Do you bet on your own team very much? You should. The reason to do so is obvious – you are an expert. You watch every minute they play. You understand the manager. You keep up to date on the injury news. You understand them better than any other club and better than many profitable bettors do.
Despite that, many people are averse to making use of the obvious advantage they have. Why is that? There are two reasons usually given.
One is that people fear that they won’t be able to be objective when it comes to their own team. This makes sense. People worry that their own passions will cloud their judgement, and there’s a lot to that, particularly if you’re taking a favourable position. On the flipside, though, I’ve always advised taking a tip whenever anyone advises betting against the team they support, for the exact opposite reason.
But we’re comparing this to the prospect of betting on other teams. There the question becomes – how are you equipped in the first place to be objective about a team you don’t care about? Do you watch Reading much? Do you know what team sheet you’d like to see them put out at the weekend? Do you know the problems with the manager? How are they with set pieces? Are they suited to playing the team they’re about to come up against? Why are they in your accumulator then?
This point isn’t even unique to football – it might be something about the human condition. The legendary investor Peter Lynch observed in his famous book One Up on Wall Street that people often miss investment opportunities in their own industries:
“Did the doctors who prescribed Tagamet and Zantac buy shares in SmithKline and Glaxo? Somehow I doubt that many did. It’s more likely that the doctors were fully invested in oil stocks. Perhaps they heard that Union Oil of California was a takeover candidate. Meanwhile, the Union Oil executives were probably buying drug stocks, especially the hot issues like American Surgery Centers, which sold for $18.50 in 1982 and fell to 5 cents.
“In general, if you polled all the doctors, I’d bet only a small percentage would turn out to be invested in medical stocks, and more would be invested in oil; and if you polled the shoe-store owners, more would be invested in aerospace than in shoes, while the aerospace engineers are more likely to dabble in shoe stocks. Why it is that stock certificates, like grasses, are always greener in somebody else’s pasture I’m not sure.”
Your edge is likely to be closer to home – if not your team, certainly in your league, against the teams you’ll have watched most often. And really watched, not just being in the pub while it’s on – noticed a dangerous winger or a questionable goalkeeper, been able to eyeball the balance of the match much better than xG can. That’s where you’ll find your money.
The second reason is people worry about the clash of money and emotions. Backing your own side which then goes on to lose doubles the pain, while it becomes a mixed bag – perhaps even a dirty feeling – if you back your own side to lose and they do.
This is fair enough. But you’ll probably find more opportunities to go against your team than with them. You know when a formation or selection isn’t going to work, and you can clock quickly when the dressing room has been lost. Laying a team with a dead-man-walking manager is one of the happiest times of betting when you see it and the market doesn’t, and that’s a nice bonus to have while you wait for the axe to fall. You might actually be wanting them to lose yourself at that point – we’ve all been there.
But we can avoid this conflict altogether. The best way to bet on your own team isn’t through backing total goals or who’s going to win. It’s backing player bets. Let me explain.
Here at Edgescout, we have a big portal which shows us the results of all our modelling for shots on target, corners, goalscorers, cards, all the rest of it, for all the matches we’re interested in that day. It looks like this, to give a random example of anytime goalscorer in Como vs Man Utd later:
That shows the expected minutes for each player, their chances of scoring, the fair odds without and with a substitution bonus, the best available price at the books, and how much you’d be winning or losing if you took it.
As you can see, no value in betting on any goalscorers in that game. Well, that’s if the predicted team is right. What if it’s not? Last night, this screen flashed up bright green for a back on Alexis Mac Allister to score against Villarreal. Why? Two reasons:
- He’s been getting more shots, particularly from set pieces, suggesting he’s taking a more active role in the final third.
- Liverpool started Koumas as a lone striker, who is not a prolific goalscorer, and didn’t start Wirtz. Mac Allister was likely to be furthest forward of the midfield three.
That first part will take us maybe three or four games to pick up. Some books will be quicker than us and get it in two, or at the same time. But some will be slower, and take six or seven games to notice, and that’s where we make our money.
For the second part, we’ll have to get around to seeing that teamsheet and running the numbers. Then we hope we can get on before other money has flooded in and killed the price.
But you could’ve seen it immediately from the teamsheet. You would’ve known straight away that Mac Allister would be the furthest forward of the midfield three. You know how the manager thinks. You might have even seen a suggestion that would be the team from a forum post and know how trustworthy it is. You know how likely he is to be on penalties ahead of Gakpo or Koumas with that team. Something that we make very good money discovering over three or four games, you only need one to figure out. Maybe you don’t even need one. You’ll see it before any model will.
This is one tiny example. You can tell when a player who usually plays in the middle is instead going to be playing at number ten. You can tell when a right footed winger has been moved to the left in a game so is going to be much likelier to have shots and shots on target. You can tell when your team is dominating possession but not converting it into clear chances and so back your team for corners. You can tell better who the penalty taker is going to be when the usual one is absent and back them for a goal. You’ll figure out all this much quicker than the market and none of it really matters in terms of your team winning or losing. It’’s as separate as a bet on Cheltenham.
The one advantage you’ll always have over the bookie is that they have to lay a price on almost everything and you don’t. You can bet on what you like and not care what price Levante’s left-back should be for a shot on target in La Liga tonight. Use your main advantage and bet on your own team.