Dan's Tipping Game

[RandoEFC+]

All corners for me this week.

Stats:

Charlton Match Corners: 13, 12, 13, 16, 12, 10, 12, 11, 12, 16

Peterborough Match Corners: 8, 9, 6, 14, 9, 16, 13, 18, 9, 12

Peterborough Corners For: 6, 4, 4, 9, 5, 12, 9, 16, 3, 11

Four of those five instances of Peterborough matches not hitting double figures were in their home games. The reverse league fixture also had 12 Corners earlier this season. I've just added the Peterborough 3+ leg to slightly boost the odds with this outcome looking an absolute certainty alone.

Man Utd Match Corners (Home): 15, 14, 9, 13, 12, 19, 14, 16, 14, 9

Man Utd Corners For (Home): 8, 11, 8, 10, 7, 7, 11, 12, 10, 3

Spurs Match Corners (Away): 9, 8, 11, 15, 11, 13, 14, 18, 10, 13

Spurs Corners For (Away): 6, 2, 4, 4, 6, 2, 3, 8, 4, 6

This one looks very strong statistically. Just hope it doesn't end up as a super-cagey affair with the ball bogged down in midfield. Adding 4+ for United and 3+ for Spurs increases the odds from 1.61 to 1.75 and I don't worry about either of them hitting those lines if the match does have 11 or more corners.

I've been making steady profit on corners and cards by processing the stats from past games. I've failed so far to pick the right ones for this thread despite trying to stick to safe odds of 2.0 ish, so thought I might as well go for some slightly higher odds this time.

[Stan]

My actual selection as both sides playing at home and have good records of scoring

 

But what I was also considering... 

[Stan]

8 hours ago, Stan said:

My actual selection as both sides playing at home and have good records of scoring

@Dan don't mind if you only take the single for Armstrong, or just void it as Bolton's game got abandoned first half. 

[RandoEFC+]

On 12/01/2024 at 13:24, RandoEFC said:

Stats:

Charlton Match Corners: 13, 12, 13, 16, 12, 10, 12, 11, 12, 16

Along comes a RandoEFC bet.

️

[Pyfish+]

Pretty happy with mine. Biggest risk was Cole Palmer scoring and he grabbed the only goal of the game luckily!

[Dan+]

6 hours ago, Stan said:

@Dan don't mind if you only take the single for Armstrong, or just void it as Bolton's game got abandoned first half. 

If you wish, you can add another selection tomorrow / Monday, or just go with that and cash in the £11 win!

[Stan]

9 minutes ago, Dan said:

If you wish, you can add another selection tomorrow / Monday, or just go with that and cash in the £11 win!

Cash it in! 

[Dan+]

16 minutes ago, Stan said:

Cash it in! 

Sensible man. In other news I'm half way to a win and it's my unlikelier leg that's done it. So we all know what follows here. Everyone get your life savings on Girona winning 0-1!

[Stan]

Oh @Dan. Girona didn't even win

 

[RandoEFC+]

Red card for Girona on 80 minutes at 0-0 but Almeria had been comfortably more likely anyway up to that point looking at the stats.

[Dan+]

Genuinely don't know why I bother. How is it even possible to be this unlucky?

[Stan]

Just now, Dan said:

Genuinely don't know why I bother. How is it even possible to be this unlucky?

It's impressive mate.

[Dan+]

1 minute ago, Stan said:

It's impressive mate.

It's one of those games that makes me question everything I know to be honest. It's less about it being a freak result and more being the bookies seemed to know that would be fairly tight. Frankly, Almeria were the better side and came nearer to winning. It's just how did they know, looking at those respective records that it would be? This wasn't just bottom vs top, this was a team on course for a Derby 2008 points tally against a team on course for over 95 points. It's crazy.

[RandoEFC+]

It's difficult to know sometimes how professionals make money off gambling. The number of outcomes you see that just totally defy all prior evidence is really surprising when you get into it.

Still, the market only had Girona as slightly over 50/50 to win today and the odds would have shifted massively in their favour if people were basing their predictions off past performances because people would have piling on Girona at that price but clearly none or not many of the high rollers were because the bet I took on Girona -0.75 was the same odds this morning as they were whenever I put it on, more than a week ago at least. People must have had good reason to believe Girona wouldn't blow Almeria away today. 

