Predictions come in many shapes and forms. Old Moores Almanac is one. The daily horoscopes in the newspapers is another. However, how reliable are any of them?
I’d say that they are all, hit and miss. A hit being a coincidence. When was the last time your horoscope was on the mark? What? Your memory doesn’t got back far enough. I’m in full agreement with you.
So why should our predictions for horse racing or football matches be any better than the professionals who predict these things daily?
How successful are punters on any type of sports betting? Betfair could tell us just how many clients end up on the plus side, but they won’t and will only quote “Client confidentiality” if pushed for an answer.
But the opportunities to Back or Lay or trade a bet has brought a whole new aspect to betting. As the exchanges have dug-in and grabbed a very large slice of the cake high street bookmakers have been forced to offer the punters many unusual bets.
Just how good are these offers? In fact, are they any good at all, to the punter? Actually I find some of these offers a little distasteful. One bookmaker recently offered Arsenal at 25/1 to beat Lincoln City. How wonderful that must look to the not too savvy younger punters. Until you read the conditions one of which state that any winnings above the correct price of 1 to 2 will be “paid” as bet bonuses. Any thing to catch a few new punters.
Other concessions on regular offer are usually concerning three or so teams to all win at greater odds than if the bet was treated as an ordinary treble. Here again there are always “conditions”. Incidentally, the number of successful bets of his type are just what the bookie ordered. In their favour.
These bets or offers, don’t have too much to do with predictions, really. Or do they? Well. Yes they do. Because here the bookmaker is doing the predictions for you and hoping you’ll fall-in with his choices. And his predictions will be much more accurate than the punter, over time. They must be because he has the “edge” in his favour.
The “edge” of course is what will always defeat the average punter. The non-exchange punter. I’m not advocating we all switch to the exchanges but you do have a better chance of making a copper or two with them. Even the “new” “cash-out” gimmick is still ruled by the “bookies edge”.
The answer has to be, find your own edge. In other words we need to find the bets which give “value for money”. Correct score bets are very popular but I don’t see any value in them at all. What we really need are the bets the bookies dislike us making.
More to come shortly.
