Category: Betting

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 7

Today’s Bets Will Mostly be on the West Ham Game.

Fancy A Bet

Our last accumulator bet had three successful components, so although the “acca” did not come in, our three winning single bets were:

1 point on each of the following:

Tranmere to beat Guiseley @1/3 (1.3)

Forest Green to beat Southport @4/11 (1.4)

Lincoln to beat Gateshead @10/11 (1.9)

 This brought our cumulative total to 100.4 points, a fraction above where we started.

Today I intend to be a little more adventurous, whilst at the same time having a bit of fun, and extra interest when watching our game against Watford. So today’s bets are:

 18 points on West Ham to beat Watford @5/6 (33)

1 point on West Ham to win and both teams to score @3/1 (4)

1 point on West Ham to win the game 3-1 @14/1 (15)

1 point on West Ham to win the game 3-1 and Zaza to score the first goal @50/1 (51)

1 point on West Ham to score 3 or more goals @16/5 (4.2)

1 point on West Ham to win and Noble to score anytime @ 7/1 (8)

1 point on Zaza to score the first goal @11/2 (6.5)

That will give us a few things to follow when watching the game. If West Ham fail to win the game then we are down by 24 points. If we do win the game then we are guaranteed to be up on the day, irrespective of the details of the victory. Our best bet is if West Ham win the game 3-1, Zaza scores the first, and Noble scores anytime. That would give us a return of 121.7 points on our stake of 24 points.

Remember, Noble scored twice against Watford last season in a 3-1 victory, and Watford, like ourselves have scored in each of the three games played this season. So I am looking for a repeat of last season.

To finish off I’ll try a five game Premier League accumulator at odds of 43.85/1. So I’ll stake 1 point on an accumulator bet based on victories this weekend for Arsenal, Bournemouth, Middlesbrough and West Ham, and the Manchester derby to finish in a draw. If all 5 happen then our return is 44.85; if just one is unsuccessful then we get our point back; if we get 2 or more wrong then we lose.

Incidentally, Paddy Power have Sakho as 9/2 favourite to score the first goal in the match. Have they got some inside information on our team? That’s one ridiculous bet I won’t be making.

We began the weekend on 100.4 points and we have staked 25 points in total. Whatever happens it’s a bit of fun, but I’ll be massively disappointed if we don’t win the game, and hence improve our balance.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 6 – Lets Do the Vanarama

A cheeky August Bank holiday accumulator on the Vanarama National League.

Fancy A BetOur accumulator bet at the weekend was unsuccessful with just two of our five selections, Everton and Doncaster winning. Our attempt at selecting three matches to end in draws was much better, with two of the games being drawn. The treble would have really boosted our balance, but it was not to be, although we still made another small profit overall.

The winning games were:

1 point on West Brom to draw with Middlesbrough @21/10 (3.1)

1 point on Brentford to draw with Sheffield Wednesday @21/10 (3.1)

 Our cumulative balance is now 95.6 + 6.2 = 101.8.

When trying to predict the results of football matches, do you study the form or do you expect long running sequences to come to an end? Do you look at various divisions and expect the results to be more predictable? Many people believe that the Championship has tougher games to predict, and that there is greater equality throughout the division. So does it have the most drawn games? Well not this season so far. No team in the Championship has drawn more than two of its five games.

League 1 and League 2 have so far had a much greater proportion of drawn games. So if you think you can predict drawn games these may be the divisions to follow. Some teams in each of these two leagues have drawn at least three of their five games, with Northampton standing out as having drawn all of their five matches! So when they next play, is a drawn game a certainty, or will the sequence be broken?

Today there is a fairly extensive Vanarama National League programme (the old Conference) and some teams have started the season particularly well. There have been a much lower percentage of drawn games when compared to Leagues 1 and 2. We’ll have another go at the five game accumulator, with the guarantee of money back if one lets us down, plus five single bets of one point on each of the games, making a total spend of six points, reducing our balance to 95.8.

1 point on each of the following:

Tranmere to beat Guiseley @1/3 (1.3)

Dagenham & Redbridge to beat Sutton @15/8 (2.9)

Forest Green to beat Southport @4/11 (1.4)

Lincoln to beat Gateshead @10/11 (1.9)

Chester to beat Woking @15/8 (2.9)

5 game accumulator at 28.7/1 (29.7)

 The figures in brackets show the potential return from a 1 point stake.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 5

Let’s Try An Acca (with money back guarantee).