[RandoEFC+]

2 minutes ago, Dan said:

It's one of those games that makes me question everything I know to be honest. It's less about it being a freak result and more being the bookies seemed to know that would be fairly tight. Frankly, Almeria were the better side and came nearer to winning. It's just how did they know, looking at those respective records that it would be? This wasn't just bottom vs top, this was a team on course for a Derby 2008 points tally against a team on course for over 95 points. It's crazy.

Basically exactly what I've just posted . Yeah I've seen so many cases where I've thought the bookies have priced that strangely and I end up right about 45% of the time and wrong 55% which means they've nailed it basically.

[Dan+]

2 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

It's difficult to know sometimes how professionals make money off gambling. The number of outcomes you see that just totally defy all prior evidence is really surprising when you get into it.

Still, the market only had Girona as slightly over 50/50 to win today and the odds would have shifted massively in their favour if people were basing their predictions off past performances because people would have piling on Girona at that price but clearly none or not many of the high rollers were because the bet I took on Girona -0.75 was the same odds this morning as they were whenever I put it on, more than a week ago at least. People must have had good reason to believe Girona wouldn't blow Almeria away today. 

That's my point. I know numbers, and I know that it's all probability at the end of the day. This isn't merely "top couldn't beat bottom how is that even possible" it's that the gulf is absolutely enormous, they're 43 points apart after 19 games, so they build up on average over two points a game between them with every game they play! It would make more sense to me if Girona had gone off at say 2/5 to win the game and just not turned up. It's just that the bookies pre-empted that outcome and I cannot for the life of me see how. It genuinely fascinates me.

I'd love to have Tony Bloom's number. I want him to explain to me what's just unfolded.

[RandoEFC+]

3 minutes ago, Dan said:

That's my point. I know numbers, and I know that it's all probability at the end of the day. This isn't merely "top couldn't beat bottom how is that even possible" it's that the gulf is absolutely enormous, they're 43 points apart after 19 games, so they build up on average over two points a game between them with every game they play! It would make more sense to me if Girona had gone off at say 2/5 to win the game and just not turned up. It's just that the bookies pre-empted that outcome and I cannot for the life of me see how. It genuinely fascinates me.

I'd love to have Tony Bloom's number. I want him to explain to me what's just unfolded.

Yeah it's weird because I run results through my spreadsheet and it gives me back a "fair" handicap line and goal line and more than 90% or more of the time it's the same or within 0.25 of what bet365 have got and it makes me confident in my calculations. Then it tells me that the "fair line" for Almeria vs Girona is for Girona to win by 2 or 2.25 goals and the bookies have it as Girona to win by 0.75. So my algorithm expects Girona to win by 2 and there's a 50/50 chance either side of them doing better or worse. Naturally then I bet on the Girona -0.75 line on bet365 and it loses.

It's like they know when a team is due an overperformance or an underperformance, because more often than not the bookies lines based on whatever they know turn out to he more accurate than my stats-based predictions.

It's not just the bookies either though. It's the market knowledge too. If that opening line had been deemed good value by the expert bettors they'd have been all over it and it would have automatically corrected quite quickly.

[Lucas]

I've missed the weekend's stuff but I'll place a late £10 bet on the following.

Milan to beat Roma BTTS 15/4

PSG to beat Lens BTTS 5/2

£10 wins £166.25

[Dan+]

On 09/01/2024 at 19:13, Dan said:

 

WEEK 23 - REGRESSION TO THE MEAN

WEEK 23 STATS
Winning bets: 1/5
Winning selections: 4/9
Weekly forum position: -£16.08 (Ranked 12/23)

---

OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 40/159
Winning selections: 137/299
Total forum position: -£310.75

 

Back for another (slightly) late update. Just five players again this week, and a slight loss after last weeks best. Starting with @Pyfish who returns a double losing selection on two pretty short priced both teams to score picks - though two games which I fancied for it myself, the Sunderland v Newcastle one giving me an early kick off curse. Sunderland fans' consensus is that they didn't play anywhere near their best and that they would've done better under Mowbray, which is quite damning. How Arsenal didn't score as well was quite remarkable, another selection which cost me a bet over the weekend.

@CaaC (John) falls victim to the same game as Sunderland's no-show means it's nothing for him this week, following Tottenham's late win over Burnley.

The only winner of the week is @Stan who picks two pretty well priced selections of Championship sides winning at home to lower league in the FA Cup, with the goals flowing. His first win in a while and nearly cancels out his £25 loss last week.

