I would disagree slightly on some points there Gooner
1st – Don’t believe anything you read
As for the soccer, i pay close attention to the odds, especially where the big teams are concerned…Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Milan, Juventus, etc…
The amount of money bet on them is more than 10x the amount bet on their opponents on a weekly basis, no matter where they play, provided they are not playing one another, most of the time
Looking at one game, being played right now
AC Milan vs Livorno
96.2% of all action on that game is on AC Milan to win
1.7% of the action is on Livorno, the rest on the tie
That is a huge discrepency there, but you will see things like this every week, or close to it
When you consider the tie factor, things change considerably, the tie is always a huge “take” for the books
Looking at AC Milan this season, they win their games at a rate of 71% overall, therefore you will see they are overbet, like the other big teams always are, in todays game, and all the time mostly
The public bets AC Milan to win(in this case)96% of the time, that number varies of course, but regardless, they are overbet the majority of the time
So despite what you read, i am 100% sure that the books make big money on the big teams in particular
Lets look at another game coming up later
Real Madrid vs Osasuna
It is virtually a pickem, with Real Madrid the slightest favourite by name alone
Assuming the game finishes in a tie, which is very possible here
The books would pocket 80+% of ALL ACTION on this game
8% of the action is bet on the tie
92% of the action is on Real or Osasuna to win
92% – the tie payout would leave you with at least 80% in this case of pocket money just for booking a bet(the bookies of course will disagree, what would you expect, they are bookies)
The odds on the game are
Real 2.68
Osasuna 3.05
Tie 3.30
In 34 games this year
Real Madrid has won 53% of the time
Osasuna has won 56% of the time
Real Madrid has tied over 26% of their games, more than a quarter, this year
So do the math and see how much the books are pocketing, especially on the big teams
In Real’s case they are pocketing huge amounts more than a quarter of the time, then profiting nicely the other quarter of the time, while the other half of the time they are hovering around breaking even(usually making money no matter what the outcome)
This is the pattern with most of the big teams
Soccer is a huge market, the most bet on sport in the world, you should get a piece of that action, especially with the game becoming increasingly more corrupt and dirty, as is evident by the various sportsbook banners surrounding the playing fields, much match fixing is going on unpunished, typically the refs are the culprits, they are like some soccer mafia, all working together
Consider this
More than a quarter of all soccer games finish tied, in every big league over the course of a season
If you bet the tie, you normally get odds of 3-1 or slightly higher but close
You should be getting at least 7-1 odds on the tie
Ok, i’m rambling on now, but the point is, soccer fans are nutballs, they will almost never bet the tie, it is about betting their team to win, not about betting their team not to win…And with you getting ripped off so much on the tie odds, it is less likely that many will bet it, in fact, there is almost never a situation where more than 10% of all action is bet on the tie, but it hits more than 25% of the time…And that is how they make money
I’ll say one more thing about the dirty game(might as well start a soccer thread)
The games with the MOST ACTION, usually when 2 of the big teams play eachother in league play, or in a competition like the Champions League, end up in a tie about 50% of the time in recent history
Look at over 100 Champions League games this year, more than 40% finished in a tie
Look at the 2 finalists Barcelona and Arsenal
In the last 12 games between them in the Champions League(the games with the most action), 6 of them finished in a tie, 50% on the nose
When big money is on the line, ties become suspiciously more frequent
Like i said, if you promote this garbage, you should get a piece of the action.