Looking for Even Money Shots in Football Betting

Often you will find sporting contests where the odds compilers read more into past history than there really should. Let us take a look at today’s league game between Birmingham City and Everton in the Premier League as an example. Birmingham’s form this season clearly indicates that they are playing on a par with Everton.

Both of these teams have played 28 games and Birmingham have 43pts to the 41pts of Everton. So clearly over a very small amount of time like a 90 minute football match then anything can happen. I look at these matches in a rather unique way and if I basically assess their chances to be basically even when played on a neutral ground then this is a great basis to work on.

So if both teams played on a neutral ground with no home advantage then a fair price should be 2/1 for all three results. Unless of course the teams were very defensive minded and the chances of a draw increased. But in no way could a team who should be at least 2/1 when playing on a neutral ground be less than 2/1 when playing away to the team in question.

This to me is a mistake in the betting odds but yet all of the betting firms were looking at this in much the same way. This leaves you in a situation where you then start to doubt your own opinion. It really shouldn’t be correct in theory for the analysts of betting firms all over the country to be wrong and me be right. This may hold true except for one very important point.

This is that the prices are not always priced up accordingly to their correct theoretical probability of occurring. In the Birmingham versus Everton example, Everton have more support in the betting market than Birmingham. This support even carries forward into areas like the BBC “Match of the Day” programme where they regularly show the most popular and high profile teams first.

So if the betting firms expect more support for one team than another then they will adjust their prices accordingly. They will do this to decrease potential liabilities or in an effort to squeeze extra profit from punters who are very keen to back Everton. Usually they will not want to be the stand out price by a big margin as that too will encourage too much action and too much liability.

It is only when you look at sporting contests through the eyes of betting firms that you can then start to see how some betting odds can be out of sync with what the true probabilities are. This is an essential process in my opinion to really get an edge in sports betting. You really need a good working knowledge in how betting firms operate and novices tend to expect more mistakes from betting firms than what are feasible. The reality is that when the odds are wrong then they are wrong for a reason from their perspective.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson