Tag: Betting Strategies

Review of Assured Soccer Profits System

I eventually got around to trying out the Assured Soccer Profits system this weekend and it would be fair to say it was an eventful start.

I started off by doing two games in the English Premier league (given as I’m supposed to know something about that), Norwich V Swansea and QPR V Blackburn.

After just 15 minutes I was in a massive hole with Norwich rushing into a 2-0 lead and I stood to lose £43.00 on AUQ at this stage. I could have traded out for scratch if the price for AUQ got to 6, but at 2-1, AUQ was trading between 2.3 and 2.4 which was miles away from where I needed it to be and I knew I couldn’t risk waiting to see if I got the required price.

Even though I expected it to be 2-1 for a good while I couldn’t leave £43.00 exposed with little chance of an ‘out’ trade, so I had £10.00 on AUQ at 3 to leave me with £23.00 red (AUQ) and £1.00 red across the rest of the scores. I did this with the view of trading the majority of the rest of the red when the AUQ score odds eventually drifted out, which I did just after HT.

I also then Layed 2-1 (just after HT) when it was at 4 for £2.00, leaving me with a red of £13.00 on 2-1 and £5.00 on everything else, it went 3-1 mid way through the 2nd half and I thought that I take that as a result considering where I was after 15 minutes after the kick off. I threw in a ‘cover’ lay of the Correct Score at 1.2 for £5.00 (£1.00 liability) leaving me with a red of £6.00

For anyone reading who isn’t familiar with the service, it is basically a ‘Correct Score’ trading system concentrating on the opposite ends of the market, so a team 2-0 up early on creates a bit of a problem.

I’m not sure how much I did things by the book in the Norwich game as I haven’t watched all of the 20 videos yet, but for my first attempt at using the system I was relieved to get out with just the £6.00 loss as I was flying by the seat of my pants at one stage.

Things improved after that and I managed to make a small profit using the system over the weekend. I never left myself exposed above £35.00 after the Norwich game, and all my biggest red in the other matches was on 0-0.

Norwich V Swansea – Lost £6.00
QPR v Blackburn – Won £3.00
Birmingham v Leicester – Won £5.30
Newcastle v Tottenham – Won £4.75
Estudiantes v Atletico Rafaela – Won £5.00

The Estudiantes game was a good reminder of why you should never leave things to chance. Luckily I covered AUQ at 1-0 when it was at around 44 or 46 (can’t remember precisely) and I was mightily relieved when it quickly became 3-0. Like in the case of the Norwich match, technically the system won, but you can’t leave massive amounts exposed on AUQ, especially when you can trade out for less that £1.00 as I did in the Estudiantes game.

So after 5 games I am showing a running profit of £12.05, which in comparison to my own so called trading techniques was a good weekend. Due to the results of my other rather dubious trading methods I have decided to concentrate solely on the Assured Soccer Profits system for the foreseeable future, I will post the results of my activities on here regularly.

Betting Techniques – Low Level Stakes

For the next few weeks I’m going to trial a new system of short price laying on the Unders/Overs markets at around the Half Time mark. I’m also going to look at backing Any Unquoted for trades when particular teams (ie, Man Utd at home, Barcelona, Real Madrid, etc) are playing and the match reaches a certain criteria.

It’s nothing new or unique, and I have messed around with these sorts of bets on and off over the last couple of years. But from the weekend just gone and onwards I’m going to keep and publish a betting diary of how the trades/bets go.

Due to a bad run, bad discipline, bad game selection, bad just about everything you can think off lately, I have suffered some moderate losses. Nothing too bad, but enough for someone who is basically skint. So that is why I am going to try to dabble with low level stakes for a while now too see how things go.

One technique will be laying Unders at around the half time mark when the price is 1.2 to 1.3 depending on the score.

For example, if a game like Manchester United V Tottenham (0-0 HT, 3-0 FT) is 0-0 at HT – like it was last Monday – then lay the Unders markets. The same with Manchester City V Swansea (HT 0-0, FT 4-0) the week before and so on.

