2 July 2025

28 thoughts on “Home – Draw – Away: Systematic Betting

  1. Before the start of this season (on 24th July 2011) I wrote:

    After having evaluated all 12 tables my result is a follows:

    • Back Fulham if they are at home
    • Back the Draw if Fulham is away
    • Back Manchester City when they are at home
    • Back Manchester Utd when they are at home
    • Back the Draw when Aston Villa plays at home”

    For all who are too lazy to check this prognosis themselves and calculate if it was correct herewith a table for you to download the results.

    15 bets with a stake of 10 € (total risk 150 €)
    Winnings so far: 55,81 € (37.2% of the total risk)

    If one calculates only the 6 losses as ‘investment’, then the ROI (return of investment) is 93%!

  2. Hi Soccerwidow, you make the calculation based on ladbrokes odds , data from excel from football data uk , and you put 10% higher (attempt to imitate betfair odds) i know it. You say laying away on premier league its profitable but i have see many odds today , i see many examples that at high odds , betfair odds is greater than ladbrokes odds and difference more than 10%.

    lyon toulouse (away odd) 4.33 ladbrokes ; 7 Betfair
    chelsea valencia (away odd) 4.33 ;5.4 betfair
    apoel shaktar (away odd) ladbrokes 3 ; betfair 3.75
    Dortmund Marsella (away odd) Ladbrokes 4.33 ; Betfair 5.7
    Oporto zenit away odd ladbrokes4.33 ; betfair 5.7
    villarreal napoli (home odd) 4 ladbrokes 5.5 betfair
    city – bayern away odd ; Ladbrokes 4.33. betfair 6

    …and thats only a small example…

    So , my question is , do you know a site with historical data of truly betfair odds? football data uk don’t have betfair odds , it would be useful to attempt make a strategy .

    greetings

  3. Hi folks, please pay attention. Soccerwidow’s forecasts here are perfect 🙂 If one would have simply bet on the 4 recommended teams (Fulham, Aston Villa, Man City and Man Utd) without thinking too much last season, one would have landed a 20% ROI! I have to recommend Soccerwidow to all and have donated a small ‘thank you’.

    I wish everybody fun reading this blog and/or following the recommendations.

    Download Excel spreadsheet.

    1. Thank you, AsaNisiMasa! It’s a pleasure. Here the donate button for guys who wish to do the same:





    1. Please check out the German version of this article. There is a comment which includes an Excel spreadsheet for download from AsaNisiMasa who has followed these predictions in the 2011-12 season and made a 20% profit of his investment.

  4. Excellent work! I just don’t understand why you only take into account 190 games per season… shouldn’t it be 380 since every game is a home game for someone?
    Thank you.

    1. You are right… May I say that this was a test how long it takes until somebody notices? 😉
      Thanks, it’s now corrected.

  5. You’r welcome 🙂 I have been looking and reading some of your aricles and i found it to be very interesting and coherent, in particular the value evaluation. Just for fun, i tried to reproduce your results for Backing Man Utd at Home to Win by plaing 10eur. on each of their 19 games and i came up with a profit of 72eur., instead of your 100eur. It’s quite a big difference so i suppose i am doing something wrong with my calculations… could you give any clues to why this is happening?
    Thank you.

    1. Hi Helder,

      it’s possible that you are using a different staking plan, and/or also different odds.

      We used for our calculations Ladbrokes odds which we increased flat by 10% to take the overround out. The staking plan used for the calculations was a fixed risk 10 units, meaning the stakes varied depending on the odds, the loss was fixed.

      Hope this answers your question 🙂

  6. Hi,

    This is based on historical data and you have found that it would have been profitable playing home team. But you have also assumed that the odds at betfair is 10% better. Have you verified that it is possible to get 10 % better odds for those matches that you have been analyzed. Many times the odds can be lower at betfair compared to traditionally bookies and your profit will be gone!

    My thesis is that if you found a profitable window, by “simple” statistical analysis, this value-bet vill eventually be gone and your system will be losing money! By the time you and your fellows start to increse the turnover for this bet, the market will respond and give lower odds.

    Has it been profitable playing whole 2012?

  7. Hi Probability,
    Thanks for your comment. Yes, at the time of writing we used an assumption that odds at Betfair were prima facie around 10% better than traditional bookmakers and guided people towards using betting exchanges to guard against bookmaker account closures for showing signs of success.

    With any potentially profitable system, you must always seek out the best odds and oddschecker.com and oddsportal.com are invaluable resources. Only by finding the best possible reward for the hard work you have already put into finding a system will you ever be able to maintain the ‘value’.

    We use a combination of bookmakers and exchanges and spread the bets across many markets to stay under the radar but we don’t just monitor the English Premier League and neither do we just back the home team. Yes, the system makes a consistent profit which fluctuates between 4-35% yield on a successful betting round – the trick is definitely to play every round of matches AND to find the best odds for each match, which although time-consuming is ultimately rewarding.

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