winning but we won £1.89 with Osaka becoming runner up. This gave us a 89p profit to add to our tournament loss of 34.39 giving a total of £3.50 loss. The table below shows all the lay bets made and odds with stakes for each match.

Summary

Over the whole of the tournament we would have made a total of 18 bets at £1.00 liability. The early exit of Anisimova and Sun helped preserve the bank to a certain extent and from this point a total loss whilst possible proved unfounded and left us with a workable bank of £6.50 of which we can take into the second WTA 250 tournament using liability bets of 65p.

Disclaimer

If you liked this content please “like” so I can get some feel for the effort I am putting into this being beneficial to others who are looking to make a couple of quid but no fortunes.

Please gamble responsibly and dont bet more than you can afford. The content of this post is historical fact and in no way guarantees the out come of future tournaments.

Betting Trends at Wimbledon: Analyzing Top Seed Losses

Before the year 2000 you would have to go back to 1962 to find a player out of the top 5 seeding in the ladies tournament that won. Since and including 2000 there have only been 10 players that were within the top 5 seeding that have won the ladies tournament. Where did these players fall by the wayside and what odds on the exchange could you lay them off at?
2024 saw 31 seed Krejcikova winning the tournament with a 2-1 victory over 7 seed Paolini, but the top 10 seeds started falling out in the 1st round with the dismissal of Zheng and Vondrousova with sportsbook odds of 1.17 and 1.13 respectively. Round 2 saw 5 seed Pegula lose to unseeded Wang, her sportsbook odds were 1.25. The third round was a disaster for the seeded players with 1 seed Swiatek (Odds 1.08), 9 seed Sakkari (Odds 2.2) , and 10 seed Jabeur (Odds 1.5) all crashing out. This left just 4 of the top 10 seeded players progressing into the 4th round which also saw casualties in the form of 2 seed Gauff (Odds 1.29) and 11 seed Collins (Odds 1.44). (I have included Collins at 11 seed because No 3 seed Sabalenka withdrew before round 1 and did not play in the tournament). Both remaining top 10 seeded players, seed 4 Rybakina and seed 7 Paolini made it safely through the quarter finals but the semi finals were the limit for seed 4 Rybakini (Odds 1.2) who lost to eventual winner Krejcikova. As mentioned before Paolini was the last of the top 10 seeds to fall and became tournament runner up with match odds of 2.2.

The implications of these events warrant some serious investigation into either backing the underdog at sportsbook odds if you haven’t got an exchange account or laying the seeded player on the exchanges.

2024 Round 1 Matches

Wimbledon 1st round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

The table above shows the results and profit had you backed the underdog with Bet365 sportsbook for a £1.00 level stake. As you can see your profit would have been £1.00

Wimbledon 1st round matches laying the top 10 seeded players.

This second table shows the results and profit achieved when laying the top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability at the exchange with a 0% commission If you factor in a 2% commission then the profit would be £3.02 instead of £3.25.

2024 2nd Round Matches

Wimbledon 2nd Round Backing the Underdog at £1.00 Level Stakes

In the 2nd round just 1 seeded player was knocked out and the “underdog” for the match was Wang Xin who was 3/1. Total stakes for round 2 was £8.00 producing, after Wangs’ win, a total loss of £4.00. This brings our total P/L for the tournament if we were backing the opponent of the top 10 seeded players to -£3.00.

Wimbledon 2nd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability

This table above shows the results if we had laid the remaining top 10 seed players. Our loss after 2% commission would be £3.74 giving a total loss of £3.72

2024 3rd Round Matches.

Wimbledon 3rd round matches Backing the underdog for a £1.00 level Stake

2024s’ 3rd round saw 3 of the top ten seeded players get knocked out including No 1 seed Swiatek which produced the highest individual profit of £7.00. The overall profit for round 3 backing the underdogs at Bet365 was £5.30 giving us an overall tournament profit of £2.30.

