It is always worth exploring bets which step outside the norm of the regular Straight Win, because there is a lot of potential in exploring different means of bets. That way you find what suits you best, according to your betting strategy, and of course, financial limits. Looking around at the Premier League football betting markets, there was an immediate pull towards a Straight Forecast, and figured it was time to go and look at some Forecast betting. What are Forecast Bets? What different types of Forecast Bets are there? To start with, Forecast bets are popular with horse racing but they also work well in Ante Post football betting, which is what we are going to look at today, with all prices here listed at online bookmaker Paddy Power. Normally there is quite a dominant force in any domestic football league, you will have Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain’s La Liga Primera, Rangers and Celtic in the Scottish Premier League and Manchester United and Manchester City in this year’s Premier League for example.
Fortunately the dominance of just two or three genuine title contenders in each league will play into your betting hands when it comes to Forecast football betting. This is because, while there may be 20 or so teams in a league, you are realistically only going to see, perhaps three teams at most, with a genuine chance of winning the title. Note that a genuine chance is a long way from an optimistic fan point of view for their club! Because of this major narrowing of a field, your Forecast options are not going to be too vast, but there is still good profit to be made. Indeed, because adversely teams like Barcelona and Madrid are going to be at really short odds in Outright betting to win La Liga, and you’ll likely find them at negative value (below Evens) where you have to risk more than you will get back, it is worth looking at Forecast betting. Because everybody knows that La Liga is a two horse race, if you step a little further back and try to predict what the finishing order of those two will be, then you are increasing your margin profit, naturally for just a little bit of extra risk. In Spain’s La Liga Primera for example, you still have a 50/50 shot of getting a Forecast right, whether you pick Barcelona/Real Madrid or Real Madrid/Barcelona, just as you would if you backed either in a straight bet. The difference is, there will be a little more profit at hand.
For our examples of the different types of Forecast bets, we are going to look at the Premier League Outright market for our main focus on Forecast bets.
Straight Forecast
This is Forecast betting in its most reduced, simplest and most popular form. Basically you simply predict the correct order in which a finish in any event will occur. A Forecast is on the top two places in an event, and it is a bet which works just as well in Horse Racing, F1 and football alike and is worth looking at in any sport where you can find it. In terms of the Barclays Premier League, at Man City/Man Utd Forecast is priced at 7/4 with Paddy Power, while a Man Utd/Man City Forecast is back at odds of 5/2. Just to compare this for profit sake, the outright odds on Man City winning the league are 10/11, and defending Champions Man Utd are at 7/4.
What does this tell us?
Well a £10 bet at 7/4 for the Man City/Man Utd Forecast returns £17.50 while a straight bet on Man City to win the league would only yield a £9.09 profit, so you are almost doubling your money for what is essentially the same bet. You are still backing Man City to win, and with United their likeliest challengers, for that little extra risk there is more profit to be gained.
On the flip side of the Forecast, if you backed the Man Utd/Man City Forecast with a £10 stake, that is £25 profit, opposed to £17.50 profit on the Red Devils to win outright.
So you are, to some degree backing the same outcome, but expanding the bet to try and pick up more profit. If you looked down the Straight Forecast coupon at Paddy Power and banked on Chelsea getting in the picture, who are realistically the only spare wheel which is likely to break up the Manchester dominance, then you start looking at bigger profit with Man City/Chelsea at 11/2 which is a £55 profit off a £10 stake. It is still more value than backing City outright. It is not as profitable as backing Chelsea as an outright league winner at a price of 8/1, but you have to weigh up the option that the Blues are likely only going to finish as a runner up to one of the Manchester clubs. Again, in this scenario you are still banking on City to win the league, but expanding your bet for profit reasons and hoping Chelsea pip United to the runner’s up spot.
A Straight Forecast only requires a single unit stake.
Reverse Forecast
Again, another straight forward Forecast market which usually won’t be as profitable as a Straight Forecast. This is because with a Reverse Forecast you are increasing your chances of winning, but the sacrifice comes at lesser odds. Let’s look at the battle of Manchester for supremacy in the Premier League again this season. With a Reverse Forecast, you make the selections of United and City, but this bet doesn’t specific an exact order of finish. So as long as those two finish in the top two in either combination, you will paid out as a winner. The Reverse Forecast just gives you more coverage because you are making two bets, and therefore more leeway for coming up trumps, but at lesser odds than a Straight Forecast.
A Reverse Forecast requires two unit stakes, because of the two bets involved (a/b and b/a).
Tricast
This is really where a look of form study and betting strategy will pay off. The Tricast is simply an expansion of a Straight Forecast, because in this, you are trying to correctly predict the order of the first three finishers at an event instead of two. So naturally there is more profit here, because you are reducing your chances of winning over a Straight Forecast, but that is also what makes this more attractive. Again, there is only a single unit stake required as this is only one bet. This is generally reserved for bigger fields in horse racing but can be quite lucrative.
Combination Forecasts
There is a way to Box your Forecasts by taking a Combination on a Tricast or a Straight Forecast. What is this? Let’s just concentrate on the basic Combination Forecast here, which is where you make three (or more) selections and you will want any of these to finish in positions one and two in the result. Let’s say you make three selections of which you need any two of those three to finish first and second in any order. Here you are essentially making three individual Straight Forecasts (a and b, b and c, a and c) so your unit stake has to reflect this. It is like building a multiple bet, you have to stake coverage on each bet in the combination. Naturally the more selections you make, the worse the odds are going to get because your chances of winning increases and your bookie is not going to like that!
You also place a Combination Tricast where you make three or more selections in the hope of any three of them landing in the First, Second or Third place in an event. So you could pick four selections for example, and if any three of them occupy the top three positions, you are a winner. Again, the value of your unit stake will be in relation to how many selections you make.
So that, in a nutshell is Forecast betting, and it is a useful betting market to look in to for most sports and events. We have used prices from popular online bookmaker Paddy Power for this example, as they provide good coverage on Forecast betting. The bookie welcomes new customers with a free £50 bet as a sign up bonus. Paddy Power will match the value of your first stake on a new account with a free bet, up to the maximum value of £50. A great way to get started with your Forecast betting!
