Always Understand Your Risk Reward Ratio
In order to win on the long term, you need to have a long term strategy that is sustainable. Because most match winning odds ranges between 1.75 to 1.95, you need to achieve a winning percentage that is way above 50%. The break even rates are as follows: 1.75 odds (57.14%), 1.80 odds (55.5%), 1.85 odds (54.05%), 1.90 odds (52.63%) and 1.95 odds (51.28%). Therefore, in order to have a great risk reward ratio, you need to have an In-Play strategy.
Why Are In-Play Strategies Important?
A typical football match lasts for 90 minutes plus injury time. As time approaches towards the 90 minute mark, the odds will keep increasing. A match offering -0.5 handicap at 1.75 odds will typically have a 1.90 to 1.95 odds after 10–15 minutes of play.
In-play betting has got many major benefits. You could actually look at how both teams are playing before you enter the bets. You could use possession, shots on goal and corner kick statistics to give you a rough idea on which team has got an edge over the other.
In-Play Strategies — When to Offer and Accept Handicap
When you are accepting handicap for a match, you have to accept it before the match starts. Asian Handicap and Odds will drop considerably once the match kicks off. In-Play gives the teams offering handicap an added advantage. Pre-match odds with -1 ball handicap could end up being -0.75 or -0.5 handicap with attractive odds of 1.85–1.99 within 20 to 25 minutes of play.
However if you’re new to sports betting, do not attempt to dwell into In-Play. Typically, most experienced sports traders only attempt in-play after at least 1–2 years of sports betting for soccer or football. It is important that you should have an experienced mentor to guide you in any form of trading, especially for sports trading as the spread could cost anywhere between 5–25% per trade.
Asian Handicap vs Fixed Odds Betting
When you bet on fixed odds, the chances of you winning is only 33.33% due to 3 different outcomes. At -1 handicap, the fixed odds rate would be around 1.50. At 1.50 odds, you need to have a 66.67% rate to just break even, meaning you need to win 2 out of 3 times. Football betting is a torture for those who are illiterate to mathematics.
On the contrary, when you are betting on the Asian Handicap, on theory it is a 50/50 equation. Either you win or you lose. However, it is way more complex. Imagine the home team offering a -0.5 handicap. On first look, the team offering the handicap only has a 33.33% of winning because the away team accepting handicap could win the bet by drawing or winning.
That is what the Bookmakers want you to think. Due to my research over thousands of matches, I’m able to conclude that teams offering the handicap wins 75–80% of the time. That is also the reason why Bookmakers win 75–80% of the time as well. Not only do they win on the spread, they also win based on market consensus and other forms of manipulations.
Home Team Strategy
Since the 1900 to 2019, the statistics for Win, Draw and Away Win has been 51.2 / 24 / 24.8 respectively. Therefore, you always have a higher chance of winning by backing the home team.
If you’re taking the home team and you’re offering a level ball handicap, then it is like having a free shot at the game. Teams will always strive to achieve to at least get a draw result at home.
Home Team -0.25 Handicap Strategy
For those who are new to handicap betting. -0.25 handicap means the bookmaker is splitting your bets. If you’re betting $100, $50 will be at level ball and $50 will be at -0.5 ball handicap, hence -0.25 handicap. If the result is a draw, you lose half your bet because you are drawing the level ball handicap bet. You win full if your team wins by 1 goal.
If you have a 50/50 win rate for home teams. Considering the fact that 75% of the time, teams will at least draw the match, out of 100 games, you will win 50 games, 25 games will lose half, 25 games will lose full. Overall you will still win 12.5 games (50–12.5–25).
Asian Handicap Opening Odds & Odds Movement
There are currently nobody openly sharing this piece of information on the internet. The reason is simple, those who knows it are making a great living off this piece of vital information. Hence, I could only share it sparingly to protect the livelihood of many of the professional punters who knows what I’m talking about.
In any form of betting, there is an origin to the opening odds from a specific market maker. More so for the football / soccer market that are controlled largely by influential syndicates.
