Free money

With today’s incredibly short priced international football mismatches, I thought I’d review just what has happened in the past on matches where the odds are incredibly short. The results may surprise you.

First I looked at the real shorties in our database. We found 19 matches with decent data that went off at 1.01 for the home win, all 19 ended up as home wins. Indeed you needed to head out to 1.04 to find Luxembourg’s shock win in Switzerland (2008) and another three draws and one loss greet you on the way to 1.09 for the home win. Therefore backing everything 1.05 or under, 75 matches, resulted in a decent profit over the many years we have gathered data. You would have netted £21.30 before having to deduct your Luxembourg loss.

If we expand the mix to matches under 1.10, that is also profitable, as are most odds and matches under 1.20. Start heading above that though and it gets a little more tricky.

For the purposes of this analysis I’ve included commission at a penal rate, but if you reduce the rate a wider range of odds comes into play.

So the curious thing is, that there is probably value at that end of the market, but why won’t anybody take it?

1. The first thing to note is that nobody will recommend it. If you do and it gets turned over, people will remind for the rest of your life. Therefore it’s safer to ignore it or pass it off.
2. Second, there appears to be little satisfaction at grabbing value at short odds. Land a 60-1 and you are a god, pinch some cash at 1.04 and you are a moron.
3. The third element is staking. If your staking is inconsistent then the one loss could kill a whole bunch of positive results. Human nature will rear it’s head again and the ‘sods law’ fallacy will prevent you from pressing the button if you use a larger stake or a progressive staking process.

So I suspect value gaps like this will probably always exists, because human nature will always get in the way and stop people from exploiting it; even if there is (effectively) free money on the table.

Tags: england, football, free money, internationals, san marino

Category: Football trading strategies