Wimbledon 3rd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players to £1.00 liability

The dismissal of 3 of the remaining 7 top 10 seeded players has put our P/L back into the black with a 3rd round profit of £5.71 before commission deduction. With this factored in the 3rd round profit is £5.51 giving a tournament profit of £1.79

2024 4th Round Matches

Wimbledon 4th round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

The dismissal of both Gauff and Collins in round 4 would have given us a level stake profit of £2.50 backing the underdog at Bet365 the retirement of both Keys and Kalinskaya ensured safe passage to the Quarter Finals of the remaining 2 top ten seeds Paolini and Rybakina. With these two wins in this round our total tournament profit for backing the underdog now stands at £4.80.

Wimbledon 4th round matches laying the remaining 4 top 10 seeds to a liability of £1.00.

Laying players at such short odds at the exchange has paid off in this round giving us an after commission profit of £3.10 adding to our tournament profit giving a total of £4.89

2024 Quarter Finals

Both of the remaining top 10 seeded players made it safely through to the semi finals reducing our Level stake profit when backing the underdog to £2.80. Laying the seeded players also had the same effect on our laying to a liability profit to £2.89 after commission.

2024 Semi Finals

Wimbledon 2024 Semi Final Matches showing the backing of the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

Paolini triumphed in her semi final match against unseeded Vekic but backing Krejcikova to win against Rybakina paid dividends producing an overall semi final profit to £1.00 level stakes at Bet365 of £2.0 giving us an overall tournament profit with just the final to play of £5.30.

Semi final matches involving the remaining 2 top ten seeded players when laying to a £1.00 liability.

Again laying the seeded player instead of backing the underdog produced a greater profit before 25 commission was deducted even with the commission subtracted the profit is £3.28 giving a total tournament profit with just the final to play of £6.17

2024 The Final.

The Final for Wimbledon 2024 where 31 seed Krejcikova beat 7th Seed Paolini 3/6 6/3 6/4

Backing the “Underdog” in the final at Bet365 produced a profit of 73p which when added to our tournament total for backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes has given us a tournament grand total of £6.03

Laying the seeded player paid off again giving a small profit after commission of 78p

Laying the no 7 seed Paolini at odds of 2.25 has seemed the only sensible bet in the tournament given the odds of the eventual winner, Krejcikova, of 1.8 at the exchange. A profit of 78p was achieved after the reduction of 2% commission and when added to the tournament total for laying each and every one of the top ten seeded players produced an overall profit of £6.95. This is 92p more than backing the underdog at a sportsbook.

Analysis of the tournament.

Without doubt had we laid the top ten seeded players then our profit would have been more than backing the underdog at the bookmaker. However there is the fact that bookmakers need to create at least a 7% overound and we may well have benefited more by backing the underdog at an exchange especially if you have a promotional 0% commission. Without the top seeds falling by the wayside early on in the tournament the profit would have been less or even a loss might have occurred, certainly our profit was boosted by the single fact that Swiatek crashed out in the 3rd round!
Overall a success and in fact a low risk strategy. Laying to a liability of just £1.00 means that we can monitor and control any losses. We can make the lay bets in the knowledge that if we start with a small bank of just £10 and not let any emotion enter into our decisions we can keep this strategy fun.

How the seeded players faired in previous years.

2023

Top 10 Seeds

Swiatek – Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.19)
Sabalenka – Lost in Semi Finals (Odds 1.7)
Rybakina – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.71)
Pegula – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.76)
Garcia – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 2.05)
Jabeur – Lost in The Final (Odds 1.5)
Gauff – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.34)
Sakkari – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.36)
Kvitova -Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.8)
Krejcikova Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.35)

Swiatek
Reached the 4th round where she lost to Svitolina After losing 3 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £5.26 giving a profit of £2.54
Sabalenka
Reached the Semifinals where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 5 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.43 giving a loss of £3.57
Rybakina
Reached the quarter finals were she lost to Jabeur. After 4 losing lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.41 giving a loss of £2.59
Pegula
Reached the Quarter finals where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 4 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.32 giving a loss of £2.68
Garcia
Reached the 3rd round where she lost to Bouzkova. After losing 2 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won 96p giving a loss of £1.04
Jabeur
Reached the final where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 6 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £2.00 giving a loss of £4.00
Gauff
Lost in the 1st round to Kenin. We would have won £2.94.
Sakkari
Lost in the 1st round to Kostyuk. We would have won £2.78
Kvitova
Reached the 4th Round where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 3 lay bets of £1.00 each we would have won £1.25 giving a loss of 1.75
Krejcikova
Reached the 2nd round where she lost to Andreeva. After just 1 losing lay bet of £1.00 we would have won £2.86 giving a profit of £1.86

Conclusion.

