Backing Odds On Football Favourites - Statistics and Trends

Nigel Skinner Blog Content Manager

Football Manager Expert and Political Betting Specialist across Exchange and Spread Betting Sites

English Premier League Favourites

For the past 12 seasons, I have been collating statistics from the Premier League.

I have tried to accumulate data that although freely available will not have been retrieved by too many punters.

You may be able to create your own betting systems from these statistics and I hope you find them helpful.

English Premier League

What edge can be found in looking at statistics differently from other people?

Obviously, that is impossible to know unless you try.

However, I have been toying with some ideas, modifying them, scrapping them, considering new betting strategies.

In fact, anything that looks as though there may be some value in investigating.

One such area is odds-on favourites.

This is a typical example of keeping the data and noticing a pattern, then looking further into it.

The truth is that I started out expecting this to be a possible angle for laying favourites on Betfair but I was in for a shock!

Until now, I had not looked at home and away favourites separately.

Initially, I still paid little attention as backing odds-on favourites was showing a profit.

backing odds-on favourites

I kept thinking along those lines until after 12 seasons with still a profit showing, it was time to delve deeper.

Every table where odds are relevant the odds used are BOKO (Best Odds at Kick Off) which are readily available.

Home Team Odds On

Backing Odds On favourites at home returned 1759.58 points

I only use a sample of top bookies and no betting exchanges for consistency.

Approximately 70% of matches have a home favourite.

In the very rare cases of both sides being the same odds, then the home team is treated as favourite and 0.01 added to the away team’s odds whether they win, draw, or lose.

Over 12 seasons, there has been an average of 264 home favourites.

Home Teams

Follow odds on favourites at home but not away.

One strange trend is that in the first 6 seasons, there were more than 70% home favourites in 5 of them, but none since.

Backing every home favourite for 12 seasons would have returned an average of 263.79 pts which constitutes a very slight loss.

However, backing odds-on favourites at home would have returned 1759.58 pts from 1716 bets over the same period!

backing odds-on favourites

In contrast, backing every away favourite would have returned an average of 114.42 pts from 116 bets.

That is still not a big loss, but this time the odds-on favourites also showed a loss, losing 4.50 pts from 728 bets (0.38 pts per season).

Data and Statistics

When you are collating data and researching sporting statistics the results often send you in a completely different direction.

Another factor going forward is that the trend with home odds-on favourites, while having winning and losing seasons, does not have the same volatile swings that have been associated with their away counterparts.

Season	Home Favs	Home Returns	Away Favs	Away Returns	Home Odds On	Home Returns	Away Odds On	Away Returns
07/08	269	279.54	111	117.24	158	174.51	55	57.80
08/09	281	269.32	99	101.14	136	134.32	54	63.11
09/10	255	270.24	125	102.62	146	162.18	62	43.95
10/11	272	278.20	108	83.88	150	139.55	47	32.05
11/12	273	259.17	107	108.11	142	140.10	58	56.76
12/13	270	259.50	110	114.98	136	140.54	54	55.70
13/14	257	279.59	123	141.08	137	144.28	64	70.59
14/15	266	255.32	114	113.14	145	153.66	56	56.84
15/16	262	233.18	118	112.03	139	129.29	47	43.02
16/17	254	282.85	126	137.59	148	156.87	75	82.62
17/18	264	264.88	116	104.40	136	133.20	81	78.90
18/19	245	243.74	135	136.91	142	151.18	75	82.16
Totals	3168	3165.53	1392	1373.03	1716	1759.58	728	723.50
Average	264	263.79	116	114.42	143	146.63	60.67	60.29