Fancy A BetLast week I was massively confident of a victory over Bournemouth and staked 10 points on a West Ham win at 21/20 (20.5). Antonio’s late goal saved us when it was beginning to look like we might lose out. So this brought our balance up to 100.6, giving us a small profit on the season to date.

Today we’ll try an accumulator bet, where if one of our selections is wrong we get the money back as a free bet, as offered by some bookmakers.

The selections are:

Everton to beat Stoke 8/11

Southampton to beat Sunderland 8/13

Bradford to beat Oldham 4/5

Accrington to beat Morecambe 19/20

Doncaster to beat Yeovil 4/6

I’ll put 1 point on the accumulator which gives odds of 15.3/1.

I’ll also try to select the result of three other games:

1 point on West Brom to draw with Middlesbrough @21/10 (3.1)

1 point on Brentford to draw with Sheffield Wednesday @21/10 (3.1)

1 point on Bristol City to draw with Aston Villa at 21/10 (3.1)

1 point on a treble of the above three matches at 28.8/1 (29.8)

Total spend is 5 points bringing our balance down to 95.6.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It 4

The latest instalment of our regular betting for fun column.

Fancy A BetBefore embarking on this week’s column I will recap on the last bet where I placed 1 point on there being exactly 3 goals in the Chelsea v West Ham game last Monday. This fun bet was correct, although I would have preferred that we scored the late goal, not Costa, who I don’t believe should have still been on the field anyway. This brought our balance up to 95.1.

This week I will be concentrating solely on our game against Bournemouth today. Just looking at the Paddy Power website (many other bookmakers are available on-line) there are 138 different markets that you can bet on in this one game of football! But before looking at a selection of the possible bets I’ll look back on the results of the seven Premier League games played yesterday.

Of the three possible results in a game of football, home, away or draw, the favourite result came up four times (wins for Man. City, Tottenham, Chelsea and Everton), whereas the least favourite result was the outcome in the other three (wins for Burnley and Hull, and Leicester drawing with Arsenal). The second favourite result didn’t happen in any of the games.

“I’m massively confident of a victory today so I’ll stake 10 points on a West Ham win at 21/20 (20.5).”

A one point bet on each of the 7 favourite results would have resulted in an overall loss of about half of your total stake despite getting 4 of the 7 correct. A one point bet on each of the second favourite results would have meant a total loss of all your stake money. A one point bet on each of the 7 least fancied results would have resulted in almost doubling your money despite only getting 3 correct results. So on Saturday your best bet was to go for the least predictable results unless you were clever enough to mix and match and correctly predict all seven (very unlikely!).

The point being made is that correctly predicting the outcome of football matches is extremely difficult. That’s why I bet for fun only with modest stakes. I generally do better on horse racing bets and my modest bet yesterday was a fiver on Heartbreak City in the Ebor at York at 12-1. So I had a smile on my face yesterday afternoon, but with just £5 staked it wouldn’t have been heartbreak if I had lost.

So what fun bets will I be making on today’s game? The odds setters at Paddy Power haven’t done their homework properly because there are some stupid / hilarious odds on offer for the first goal scorer in the match. Some selected odds are: Sakho, favourite at 5/1, Ayew and Emenike available at 11/2, Lanzini at 15/2, Diego Poyet at 16/1, Song and Cresswell at 25/1, and you can even bet on Jenkinson or Joey O’Brien at 40/1. I think I’ll steer clear of all those! What nonsense and very poor from Paddy Power to not bring their database up to date.

I’m massively confident of a victory today so I’ll stake 10 points on a West Ham win at 21/20 (20.5). With those odds the bookmakers believe there is a less than 50% chance of us winning but I believe our chances are better than that and therefore think that offers me good value.

Then for pure fun I’ll stake the following:

1 point on West Ham to win and both teams to score at 13/5 (3.6)

1 point on West Ham to score 3 or more goals in the game at 11/4 (3.7)

1 point on West Ham to win 3-1 at 14/1 (15)

1 point on Mark Noble to score the first goal and West Ham to win 3-1 at 100/1 (101)

1 point on West Ham to win and Mark Noble to score anytime at 7/1 (8).

The figures in brackets relate to the return if the bet is successful.