We would have lost £5.51 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.

2022

Top 10 seeds

Swiatek – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 1.2) – P/L £3.00
Kontaveit – Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.50) – P/L £1.00
Jabeur – Reached the Final (Odds 1.83) – P/L -£4.80
Badosa – Reached the 4th Round (Odds 3.4) – P/L -£2.58
Sakkari – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.20) – P/L £3.00
Pliskova – Reached the 2nd round (Odds 1.71) – P/L £0.41
Collins – Lost in the 1st Round (Odds 1.79) – P/L £1.27
Pegula – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.57) – P/L -£0.25
Mugurusa – Lost in the 1st round (Odds 1.25) – P/L £4.00
Raducanu Reached the 2nd Round (Odds 1.70) – P/L £0.43

Conclusion

We would have Won £5.48 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.

Betting Insights: Analyzing Provisional Odds for Winners

Yesterday I showed you how to create a basic query in TSMs’ Selection Hunter to find some likely winners using the back test mode to discover any trends and it came up with the following 3 horses
The selections are
13:50 Stage Star
14:25 Copperhead
15:00 Sunray Shadow.

If you missed it you can read the post here

13:50 Stage Star
Stage Star met the provisional odds criteria of between 2.00 and 2.99 but went off at a BSP of 3.21. Our conditions of placing a bet with betangel were that the BSP had to be between 2.00 and 2.99 for the software to trigger. 3.21 was out of our range at 3.21 so no bet was made.

Stage Star only managed 4th out of 5

14:25 Copperhead
Joe Tizzards’ Copperhead also qualified as the provisional odds were posted as 2.85 but again the BSP was outside of the criteria and went off at 3.5 giving us another miss fire from Betangel.
Copperhead Won by 14 lengths!!!

15:00 Sunray Shadow
The final selection was the Skelton trained and ridden Sunray Shadow who’s Provisional odds were posted at 2.5. Winning by a length and a 1/4 the BSP was well within the range at 2.23 and Betangel Fired the bet in 10 seconds before post time catching 2.25

Summary
2 of the 3 selections went off at odds outside the criteria one of them winning but alas one losing
2 of the 3 went off as favourites despite all 3 being ranked as provisional favourite.
Betangel fired just one bet and this returned 125% ROI
Given the strike rate of the criteria when back tested (68%) 2 actual winners from our query seemed to tentatively back this trend.

Cautionary note
While this was a completely genuine test run you should not go out and back every Aintree runner with a BSP of between 2.0 and 2.99 even though I back tested over a period of nearly 2 years results you should always do as much research as you can and start with stakes that you can afford to lose.

Build your bank steadily Racing is not going to finish tommorrow!!!

The staking Machine software has limited use for free but If you want to take advantage of the Selection Hunter you will need to pay – It only costs £24 for 1 year – Twenty Four!! this is not a typo and can be paid via paypal
That’s only 2 quid a month and if you had backed Sunray Shadow for a quid you would have made over 1/2 a months subscription already.

Discovering Profitable Staking Plans for Premiership Teams

There are many “get rich quick” schemes flying around and to many staking plans are typical of these and to others the holy grail of betting. In this feature I am going to look at and back test just some of the miriad of plans that are available, some you may have heard of and some you most definitely haven’t.
As with any thing that is potentially damaging to your bank balance rigorous testing should be undertaken before risking your money with the bookies. In this series of posts I will be using the “Staking Machine” website software to analyse the results from a set study of Premiership teams taken from last seasons finishing positions of top (Man City) 5th Place (Tottenham) and 10th Place (Crystal Palace)

What are staking plans? Essentially staking plans are a tool where you can use a pre determined equation to set your stake for the next bet in a sequence that you have chosen beforehand you would like to bet on. This could be following a racing tipster in your favourite newspaper to betting on a set trap number in greyhound racing. This post will focus on football and backing your favourite team through the season.

