Reporting from Bet Chat HQ, Northern Ireland…
Hi,
Having spent a troubling percentage of my waking life watching, listening to and reading about football over the last few weeks, it came as something of a shock to the system when, on Thursday and Friday, I was confronted with not a single, solitary minute of live Euro 2024 action.
In order to distract myself from the waking nightmares and feverish sweats that cold turkey would no doubt bring about, I’ve spent the last couple of days putting together a Bet Chat guide for newbies to our world of intelligent sports betting.
While you are of course no longer a newbie and should already know a lot of what I talk about in the guide, I thought I’d share one of the chapters with you today.
Partly because writing this email kills a few more minutes before Switzerland v Italy (nailed on draw, I reckon) but mainly because it’s highly relevant, with England currently favourites for the tournament despite (waves hands around vaguely) everything.
Enjoy and – in spite of the cold, hard logic in the piece below – COME ON ENGLAND!
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Strategy 5: Knowledge Is Porridge
While there are undoubtedly loopholes and shortcuts that can make you a sizeable betting profit, the reality is that if you want to make an actual living from this game, there’s sadly no alternative to good old fashioned hard work…
Ultimately, knowledge is porridge.
What this means (apart from being a sly reference to one of the greatest sitcoms of all time) is the more you know, the more money (porridge) you’ll make.
Did you know, for example, that the odds are ultimately set, not by bookie opinion, but by weight of money in the market?
While a bookmaker might initially price Bob’s Biscuit at 5/1 to win the 2:30 at Haydock, his odds a minute before the race starts will be down to those betting…
If everybody wants a piece of BB, the bookie will be forced to cut the price shorter and shorter.
If everybody is backing everything other than BB, the odds will get longer and longer.
This is because the bookmaker needs to balance their book, in order to make a profit whatever happens.
How to turn this knowledge into porridge
A fantastic use case of this knowledge is opposing England in major international tournaments (predominantly football, but it can be effective in other popular sports too).
You see, it doesn’t matter one jot what players or manager England have or even how they are playing… if you place a bet on England to win the football World Cup in the UK, the odds WILL be bad value.
This is due to the huge weight of money being placed on England by recreational (or, let’s face it, ‘mug’ punters).
Why else do you think England are almost always one of the ‘bookies’ favourites’ despite the fact they never actually win anything.
Therefore, if you can bring yourself to do it, opposing England will, pretty much always, be a good value bet.
To a lesser extent, it can also be a worthwhile endeavour opposing British football teams in Europe (assuming, again, that you are placing the bet within the UK).
Would you like honey on that?
Before I finish this section, I want to pose you a question…
What is the single biggest advantage you, as an individual, has over the bookmaker?
The answer, as far as I’m concerned, is this:
The bookmaker has to price up hundreds of markets a day for tens of sports. You only to have to bet on one market in one sport.
In sports betting, it is neither big, nor clever trying to become a master of everything…
In fact, if you ever see a tipster proclaiming to offer value bets on a large range of different sports, leagues or markets, run for the hills.
If you put all your time and effort into, say, total goals markets in English League One and League Two fixtures, there’s a pretty good chance you’re going to find an edge and become more accurate in pinpointing value than the bookmaker.
If you instead try to bet on goals markets, win markets, corner markets, scorer markets and card markets in 57 different leagues from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, the chances of you having a consistent edge are as good as nil.
While hard work is key, SMART work is equally as important.
