Enough of what not do - here's what you should do!

This is the fourth in my series of blogs about my betting philosophy. 

In the last installment of the blog I wrote about the three things I believe should always be true before striking a bet. 

Many of these also feature in the betting school article on how punters assess football form.

If these things were not true I wrote, then a person should not be betting on football games. 

I think these are so important that I am going to repeat them here:

• You have made a careful and unemotional analysis of all the factors that you think are relevant to the outcome of the game and have come to a conclusion about how likely a team is to win
• You have come to trust the results of your analysis of football games
• You are willing to take the risk that your analysis suggests you will be taking, to get the reward that the odds available will bring.

The first one of these is perhaps the most difficult and the part that most often gets forgotten. 

There are various ways that people will try and do this

• Some people will use what they know in their head about a game.
• Some will write down their thoughts, 
• Some will set up spreadsheets of statistics, 

Successful bettors will get this part right, because if they don't, then nothing else they do will have much meaning at all. 

I believe it is best to do this part before looking at the odds that are on offer. 

The whole aim of this process is to compare our opinion of the chances of the possible outcomes in a game with the opinion implied by the odds. 

If we allow the odds to influence our opinion, then this comparison will be less meaningful.

There are certainly some people who are successful at betting who do not know that they are going through this process, but I can assure you they are. 

They may never put a figure on the probability of an event happening, but if they are consistently showing a profit then they must at least subconsciously be appraising the probability of events happening and only betting when the odds are favorable. 

There is nothing wrong with the way these people do it if they are consistently making a profit then who am I to argue, but this method has not worked for me.

I am the opposite of this type of bettor and form my opinions on the probability of events happening almost exclusively on the basis of statistics. 

I am a great believer in statistics because gut feeling can so often be biased, but I would be lying if I said that gut feeling doesn't play a part sometimes.

I don't propose to outline the process I go through to price up a match for two reasons, one it is quite a complicated process and would make this blog far too long. 

Also it is still a work in process, it gives me an edge but at the moment but I am trying to tweek it all the time. 

I have no doubt that there are various subtly different ways that it is possible to use to price up games, but I would say that at the very least an analysis needs to take into consideration:

• Recent Form (last 7 or 8 games), at all grounds
• Recent Form (last 7 or 8 games), at the home ground for the home team and away from home for away team.
• A longer-term success such as previous years league position for the teams in question
• The results of meetings between the two teams in question at the ground where this game will take place
• Any injuries suffered by players who have played in recent games that mean that they will be unable to play in this game

If you think you have a way of pricing up games using this information and hopefully more, the next step is to go back and test it.

This is another reason I am a fan of statistics over gut feeling; it is almost impossible to say honestly what your gut feeling was for a game when you already know the result.

Using statistics you can take each game over a given period in a given league or leagues and assign a percentage chance of each of the three outcomes occurring. 

Once this is done for enough games, a test can be done, the more games have been tested the better, so this is where good computer skills come in handy. 

• Do 60% of the 60% of outcomes actually happen? 
• Do 70% of the 70% of outcomes actually happen?

If you get to this stage and the answer to these questions are yes, you can be fairly certain that you are on to something. 

Now the odds available can be factored into the analysis.

Look all the odds for all games and ask yourself: I think outcome a had an x% chance of happening and was available at odds that suggest a percentage y%, is y lower than x? 

Once you have a list of games that conform to this rule, you can assign a value of x (the amount of risk that you are happy with), take all the value picks you have come up with that exceed this chance of happening.

The acid test for me is if level stakes had been put on all of these selections would they be profitable or not. 

Has your assessment of the football matches been spot on?

If these games do give an overall LSP then you might well have found yourself a viable method for making money long term.

If you think you have managed this, let me know by making a comment below. 

If you disagree with my philosophy, also let me know!

This is the last of a series of blogs, read the

previous blog here.