So which staking plan would you choose? The list is quite extensive and I will be analysing all of the plans that are on the staking machines website but to name just a few there is level, percentage, 1326, Fibonacci, Parley and the list goes on.
There are some basic things that you would need to input into the software for some of the plans and one of them is that it needs the average winning odds. This means the average of the odds where the selection won.
There is a section on the main software screen that shows strike rates, average winning odds average odds losing sequences and winning sequences a snap shot of which is shown below.

This is the quick stats snapshot from the data |I have entered for Crystal Palaces’ 23/24 season. Click to view a larger version in a new tab.

With last years football results this is easy as all the data can be downloaded from http://www.football-data.co.uk, which provides downloadable raw data from most leagues from around the world but in so much detail as regards to the domestic leagues you need to slim the excel sheets down a bit. What I will be using is the spreadsheet available below and filtering out the home and away results of the teams mentioned above to glean the average winning odds.

Premiership 23-24 staking plan study worksheet Download

Man City’s Home odds when they won at home

The screenshot above shows Man City’s home wins and the average home win odds provided by http://www.football-data.co.uk
The screenshot below shows the matches where Man City were playing away from home and the average odds for an away win.

Man City’s away odds when they won when playing away

As you can see I have used the power of excel to determine the average of the average home win odds when they won and the average of the away odds when they won away from home and these are – Average winning Home odds 1.21 and the average winning away odds are 1.39 giving an over all average winning odds last season of 1.21 + 1.39 = 2.6
2.6/ 2 = 1.30

We can now enter this figure into the staking machine software. The rule for this is that you take the decimal odds of the average win odds and subtract 1 so the figure we enter into the winning odds box is 0.3

You can click the image above to open it in a new tab to make things clearer. Once this has been saved we can start entering the data from the spreadsheet. It should be noted at this point that the bank box is pre populated with £100 – you don’t physically need a £100 bank this is virtual all you need in your bookmaker account is the funds to make the next bet which is usually 1% of this i.e. £1.00. The demo mode of the software only allows you to input 10 results but I have subscribed so I can show you the full seasons bets.

Manchester city won 28 of their 38 league games last season (23/24) and subsequently finished league champions and everything that goes with this title but how did the devoted fan, who backs his team to win for £2.00 per week, fair? – Not too well to be honest. He would have lost £3.96 over the season. How can this be?

This graph shows the cumulative total using level stakes backing Manchester City to win throughout the season to a £1.00 level stake.

For a staking plan to work you need winners we all agree on that, but if the winners are at such a short price as Man City’s were then you need more winners. You may recall that the average “Winning Odds” for Man City last season was 1.3 this means that you would need a 76.8% strike rate to call a profit. Man City’s actual strike rate for last season was 73.7%. So Man City won the league and the bookies won the money- again!!!
This is just one instance where the advocates of level stake betting won’t turn a profit even though the strike rate is over 70%. There are however staking plans that will net you a profit but they are not life changing. I will explore these in more detail as time goes on but for now I will outline what would have happened if you had backed Tottenham throughout the season to win.
So again we first determine the winning odds for Tottenham by finding the average home winning odds and adding them to the away winning odds and dividing by 2. We can easily do this by filtering the data in excel as we did for Man City.

Tottenham won 13 of their home games producing an average of 1.79 winning odds.

When playing away their strike rate was very much reduced and their winning odds averaged 1.83
If we add these together and divide by 2 we get : 1.79 +1.83 = 3.62 / 2 = 1.81

Plagued by bad luck or just better teams Tottenham achieved a winning strike rate of just 52.6% where in weeks 11 – 15 saw their longest losing streak. Average winning odds of 1.8 require a winning strike rate of 55.5%. So Again the bookies win and the fans wonder why when their team did so well in coming 5th in the table have, to a level stake of £2.00 on each game £5.00 less than when they started.

