Mechanical sports betting system

If you read any sports betting book or any type of sports betting article, what will you learn? Bet on the underdog! Every book, website, everything, service, whatever, always tells you to bet on the dogs. If everyone is betting on the dogs, are the odds on the favorites too high?

The European soccer leagues will start soon and to prepare for them, I did a small study using data from the last two seasons of the Premier League, Bundesleague, Serie A and La Liga Primera.

first league

Dogs 760 / 542 / 0.71 / -21.8k

Favorite 760 / 728 / 0.96 / -3.2k

bundesliga

Dogs 612 / 578 / 0.94 / -3.4k

Favorite 612 / 563 / 0.92 / -4.9k

A series

Dogs 760 / 551 / 0.73 / -20.9k

Favorite 760 / 717 / 0.94 / -4.3k

Premier of LaLiga

Dogs 760 / 748 / 0.98 / -1.2k

Favorite 760 / 704 / 0.93 / -5.6k

How do you read that table? Take the Premier League as an example. In the last 2 seasons he has had 760 games. If you had played all the dogs, your total odds would have been 542 (by the way, I’m using European-style odds, 1.35, etc.), returns 0.71 (542/760), and for a $100 bet on each dog, you would have lost $21,800.

What’s interesting is that playing the favorites is a much better tactic overall, IF(!) you play all the games. Only in Spain your best tactic is to play all dogs and almost break even.

Well, no one plays every game. That would be crazy. The question now is: can we use some very simple methods to find an advantage among the dogs or favorites? I know for a fact that you can find an advantage using sophisticated probability models and buying the best odds, BUT for this article we would like to find simple methods for the average bettor, who likes to bet for fun and TV games, and not just for gambling purposes. profit.

How about playing only local dogs, local favourites, visiting dogs, visiting favourites?

Premier League Bundesliga Serie A Premier League

home favorite 0.98 0.91 0.94 0.93

domestic dogs 0.84 0.94 0.77 1.03

favorite visitor 0.91 0.96 0.95 0.93

absent dogs 0.66 0.94 0.71 0.97

home favorite 1.55 0.98 0.91 0.90 0.92

favorite visitor 1.55 0.85 0.95 0.95 0.92

Home dogs in La Liga, under 1.55 home favorites in Serie A and under 1.55 away favorites in the Premier, Bundesleague and Serie A would have been a winning bet. Other possible good bets were overall home favorites in Premier, away favorites 1.55 1.02 0.95 0.95 0.96

favorite visitor 1.55 0.89 0.99 0.99 0.96

So, in the Premier League, play all the home favorites and away big favorites, the dogs in the Bundesleague and away big favorites, the big favorites in Serie A and the dogs and away big favorites in Spain, and choose the highest possible fee, and you’ll be fine. !

In the future, I will discuss more powerful mathematical methods to find an overlap in sports betting.