January 2013
29th January, 12pm
What a cracking weekend of FA Cup football! There were so many upsets that people have been suggesting “cupset” should be added to the dictionary! The good news for our bet last Thursday was that 2 of the 3 teams we layed failed to win. This left us with a decent overall position:
Man Utd v Fulham. (Result 4-1) Lose our lay bet = -£6.20
Brentford v Chelsea. (Result 2-2) Win our lay bet = £20
Oldham v Liverpool. (Result 3-2) Win our lay bet = £20
So a tidy profit to go along with some cracking action!
We’ll be taking a look at the weekend games a bit closer to the time, watch this space…
24th January, 11am
First of all today, we must pass on our congratulations to Bradford and Swansea, who came through their semi-finals this week and will contest the final of the league cup. Bradford have done particularly well, knocking out 3 Premier League teams during a stunning run to the final. Can the 4th tier outfit go all the way? It would certainly be a refreshing upset if they could (apologies to the Swansea fans out there who are also after their first trophy for quite some time!)
Back to matters in hand, and no luck with our first bet of the year, but yet another close run thing. It took Arsenal 86 minutes of the game to break down Swansea, had it made it to extra time it could easily have gone our way. We’ve got a great bet lined up for today though, lets see if we can get back to winning ways!
Today we are looking at the 4th round of the FA cup, with a number of decent looking matches coming up over the weekend. Here’s the full list:
Friday
Millwall V Aston Villa
Saturday
Stoke V Man City
Bolton V Everton
Brighton V Arsenal
Derby V Blackburn
Huddersfield V Leicester
Hull V Barnsley
Macclesfield V Wigan
Middlesbrough V Aldershot
Norwich V Luton
QPR V MK Dons
Reading V Sheff Utd
Man Utd V Fulham
Sunday
Brentford V Chelsea
Leeds United V Tottenham
Oldham V Liverpool
When the draw was made, there were a few commentators bemoaning the lack of a glamarous tie, no real David and Goliath match ups, and no big boys paired together. I diagree. There are plenty of decent looking matches here, the likes of Brighton, Oldham, Brentford and Macclesfield will all have their minds on an upset. OK, so there’s no conference side travelling to Old Trafford, but I actually wonder if the draw means there’s a better chance of one of the lower division sides pulling off what would certainly still be a shock? Plenty of these games are on TV, and I wouldn’t bet against a shock this weekend, in fact this is exactly where we’re heading for our bet!
A concept in betting that we regularly receive emails about is that of “laying” a selection. For those of you yet to come across it, the idea of laying a selection is a bet for them NOT to win. In making a lay bet, you are essentially playing bookmaker – giving odds on a selection and paying out if its wins. Of course – as a bookmaker would – if the selection loses, you keep the stake.
Quick example from one of the games this weekend, where the odds are as follows:
Brentford 13.0
Draw 6.2
Chelsea 1.28
If you want to lay Chelsea, you are offering someone odds of 1.28 on the win. So you head over to Betfair and accept a stake of £100 on Chelsea. Your position will look like this:
Brentford +£100
Draw +£100
Chelsea -£28
You pay out if Chelsea win, otherwise you take the backers stake of £100. Because they have backed Chelsea to win, you are happy with either of the other possible results. As you can see, with Chelsea as such strong favourites, the backer has to bet quite big for a relatively small return. This of course is because Chelsea are fully expected to win!
So, with that in mind, what are we going to do for our bets this weekend? Well, we’re hoping for an upset of some sort, so we are going to lay 3 short priced favourites:
MAN UTD v Fulham
Brentford v CHELSEA
Oldham v LIVERPOOL
Current odds for the favourites are:
Man Utd 1.31
Chelsea 1.28
Liverpool 1.27
If we lay each selection for a backers stake of £20 our maximum loss is around £17. We only need one winning lay selection for a £20 return, and if all 3 come in we’ll take £60. Of course, this is a long shot against strong favourites, but the FA cup is known for its upsets and hopefully this weekend will be no different!
Todays bet:
LAY 3 selections, so 3 independent bets. You will need an account with a betting exchange to do this, the big three all have sign up offers available if you do not yet have an account:
Betdaq £200
Betfair £20
WBX £25
LAY these selections, each for a backers stake of £20:
Man Utd 1.31
Chelsea 1.28
Liverpool 1.27
Remember to check your liability when you place the bets – it should be:
(“value of the odds” – 1) multiplied by the backers stake.
E.g. Man Utd, (1.31 – 1) x £20 = 0.31 x £20 = £6.20.
If you prefer, lay the selections for a backers stake of a tenner, to keep the liability lower.
Enjoy the games, good luck!
14th January, 9am
Happy New Year! We hope you enjoyed the festive season, best wishes for a successful 2013. Talking of which, we’re hoping to start the year the same way we finished last year – with a winner! Our final bet of 2012 was a fantastic price on high flying Spurs away to Sunderland. They did the business with a 2-1 win and it really should have been more comfortable still. No matter though, the bottom line is what counts and we finished with a nice winner, ending the month of December with a small profit.
We conclude our look back at 2012 with a count up – the final score for the year based on our recommended stake sizes was a healthy £88! Not bad, but lets see if we can beat it this year…
So where to start? Well, the action has been coming thick and fast over the last few weeks, and January continues in the same vein. Weather permitting, we’ve got a week of FA cup replays, before a number of big Premier League games at the weekend. We’ll look at those later in the week, but for now, lets start with a Wednesday night FA cup match.
We’re heading to North London, where Arsenal host their replay with Swansea. The first game finished 2-2, 3 goals capped a dramatic finish to the match that could have seen either side win it. Lets take a look at the prices:
Arsenal 1.55
Draw 4.6
Swansea 7.0
You’d expect Arsenal to be strong favourites, but that price on Swansea looks a little on the generous side to me. Firstly, remember the recent league match at the Emirates, which the Swans won 2-0. Then consider if this competition is a priority for Arsenal this year? I don’t think it is. I still think they have their eye on Champions League qualification, and if you were to offer this to Arsenal now, they’d take it over a cup run all day long.
What about Swansea? Well they have certainly confounded most expectations with their start to life in the top flight. Currently sat in 9th place with 30 points, they are as good as safe already. What can they expect from the rest of the season? Cup runs! As we’ve already seen in the League Cup, they are capable of going a long way into the competition. Their recent first leg semi final at Chelsea ended with another 2-0 win, and they are now odds-on to make the final. Will they fancy a pop at the FA Cup as well? Of course! Are they good enough? Maybe.
Another win away from home at Arsenal would certainly be a remarkable result, but I believe they are capable. Even if they don’t win outright on Wednesday night, they could well push Arsenal all the way, possibly to extra time and penalties. If it does go this far, it a toss of a coin who goes through. With these possible scenarios in mind, lets have a look at another couple of betting options:
Draw no bet market:
Arsenal 1.22
Swansea 5.8
To qualify market:
Arsenal 1.32
Swansea 4.0
The first price still seems generous, and the second I think is about right. So I’m going to attack this game on both fronts. If the Swans make it to full time without losing, we’ll have had our value. If things go according to plan, we could take both bets.
Lets get 2013 off to a flyer! Todays bet:
Wednesday 16th January. 7:30pm. FA Cup replay.
Arsenal v Swansea. 2 bets:
1. Swansea to win in the Draw No Bet market. £5 @ 5.8
2. Swansea to qualfy. £5 @ 4.0
Good luck!