This graph shows the frequency of the odds grouped into values and how many matches they won at those ranged odds.

As you can see from the graph above when the odds were below 1.5 (7 in total) Tottenham won all of their games – as the odds suggest that they should have. the plan all starts to go pear shaped when the odds rise above 2.0 and more research might reveal that not backing Tottenham at these odds could improve the profit figure. The table below shows the ranges of odds and the profit/loss and a return on investment (ROI) had you just backed tottenham within these ranges. It should be noted that these figures are to a £1.00 level stake not £2.00

Click on the image to open in a new tab for a clearer look.

Finally on this post the results from 10th placed Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace had a total of 13 wins out of their 38 league matches giving a strike rate of 34.2%. Their average winning odds for these 13 games was 3.36 which required a strike rate of just 29.7% for all games over the season. This team would have made their fans a profit of £8.39 over the season if they had backed them to win with a level stake profit of £2.00

The following graphs and tables show in more detail the figures quoted above for Crystal Palace and the 23/24 season

Backing matches at “Bread and Butter” odds (1.5 – 3.0) would have shown a profit and 2 wins, one at odds between 5.5 and 6.0 and another at odds of above 10.0 and this can be better seen in the table below Again these figures show profit/loss to a £1.00 level stake.

These are back tested results and show what would have happened if you had backed your team to level stakes and while not entirely picked at random for this study it does show that care needs to be taken when blindly backing at level stakes. Manchester city might have won nearly 3/4 of there league games but it was not enough to turn a profit
In the posts that follow I will be analysing the same 3 teams using a variety of staking plans to determine if there was a greater profit or a reduced loss to be made and still keep the betting enjoyable.

There is one more point I would like to make on the subject of strike rates and winning odds averages. The bookies know that if they are offering odds that are below the average winning odds then they are going to win. If you know about odds movement when a match is in play then you will realise that there are many times that you can back a team in play when the win odds of the team will rise above the average winning odds giving you the edge instead of them – There is of course the distinct possiblity that they may score early in the game!! These are all things that have to be considered and a risk assessment taken. Don’t be in such a hurry to lose your money!

The staking plans I will be using will be taken in the order listed on the staking machines software and after Level stakes the next plan is called “Percentage”. Below is a list of all the staking plans used which, when I have written the post will have a link attached so you can easily go straight to the post. Some of the plans I have never heard of and further reading on his site reveals that he himself has invented them.

Percentage
Fibonacci
Dalembert
Parlay
Pro
Secure
Fixed
Kelly
Square Root
Labouchere
Retirement
Bookies Bank
Bookies Bank v2
XYZ
Up X Down Y
LP 28
Recovery
Recovery Type 2
Recovery Type 3
SAW
Rolling Doubles
Coup Master
1 Point
i-TSM Plan

Timeform 5* selections for 8th June 2024

Timeform is a respected and well followed source of racing form and they rate each horse for each race by using a star rating. You may have read my post on using this rating system to pick your horses for the ITV 7 well what if you were to back each 5 star rated horse in every race for a day.
Below is a PDF of the 5 star Runners for 8th June 2024 and how they faired. The figures are based upon the ISP (Industry Starting Price) and the stakes reflect a £5.00 profit should the horse win. It is worth noting that at least one of these selections (Billyb) was available at odds greater than the starting price as I actually backed it at odds of 4.50 at 11am that morning.