When a bookmaker offers specific odds, they are simply following the odds that was set by the original market mover. This is a very complicated topic that I will share in depth in our Sports Trading AI video channel.
For opening odds, if the bookmaker favors a team, they will offer 1.75 to 1.85 odds. Typically if one team is showing 1.80 odds, the opposing team would be around 2.00 odds, a spread of around 20 cents water money. Water money is an Asian term for commission.
Asian Handicap Odds Movement
This again is a very deep subject. This piece of information needs to work in tandem with the Asian Handicap opening odds. If you see the current odds as -0.5 1.90, it doesn’t make any sense. But if the opening handicap odds are -0.5 1.75 odds, what it means is that the bookmaker is favoring the team with the 1.75 odds.
From 1.75 to 1.90 odds, it means that the odds movement was 15 cents water money. For a typical English Premier League game, the trading volume could easily amount to 100 Million Dollars a game. These volume typically come from the Asian market.
Most western bookmakers only allow trading volume of below 20,000 per bet but for Asian Plates, they could easily accepts millions of bets per match. There are easily 3–5 Million football punters in China alone. You could imagine the kind of volume that’s happening in the underground markets at match day.
Therefore odds movement of 1 cent water money could reflect the market consensus of millions of dollars in match wagers. Typically when odds movement move beyond 20 cents or more, matches are often rigged in favor of the Bookmakers.
Market Consensus
Having access to Market Consensus and adding the missing components such as the Asian Handicap Opening Odds and Odds Movement. It’s like opening up the all seeing eye of the Illuminati. Remember, every football match is a script. The full time score line will always be in line with whatever results that was required for the Bookmakers to profit. Having analyzed more than 20,000 live matches, it is not a coincidence by any chance.
Typically bookmakers will try to balance the bets in the way that they perform a simple arbitrage. Due to the volume of bets they receive at various odds, they have the ability to create sure win opportunities without any risk. Yes, the bookmakers are using your trading volume to perform risk free arbitrage.
Are there any possibilities of individual punters winning via arbitrage? The answer is close to zero. There are a lot of websites that offers free arbitrage training to newbies. Promising lots of sign up offers. To me, these sites are despicable lowlife scums.
Arbitrage For Punters in Football in 2020 Is A Fairy Tale
In the earlier years of sports betting, there was a time vacuum where different Sportsbooks would offer very different odds. It was possible to make a 3–5% arbitrage ten to fifteen years ago. However with the widespread of Bookmakers and 5G connectivity, the ability to make a comfortable living is close to zero.
What these sports arbitrators don’t tell you is the actual risk you’re taking when you do sports arbitrage. Imagine if a home team is offering -0.5 ball handicap at 2.00 odds, the moment the home team scores, live odds straight away becomes anywhere between 1.28 or 1.33 odds. Arbitrage only make sense if you are able to execute both positions. The moment goals are scored, there is no way you could hedge a losing bet. Would you hedge a winning bet? You’d be even more crazy to do that.
Why is it that we hate these Sports Arbitrators? To us, they operate exactly like free tip websites. They offer newbies strategies that don’t work at all. More importantly, the newbies have no clue what’s going to hit them. The arbitrage sites and free tip sites have one thing in common, they are affiliates to all major Bookmakers.
How do they make their affiliate income? They make anywhere from 5% to 30% of all deposits that are lost. So there’s a huge conflict of interest. On surface, they teach you how to beat the bookmakers but in reality, they only profit when people lose their deposits. To me, they are like drug peddlers and achieving success by destroying the lives of many of this newbie turned gambling addicts.
I strongly believe that one should only offer sound advice in helping others and not masquerade behind their true agenda. Sports betting is a very deep subject that needs a lot of research and guidance. Having good strategies is crucial for long term profit. Having a good trading system is also only 40% of the equation. You still need to have good capital management and understand the Psychology of Trading.
Breaking The Soccer Code is a holistic book that covers all aspects that are required to be a successful and profitable sports trader for the long term. This book will change the way you look at Sports Betting forever.
There are many more Football Betting Strategies that I will be sharing on the website. So make sure you follow our website closely for updates.