Football Betting Stats, Part I

Which football stats do we need to pay attention to ensure we’re making the best betting decisions? Read on to find out which stats you need to be paying attention to to get the best bang for your buck when betting on football. Doubtlessly everybodys’ opinions will slightly differ here, some people just love to bet on favourites, even low odds favourites, stick them into a 5-fold accumulator every Saturday morning and hope for the best, while others like to bet on the team their team is playing against. It’s a bit of reverse psychology so that if their team wins they’re happy and if they lose and their bet wins, well, at least the pain is lessened because they’re a few quid up.

There are the more analytical among us who wrestle with spreadsheets and betting models and chart dropping and falling odds in an attempt to find value in the markets before making their bets. We feel that ‘the more you know the further you go’ and the more packed with information your betting arsenal is the further you’ll go in football betting. Bet Dynamo’s software is one of the best pieces of technology on the internet to help identify potential occurrences in football matches, one quick glance at a match and we can see what our Bet Dynamo robot expects to happen. For example:

Among daily bettors, Norway’s Eliteserien (their top tier) has long held a good reputation as a place for goals, however looking at the three matches to be played on 14th August, it would seem that the value lies in opposing goals in all of the matches being played. We can see that the odds are not a fair reflection of the events occurring. In the first match Kristiansund vs Bodo/Glimt. Regarding Over 2.5 goals, out Bet Dynamo software has indicated that we’d expect Over 2.5 goals to occur in 50% of matches between the two sides, however bookies are only offering a price of 1.65, it should be more like 2.0. It’s the same situation with the other two matches as well.

We’ve split this article over a series because there’s such a wealth of information to write about. In the first part we’ll talk about Head to Head encounters so you can make better football betting tips.

Head to Head Encounters

It’s a little-known fact that when bookmakers are compiling their odds they simulate matches between the two teams involved. Now, we’ve not talking setting up the matches on FIFA and letting the AI play, it’s complex and full of mathamatical theories and algorithims but suffice to say that one of the main elements is the two teams involved ‘playing each’ other.

Armed with that fact we should pay extra special attention to previous meetings between the clubs involved. In our Kristiansund vs Bodo/Glimt example above, the home side are slight underdogs priced at 2.73 to win, the Draw is 3.65 and the away side are available for 2.51, a look at previous meetings shows that over the four times they’ve played the home side have lost 3 times and drawn once, shipping 8 goals and only scoring one. Having a look at the league table shows us Bodo/Glimt are just one point behind league leaders Molde with this being their game in hand, so we can see why the Superlaget are favorites to bag the three points.

Managers change as do players and even more often these days than just a few years ago but there’s something about form against certain teams. Remember when Bolton Wanderers were Arsenal’s bogey team, or when Crystal Palace were Liverpool’s? Pay close attention to previous head to head meetings between teams to get a good idea of what may occur.