08-june-2024-timeform-5-star-selections Download

If you had backed each 5 star rated horse that ran on this day to a £1.00 level stake you would have got a profit of £3.87 which is a 10.18% ROI (Return on Investment)
If you had backed them as I do to a £5.00 target profit then you would have a £24.93 profit but the stakes involved are greater! My total stakes for all races would have been £117.94 for that £24.93 profit but it is still a 21% ROI
After a quick analysis of the results there were a total of 38 runners of which 15 won which is a 39.5% strike rate.
More interestingly is the fact that if you had backed the horses which ran in just the handicap races then of the 31 handicap races run 27 actuall ran of which 12 won.
This gave a profit of £12.41 to level £1.00 stakes giving a 46% ROI. Staking the horses to a £5.00 target profit gave a profit of £32.52 for a total of £58.79 stake money yielding a 55.3% ROI.
This is just 1 days analysis but it seems that it may be worth pursuing further.

timeforms-5-star-rated-horses Download

The above file can be downloaded so you can do your own analysis

More on this to come
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My ITV 7 8th June 2024 – The Results

7 races – 7 winners how hard can it be?
The criteria for this exercise in losing money is that I selected Timeforms 5 star runners and where these were non runners as in race 3 and 7 the next best 4 star runner with the lowest odds.

Race 1:
14:05 Beverley
Maw Lam backed at 3/1 for a stake of £1.67
Lost

Running P/L -£1.67

Race 2
14:15 Bangor on Dee
Can’t beat history backed at 4.5 for £1.42
Lost

Running P/L -£3.09

Race 3
14:25 Haydock
Divina Grace backed at 3.5 or £2.00
Lost

Running P/L -£5.09

Race 4
14:40 Beverley
Moving Force backed at 2.75 for £2.86
Lost

Odds moved slightly in my favour but still no return
Running P/L -£7.95

Race 5
15:00 Haydock
Sea Theme backed at 5.50 for a stake of £1.11
Lost

Running P/L -£9.06

Race 6
15:15 Beverley
Billyb backed at 4.5 for a stake of £1.43
Won 🤑

A rule 4 deduction reduced my profit from £5.00 to £4.75
Running P/L -£4.31

Race 7
15:35 Haydock
Ramazan backed at odds of 6.00 for a stake of £1.00
Lost

Total Loss for todays ITV 7 is £5.31

ITV 7 and Timeform’s 5 Star Ratings

While sat waiting for yet another customer to come and unload their meat I quickly did the ITV 7 on Wednesday 5th of June.
My criteria was simple – I just selected the 7 horses that Timeform rated with 5 stars. Not rocket science but nothing to lose.
I had 2 winners from the 7 – this equates to a 28.5% strike rate.
I then got to thinking what if I had backed these 7 selections individually for a target profit of £5.00 so I did the maths
If I had backed these at S.P. my total stake would have been £13.16. With 2 winners both yielding £5.00 each in profit (not returns) I would have come out with a £2.81 overall profit

Hugh Taylor – Dont be in a Rush To Back His Selections 5th June

Further to my post on Bookies and Tipsters I will be following Hugh Taylors Tips and Backing each one for a £5.00 Profit with SkyBet. Not at the advised odds but at whatever odds are available at the time but because Skybet like to pay out on extra places and offer few races with Best Odds Guaranteed I will be backing them at SP with a stake that will give a £5.00 profit at the odds given at the time.

Four selections today and going into the 5th day with a profit of £3.78
First selection to run today is

4:27 Nottingham : Phoenix Passion
Advised Odds 5/2 (3.5)
Odds available at 10:00 : 13/8 (2.63)
Stake £3.07
Result –

Second to run is

5:35 Kempton : Remaat
Advised Odds 11/1 (12.0)
Odds available at 10:00 : 3/1 (4.0)
Stake £1.67
Result –

Odds of 3/1 taken as SkyBet are offering Best Odds Guaranteed

The third Selection was City House in 7:15 at Kempton but has been withdrawn and is a non-runner.

Fourth and Final Selection today is
7:45 Kempton : Miss Kubelik
Advised Odds 9/2 (5.5)
Odds available at 10.00 10/3 (4.33)
Stake £1.50
Result –

Good Luck all – need it – these bets take me into a Loss state 😂

Hugh Taylor – Dont be in a Rush To Back His Selections 4th June

Only one selection today and is as Follows

Lingfield 8:15
Advised Odds 9/1 (10.0)
Odds available at 09:30 : 4/1 (5.0)
Stake 1.25
Result –