If things go to plan and a goal goes in early in the 2nd half, I will cover my stake and leave it for a free bet. For example, 0-0 @ HT, lay Under 2.5 goals at approx 1.3, a goal is scored at around the 47-50 minutes mark, Under 2.5 goals will probably go to around just under Even money, so I would cover my bet.

After the 1st goal I may leave it for 5 minutes and see if a 2nd quick goal is scored, if a 2nd quick goal comes then the price of Over 2.5 goals goes to around 1.3, then I will green up all round. It depends on how the game is looking whether I get out after 1 goal or push my luck and wait for a 2nd.

The worst case scenario is getting out when the price goes back to where you started and you leave with no profit, or most importantly, no loss.

Ideally I would prefer to be laying Under 2.5 goals when the price is 1.2, but it’s not an exact science and will depend on who is playing and how the match looks really. The maximum I will lay at is 1.3, at least that’s the plan and we all know about discipline (or the lack of it).

Basically in a nutshell it’s just a case of waiting patiently and hoping that an opportunity will arise. If a game is 2-0 at half time, then walk away from it. In theory this could be frustrating as I could be waiting all weekend without success for a game to reach the right situation to execute the bet, and that’s where discipline could be the problem.

I’m only going to do it on teams that generally always score, or can’t defend. I won’t be using this system on games like Swansea V Sunderland (0-0), or West Brom V Stoke (0-1). A team like Leeds for example will generally always have goals in their games.

I will also use it in games like the Manchester United V Tottenham example that I gave above. A 2-0 scoreline was generally the most expected outcome in that game, so laying Unders at HT (and hoping for an early goal), rather than backing ‘Any Unquoted,’ would be the more appropriate market to get involved in. But (for example) if Manchester United are at home to QPR or Swansea (no disrespect meant), then maybe the ‘Any Unquoted’ market would be the more appropriate for value.

Which brings my nicely onto another trade I will experiment with. Which is backing ‘Any Unquoted Score’ when the odds get to between 6/1 and 10/1, depending on the teams involved and the match. For example, Barcelona and Real Madrid generally score in the first half and the odds on the Overs market aren’t competitive, so hitting this market around the 6/1 – 7/1 mark (assuming it gets that high) would probably represent the best value here.

Other sides worth following in this market are Rangers, Celtic, Manchester United, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, etc – you don’t really need me to point out the teams most likely. You also don’t need 4 goals to come in to win, as long as 3 goals are scored before (roughly) the 70 minute mark you should be able to trade out at odds on.

Again, it’s not an exact science and I will adjust what price I enter the market at as I go along as the odds listed above are just rough speculative prices, but depending on the team and the match situation this bet is worth a silly 2 or 3 pounds.

It is also an especially useful technique if the favourite goes into an early lead and is pegged back to 1-1, at around the 50-60 minute mark. Quite often the bigger teams can hit two quick goals late on in these type of games, they seem to switch to cruise control at 1-0, but as soon as they are woke up by an equaliser, they seem to punish the cheeky underdog with a late barrage.

This almost happened in the Chelsea V Norwich match on Saturday. Not long after Norwich made it 1-1 in the 63rd minute I backed ‘Any Unquoted’ @ 15. Chelsea didn’t make it 2-1 until the 82nd minute and I was still able to trade out (@ 10) for a free bet. It Chelsea had then scored their 3rd shortly afterwards I would have been able to green out for a nice all round profit. As it was, it ended up as a losing free bet, but who knows on another day!!

If you’ve had a good day and are up, even at 1-0 after about an hour this could be a good trade. If I am watching a match and it looks like the pre match heavy odds-on favourite (ie Man Utd at home to Wigan, again no disrespect meant to Wigan) are all over their opponents, then even at 1-0 this could be worth a couple of quid. All you need is a couple of quick goals in the next 10-15 minutes and the price will be odds on.

I would imagine that with these two systems I could endure some very frustrating weekends with little or no profit or action, I also imagine though that when you do win, it will be a good win, making up for the quiet weekends. But on the whole, plenty of discipline and patience will be needed in waiting for the right moment and that is where the problems could develop.