@RandoEFC is pretty unlucky this time out, being let down by an extremely short priced game in Falkirk where the slightly vague information online tells us the game only saw 3 corners when 7 were needed in their 1-0 win. Inter came in.

I for the fourth time have dropped a fairly short notice selection in early, and for a fourth time have been burnt as Bologna failed to deliver the goods against Genoa at home. They went behind to an early free kick and pretty much from that point I knew it was done. I watched the game and I don't think it could've gone any more how I expected it to from that point - Genoa park the bus and Bologna, a good and improved team but not quite good enough yet for this scenario, could only break it down with a last gasp equaliser, meaning the stats are skewed laughably in their favour. They probably ought to have won, but I did fear that exact game could play out.

Back to league action this week with pretty much all of Europe returned.

WEEK 24 - COULD HAVE GONE BETTER

WEEK 24 STATS
Winning bets: 2/6
Winning selections: 6/11
Weekly forum position: +£7.66 (Ranked 9/24)

---

OVERALL STATS
Winning bets: 42/165
Winning selections: 143/310
Total forum position: -£303.09

 

And we're back again. Not loads of change in the table and one of the most balanced weeks we've had in terms of overall performance. I'll work chronologically on what actually happened over the weekend rather than up and down the table as it's about the only way I'll not come to myself last and there's only so many ways I can address that at this point.

@CaaC (John) was the first player bust this week as he went for the Friday night clash between Burnley and Luton. Luton grabbed a controversial draw but it wasn't enough, but luckily Man Utd didn't win either so he wasn't cost, and is the only player to lose both picks this weekend.

@Stan picks up consecutive wins picking Adam Armstrong to net in Southampton's latest 4-0 win over a bottom half team, which I feel like is almost a fortnightly occasion at this point. This did come however after his other selection in Bolton v Cheltenham was void due to a spectator illness, of which said Bolton fan did actually end up dying from, which is a shame to hear. He was given the option of replacing it with a second pick but cashed in for an £11 profit instead.

@Pyfish gets back to winning ways. The Cole Palmer price to score at anytime was fantastic I have to see. He's the one plus in what's been another dreadful season for Chelsea and he scored another penalty to give them a 1-0 victory. Newcastle v Man City both teams to score, pays out after 35 minutes. Lovely. It's the biggest win of the week and largely responsible for the small profit we find ourselves in.

Sunday however was much less productive. I happened to notice that the Barnsley - Bristol Rovers selection had come in after Barnsley won 2-1, so I just simply needed Girona, almost flawless Girona, to beat a barely believably bad Almeria side and for over a goal to land in the game. We've done it to death in here but you all know what happened. The price on Girona to win actually got even bigger prematch which is always a worrying sign. I watched the game play out and honestly, just how did they know? Almeria were the better team. It's baffling stuff to me. The sort that makes you wonder how people could ever make consistent money off doing this. That's 24 bets and just 1 win. That's truly awful, almost impressive to pull off. If you had to pick 24 bets to lose I think you would do very well to get 23.

@RandoEFC moves to corners and suffers similar pain. Charlton v Peterborough defies the recent form and just 7 corners occur in the game. My gripe with betting on corners is it's just a bit too reliant on game-state. I'll give you an example here in that I had something on Derby v Burton last night via Bet365. For those unaware, Derby went 2-0 up so the Derby to win leg pays out, but I need Derby to get 4 corners as well. They had just the 1 corner as they went 2-0 up and this is a problem because there's less desire to attack. I got very lucky though, Burton came back to make it 2-2 and all of a sudden Derby had to attack them, and the corners flew in so I won. What's unlucky about this Charlton Peterborough pick for me is there was nothing in the game state that meant that should've lost, so it's just really unlucky. To rub salt into the wound, there were a staggering 21 corners in the Manchester United - Spurs game.

There was room for one last bit of bad luck though as recent league leader @Lucas came awfully close to landing another massive win. AC Milan v Roma was a 3-1 home win, and a game that has ultimately ended up finishing Jose Mourinho's tenure there. Having watched their last three games, I did think it was coming soon, they look really poor. The unlucky part though is that PSG beat Lens 0-2, so he was just the goal off and Lens did have a man sent off in the first half, so I think it's quite plausible that they would've scored without it. This would've left him nearly £200 clear of 2nd and quite honestly, the comfortable favourite to win the league.