If we win the game then I’ll be in profit just from the win bet alone, even if all the others lose. The five fun bets will give me additional interest when watching the game even though the chances of them winning are less likely. If we don’t win the game then I’ll lose all 15 points staked. But my stakes will be low so it won’t bother me at all. My biggest disappointment will be the fact that we haven’t won the game or collected the three points on offer in a game that I believe we should win.

I start on 95.1 points so the 15 points staked will reduce my balance to 80.1. Not particularly sensible betting perhaps but fun all the same.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It (3)

The final weekend flutter with a cheeky bet on tonight’s match.

BookmakerI stick to a number of personal rules when I am betting.

  1. Only do it for fun; don’t get too serious.
  2. Bet with small stakes only, never more than you can afford to lose – it doesn’t then matter if you do lose.
  3. If you are on a losing run don’t chase your losses and try to get them back too quickly. Just like Mo Farah being tripped and going to ground in the Olympic 10,000 metres final. He didn’t rush to get back on terms quickly, he came back gradually.

On Sunday (14 Aug) there was one successful bet:

1 point on Manchester United to beat Bournemouth at 5/6 (1.8)

But I had good fun with the draw bet on the Arsenal v Liverpool game and was interested right to the end as Arsenal came back into the game after being 4-1 down.

The balance in points is now 92.1.

For the Chelsea v West Ham game I’ll do a different fun bet:

1 point on there to be exactly 3 goals in the match at 3/1 (4.0)

By placing this bet the balance is now reduced to 91.1.

The figure in brackets is the potential return from a 1 point stake.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It (2)

A few more punts on today’s football…….

Want a bet?There are three results in every football match. Home, away or draw. It should be easy based on form to know exactly what is going to happen, shouldn’t it? Unfortunately it is not.

Yesterday I said that I don’t normally bet on football matches at the start of the season, as I prefer to see how the form is panning out. However, I decided on a cautious approach spending 10 of my mythical 100 points by betting on nine “favourite” results and an accumulator. So how did I get on?

Well it was a poor start. I would have expected more of the favourites to win, but that’s the unpredictability of football matches. Only two were successful:

1 point on Wigan to beat Blackburn – 11/10 (2.1)

1 point on Port Vale to beat Southend – 6/5 (2.2)

So my points tally became 94.3.

Today I will make the following bets:

2 points on Arsenal v Liverpool to be a draw at 12/5 (6.8)

1 points on Manchester United to beat Bournemouth at 5/6 (1.8)

1 point on the double of the above two results being correct (6.2)

Once again, the figures in brackets are the potential returns from a 1 point stake. So today I have spent 4 points reducing my balance to 90.3.

I Wouldn’t Bet On It

Fancy a flutter? Here’s where I would put my money this weekend.

Fancy A BetWhat do they say? Gambling is a mugs game? This may be the case but you can have a bit of fun especially if you don’t stake more than you can afford to lose. I’ve always enjoyed it but I’m only a small stakes gambler, and if I do lose then it doesn’t really matter. I love horse racing and from two visits to Chelmsford City this year I’ve been extraordinarily lucky and come away with a fair bit more in my pocket than I went with. But I’ve also had bad runs including a 27 race losing streak.

It’s the same with football bets. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I don’t normally bet on football matches at the start of the season, as I prefer to see how the form is panning out. However, I am going to start tentatively today and see how I get on. I’ll begin with a mythical 100 points and keep a running total as the season progresses.

So for today, I’ll bet on nine teams to win, and add a nine-game accumulator just in case by sheer fluke all nine are correct.

1 point on Palace to beat WBA – Evens (2.0)

1 point on Leicester to beat Hull – 10/11 (1.9)

1 point on Southampton to beat Watford – 4/5 (1.8)

1 point on Norwich to beat Sheffield Wednesday – Evens (2.0)

1 point on Wigan to beat Blackburn – 11/10 (2.1)

1 point on Charlton to beat Northampton – 6/5 (2.2)

1 point on Port Vale to beat Southend – 6/5 (2.2)

1 point on Orient to beat Newport – 4/6 (1.7)

1 point on Luton to beat Yeovil – 3/4 (1.8)

1 point on a Nine wins accumulator – 407.5-1 (407.5)

The figures in brackets are the potential returns from a 1 point stake. So today I have spent 10 points leaving a balance of 90.