I will also only be looking for moderate returns, roughly 10% of betting bank a week.

The first weekend almost went according to plan, I will publish the results later today/tomorrow.

The Dangers of ‘Next Manager’ Betting Markets

The saga that was Alex McLeish going to Aston Villa this summer only served to prove my theory that getting involved in ‘Next Manager’ betting markets is a very, very dangerous game that should be treated with extreme caution.

When you look at the facts, some of these markets are so dodgy that unless you are just investing a couple of silly quid at massive odds (like the 33/1 McLeish was to join Villa), you’re better off just completely giving them a wide berth.

Who would have predicted McLeish going to Villa? I certainly wouldn’t, I was actually stupidly laying him on Betfair (going against my own advice), but due to previous bitter experiences, only for a couple of quid – and remarkably, I actually came out with a small win (obviously after backing him on one of the occasions he drifted).

But why was McLeish available at a short enough price to lay on Betfair on the Friday afternoon, two days before he quit Birmingham? If someone told you then that McLeish was going from Birmingham to Villa you would have laughed wouldn’t you? Absolutely no chance, so why was he getting backed then?

When the bookies first put a ‘Next Manager’ market up, I would imagine the first book is just based on speculation. When the money starts to come in, is when we really start to see the market develope.

Alex McLeish didn’t just end up as one of the favourites on that Friday afternoon for no reason, money would have been the factor that forced his odds down. But why would any sane person be backing McLeish?

Well the answer is because someone, somewhere, knew something that we didn’t, and that’s where the money was coming from. In these markets we are playing with fire because other people involved know things that we don’t. In short, it’s like playing Poker with someone who knows your hand.

If you where playing Poker and you knew other people knew your hand, you wouldn’t play, would you? So why get involved in these ‘Next Manager’ markets?

I’ll give you another example, my bitter experience. Harry Redknapp’s return to Portsmouth from Southampton.

According to Sky Sports News and various other media outlets Neil Warnock was apparently the big favourite to get the Pompey job, he was to travel down to Portsmoth from Sheffield that night for talks and was set to be announced Portsmouth manager the next morning.

When I checked the odds on Betfair that night, Redknapp was odds on (about 1.70) and Warnock odds against (about 2.4), how the hell was this the case? Being a bit niaive (ok, extremely naive) at the time, I thought this is money for old rope and stupidly layed Redknapp.

What soon became blatently obvious was that old adage that ‘if something seems too good to be true, it’s because it generally is,’ and so it proved!

Looking back, the fact that Redknapp was favourite that night should have triggered some alarm bells in my head, but it didn’t.

Certain people somewhere either knew that Harry Redknapp was interested, or that Milan Mandaric was prepared to have him back in the job, or that Neil Warnock wouldn’t take or be offered the job – or all of the above.

Like with McLeish, someone knew something we didn’t – otherwise why else would Harry Redknapp be odds on favourite on Betfair for a job that was apparently about to be offered to Neil Warnock? I can’t remember for definate, but I’d say by this stage of proceedings most bookies had stopped taking bets due to the uncertainty in the market – and they’re not stupid, they had the common sense to stop taking bets.

Sure enough the next morning it was reported on Sky Sports News that Neil Warnock was to remain as manager of Sheffield United, and then the odds on Redknapp tumbled even more.

Someone knew in advance that Neil Warnock wouldn’t get the Portsmouth job and that Harry Redknapp would get it, just like someone clearly knew on the Friday that Randy Lerner was interested in McLeish and that he was preparing to quit Birmingham City.

When you bet on a football match, unless it is rigged, you know you are pitching your views against the views of another, basically it’s a fair bet based purely on your opinion. When you bet in a ‘Next Manager’ market, you can’t be sure it’s a fair playing field you’re betting on. The two examples I have given above go some way to showing that.

It’s hard to enough to win money gambling or trading as it is. This is the first of many articles I am going to be writing reviewing my betting strategies, and to start with, I’m placing these markets right at the top of my list of bets to avoid.