Football fans - betting odds help

[Sarahbay]

I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience in football betting? Thing is, my partner is obsessed with betting sites lately and I was wondering if there are any well-known and reliable blogs about odds calculations that could come handy for him, something like <link removed> that I found on another forum. I'm also curious if it's really worth spending money on something like football betting, because I'm sort of sceptical but oh well

[herulach]

Odds calculations won't help you win money, anyone who says they have a system is lieing. There are ways to make money betting, but they all involve taking advantage of offers or out of line prices to effectively engineer arbitrage opportunities.

Are you concerned that its a problem?

[peterb]

You can study the form of two sides (just as you can with (say) horse racing - but there are so many variables that it most likely comes down to luck in beating the bookies statistics.

Bookies are calculating odds on lots of games and in the long term will win. Individuals are betting on fewer games and the statistics are against them.

[finlay666]

Odds calculations won't help you win money, anyone who says they have a system is lieing. There are ways to make money betting, but they all involve taking advantage of offers or out of line prices to effectively engineer arbitrage opportunities.

Are you concerned that its a problem?

Actually they do, but you need to treat it more like a market and arb everything to guarantee outcomes, it can be a lot of work especially with only really one proper betting exchange. Someone had a blog where they aimed to make a million from it but they did it on horses as there are obviously far more events each day (and they also did football and tennis but certain sports/bookies rules vary, some will pay on a tennis match if the first game, set or 2 sets have been completed).

The way to profit is not to bet the bookies, there are VERY rarely odds in your favour to guarantee an arb, it's to take advantage of free offers for new customers or gain a legitimate advantage over everyone else, someone I know makes a considerable amount running one of the latter

[herulach]

Actually they do, but you need to treat it more like a market and arb everything to guarantee outcomes, it can be a lot of work especially with only really one proper betting exchange. Someone had a blog where they aimed to make a million from it but they did it on horses as there are obviously far more events each day (and they also did football and tennis but certain sports/bookies rules vary, some will pay on a tennis match if the first game, set or 2 sets have been completed).

The way to profit is not to bet the bookies, there are VERY rarely odds in your favour to guarantee an arb, it's to take advantage of free offers for new customers or gain a legitimate advantage over everyone else, someone I know makes a considerable amount running one of the latter

Isn't that exactly what I said? Its work though. I'm up about 4k in the last year, a lack of free Saturday afternoons isn't helpful

[AndrewS11]

There was this guy who went from 1 quid to a million by just backing the absolute certainty in all events. For example - the FA cup, betting for teh premiership team against the non-league team. Ok, isn't a certainty but is 99% sure. He did this for every sporting event over a period of 4 or 5 years and it all eventually added up!