New Feature: Betting Expert £10k Challenge

We’ve had dozens of requests for gambling tips/advice and we have been quietly working in the background to get something of value in place. Today we can finally reveal our new feature – we have hired a professional football gambler who will write guest articles analysing football games and the art of betting on them.

To make it a little more interesting, the gambler will be betting with £10,000 of his own money:

Any bets placed from this pot will blogged about before the games are played. This way our viewers can track the progress and see exactly how the money is being won or lost, with everything out in the open.  It should give everyone a great insight into how a professional gambler chooses what games to bet on, and why.

Now I’ve explained what is going to be happening, I will pass you over to the new poster.

Admin.

Greetings fcfootballblog viewers, its a pleasure to write for such a large audience here. I understand people will have varying knowledge of football betting, so I will try and explain the choices I make, and more importantly why I make them. Let me say to begin with, if you have any questions please post them and I will clarify anything.

As a little background, I’ve been gambling actively for the last 20 years, and I’ve described gambling as my sole source of income for the last 8 of those. I bet only on football. I’m a firm believer in only gambling on a subject you know well and are willing to spend time researching. I’m a huge football fan and can happily read stats and league tables for hours on end.

What we will be doing is looking for lines (the bookmakers set odds) that show value.

Probably the single biggest tip any gambler can give you is to line shop.

For the serious gambler, you need to compare the odds given by the major bookmakers and place your bet at the highest odds. You will often find huge differences in lines on the same games and that is where you need to look for a favourably priced team and take full advantage of the value. You can never win every bet, but you can win enough to cover the inevitable lost ones and leave a handsome profit left over, if you bet carefully.

As we progress you will see I am only betting on single matches. The bookmakers love nothing more than someone trying to bet on 3,4,5 or more teams on one coupon. If you do this you can guarantee one “certainty” will end up conceding a goal and your full weekends work will be ruined.

Before we start looking at the matches, please remember one thing as this will be the difference between success and failure. You are not trying to pick who will win a match. Looking at the games below its pretty easy to say Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal will win. The trick is to decide if you think the team has more chance of winning than the bookmakers have assigned them.  You are effectively setting odds for the games yourself, and then betting on them if the bookmakers have favourable odds. If you can set odds and see value, you will profit from the bookmaker over the season.

Now lets get down to some analysis of the 3 big games on tonight:

Manchester United v Middlesborough

This is a Carling Cup fixture. Manchester Utd are widely available at 8/15, Middlesbrough 5/1 and the draw 3/1.  At first glance Manchester United at home to anyone at 8/15 looks pretty tempting odds.  However, we need to take into account this is the Carling Cup and Manchester Utd have traditionally taken it lightly and ended up struggling.  I would expect key players to be rested after drawing with Chelsea. Combine this with a poor start to the season (5 points from 4 games domestically and a home draw in Europe) and I cannot recommend backing Manchester Utd at these odds.  I think the line looks fairly set and would recommend no bet on this game. If you do want to make a play, I would wait till the very last minute before kickoff and examine Alex Ferguson’s team sheet to see who has been rested.

Liverpool v Crewe

Again, this is a Carling Cup game. Liverpool are widely available at 1/7, Crewe 18/1 and the draw 6/1. Liverpool have made a good start to the domestic season with 3 wins and 2 draws from 5 games leaving them in 3rd.  Included here is a terrific win over Manchester United. They also hold an away win over Marseille in their 2nd most recent game. The last game was a non-scoring draw against Stoke. However, they dominated this game from start to finish, had a legitimate goal ruled out and several chances that went close.

On the other hand, we have Crewe who are sitting in the relegation zone two leagues below. Crewe’s last game was a 4-3 defeat at home to Southend.  This is the 3rd time in a hardly-started season that Crewe have conceded 4 or more in a game (also losing 5 to Leeds and 4 to Carlisle).

Expect Liverpool to be far too strong here, even with key players rested. A team with such a poor defensive record will be taken apart at will by Liverpool 95% of the time. Even at 1/7 I think Liverpool show strong value and I would recommend backing them. Now this is where my point about line shopping comes in. If we look around, Liverpool are 1/6 with Paddypower and Bluesquare. Some bookmakers have Liverpool at 1/10 (Betfred for example) so there is huge value in shopping around. Jump in at 1/6 Home Win with either Paddypower or Bluesquare.

Arsenal v Sheffield Utd

Arsenal are widely available at 2/5, Sheffield Utd 7/1 and the draw 7/2. Arsenal sit top of the league with 4 wins and 1 loss (against Fulham).  In their last 3 domestic games, arsenal have 9 points and 10 goals. They also put an impressive 4 goals past Twende Enschede at home, as they cruised to a 6-0 aggregate win in a European qualifier.

Sheffield United are sitting mid-table in the Championship, with 8 points from 7 games. They last won a competitive game on 27th August, coming from behind with 2 late goals to beat Huddersfield 2-1. Since then they have drawn two home games and lost two away games.

I don’t expect their away record to improve tonight and expect a comfortable win for for the free-scoring Arsenal. at 2/5 the bookmakers are massively underpricing Arsenal and I would recommend getting on board at this price.

My bets for public record

23rd September 08
Liverpool v Crewe, home win. 1/6 odds @ Paddy Power or BlueSquare, £500 staked
Arsenal v Sheffield Utd, home win. 2/5 odds @ high st bookmakers, £1000 staked.

Of course you should only ever bet amounts you are comfortable with. I am playing with a £10k bankroll here and risking 15% of it on tonight games.

Good luck to all, please leave your comments with your own betting tips for today. I’ll be on after the games finish to analyze how our first day went.

Mr. X