We move on.

[RandoEFC+]

3 minutes ago, Dan said:

My gripe with betting on corners is it's just a bit too reliant on game-state. I'll give you an example here in that I had something on Derby v Burton last night via Bet365. For those unaware, Derby went 2-0 up so the Derby to win leg pays out, but I need Derby to get 4 corners as well. They had just the 1 corner as they went 2-0 up and this is a problem because there's less desire to attack. I got very lucky though, Burton came back to make it 2-2 and all of a sudden Derby had to attack them, and the corners flew in so I won.

This is true of course about game state. I'm still finding though that on average, corners and cards are more statistically "predictable" than results or even number of goals. Game state can certainly be a factor though. There's definitely some skill in betting in play on corners but I've yet to try it out.

I made most of my profit through December on corners and cards and so far this month I've put on 24 bets, won 14, two refunds and 8 losses. I didn't actually put the bet I posted here in my tracking because I'd already backed 11 Asian Corners in the Charlton game, one of my 8 losses.

Hopefully over time I can start choosing some of my winners for this thread and change your mind. 

[CaaC (John)+]

WEEK 25

FA Cup 4th Round - Frid 26th January

Chelsea v Aston Villa - Aston Villa to win.
Spurs v Man City - Spurs to win.

[Dan+]

On 16/01/2024 at 20:12, CaaC (John) said:

WEEK 25

FA Cup 4th Round - Frid 26th January

Chelsea v Aston Villa - Aston Villa to win.
Spurs v Man City - Spurs to win.

That's next week. Can use that for then if you wish but pick another for this week.

[Dan+]

On 16/01/2024 at 19:18, RandoEFC said:

This is true of course about game state. I'm still finding though that on average, corners and cards are more statistically "predictable" than results or even number of goals. Game state can certainly be a factor though. There's definitely some skill in betting in play on corners but I've yet to try it out.

I made most of my profit through December on corners and cards and so far this month I've put on 24 bets, won 14, two refunds and 8 losses. I didn't actually put the bet I posted here in my tracking because I'd already backed 11 Asian Corners in the Charlton game, one of my 8 losses.

Hopefully over time I can start choosing some of my winners for this thread and change your mind. 

I ultimately think if you're winning fairly consistently then it's fine and I think when betting is so based on probability, it is actually quite hard to pick two to win each week. If I can be arsed I might make one, but I'd be intrigued to see the league table if you took every selection made as a £5 single rather than £10 double.

I'm the last person you need to convince about luck in this and when I say that, it isn't an arrogance, it's because I've kept a spreadsheet with every single selection I've made this season and it's I think 50 or so points up. So a £10 selection on each would have you £500 up. So I'm doing something right, just not when it comes to this thread.

Your style on this is the most intriguing for me because I think it's along the similar sort of statistical data I try and go for myself. I've gone up the corners route before but it can just be that bit too volatile for me. I'm trying to avoid in-play bets as a general rule but I've had the odd winner on corners on that.

Interested to know how you made that calculation on Girona too.

[CaaC (John)+]

3 hours ago, Dan said:

That's next week. Can use that for then if you wish but pick another for this week.

Cheers, this week then...

Premier League, Sat 20th Jan

Arsenal v Palace, Arsenal to win
Brentford v Forrest, Forrest to win.

[Stan]

6 hours ago, Dan said:

Your style on this is the most intriguing for me because I think it's along the similar sort of statistical data I try and go for myself. I've gone up the corners route before but it can just be that bit too volatile for me. I'm trying to avoid in-play bets as a general rule but I've had the odd winner on corners on that.

 

I've recently found that in-play bets work better for me when watching a game. Especially cricket. But recently for football you can get a good inkling on what's going to happen, especially in the interval bets that SkyBet do.

Soucek was 4/1 to have 1 shot on target the other day against Bristol City. Came in within a few minutes.

Bruno Fernandes to have 2 shots on target, or 1 or 2 shots on target from outside the box is usually a good return. Or similar players - works well with the likes of Ward-Prowse, Maddison (when fit), Bowen, Foden, De Bruyne etc. 

Cards can be a bit trickier, but corners is also a good bet in-play. Yesterday's Blackpool/Forest had about 17 (?) by the end of 90 mins. Already 7 by half-time and it was good odds for anything about 13/14 if I remember correctly.