Today we have a football betting strategy that will increase your profits written by Clive Keeing of What Really Wins Money…

You’ve all heard the cliché “It’s a game of 2 halves”, well now you can exploit this fact for profit!

Start betting in the 2nd half of certain matches!

Treat the 2nd half as a match in and of itself.

The first half, therefore, becomes the launch pad for your betting decisions.
Let me explain what I mean by way of 2 Examples from the time I wrote this article..

Cast your mind back to the 15th August 2011, and a match between Manchester City and Swansea City…

Manchester City are rightly clear favourites, but let’s see what the score is at half-time: 0-0 ( you can check this out at www.soccerstats.com )

This is a big surprise. Now if your research had told you that Manchester City are likely winners, and there are likely to be goals in this match too – and if you had confidence in that research, why not enter the betting markets at half-time? (And to be fair, if you had been watching this match you’d have found the difference in class between the two teams glaringly obvious.)

The benefits are clear.

If you fancied Manchester City to win, you would be getting better odds at half-time in in-play markets such as those at www.bet365.com and on betting exchanges like www.betfair.com. Why are the odds on Manchester City bigger than they were pre match?

Quite simply because in-play markets react to occurrences (or in this case, non-occurrences). Further, there are a multitude of other markets that will be offering bigger odds (than pre match).

Such markets include the over/under 2.5 goals markets, and for layers, how about laying the 0-0 at odds far better than pre match? (layers like to see low odds, backers like to see high odds.)

The ideal scoreline to exploit at half-time is the 0-0 but as you will see with other examples later in
the article, we can be flexible.

Let’s look at a few examples of 2nd half betting.

EXAMPLE 1

8:00 FT Braga 3 : 2 Gil Vicente MC
Nuno Gomes 61’
Helder Barbosa 72’
89’ Claudio
Nuno Gomes 90’

In this Portuguese league match, Braga are 1.52 favourites against newly-promoted Gil Vicente.

Braga scored 2 goals against the bottom 6 sides at home last season. Gil Vicente conceded 2 goals against Braga and 3 against Porto (2 sides in the top 3 last season, with Braga 4th last season).

The 0-0 at half-time was therefore a shock… and, inevitably, in the second half the goals arrived.

Possible profit-making areas? – Match odds – back Braga, lay the draw.

Goals markets – back over 1.5 goals, over 2.5 goals.

Correct score market – lay 0-0.

EXAMPLE 2

19:00 FT Elfsborg 1 : 3 Gais h2h
49’ Jesper Floren
54’ Eric Bassombeng
65’Wanderson Do Carmo
Niklas Hult 73’

Elfsborg are 1.33 at home. It is 0-0 at half-time.

My conclusions for this match are repeated here verbatim:

“CONCLUSION/NOTES/STANDOUT STATS –
standout 90% overs stats for Elfsborg and they are likely to score 2 minimum at home. similarly, Gais have only failed to score in three matches this season. Ergo over 2.5 goals in the bag already? Gais are one of those nightmare trading teams – why? They are so fecking inconsistent!!”

And the goals flowed in during the 2nd half albeit not for the team I expected. Still, a goals bet at halftime, at value odds, would have been successful.

EXAMPLE 3

13:30 FT Dundee United 0 : 1 Rangers MC
61’ Kyle Lafferty

In this match, rangers were priced at 1.59 away from home against a team they had scored 4-3-4-2 goals against in their last 4 head to heads.

My conclusions:

“CONCLUSION/NOTES/STANDOUT STATS – good defensive record for Rangers so early and an
emphatic Celtic win already makes this 1.59 of some appeal. Expect early tight exchanges here and the
prospect of a concerted period of 0-0 before a most likely Rangers first goal.”

The match was 0-0 at half-time. And Dundee United had a man sent off. Lay Dundee United at
half-time. Back Rangers to win the 2nd half.

Here’s another half-time score line we can exploit, in this example there is a general tendency for one of the teams to be a strong market leader.

However, the half-time result does not quite reflect the apparent dominance suggested by the odds:

EXAMPLE 4

20:45 FT Derry City 2 : 2 Drogheda h2h
4’ Brian Gannon
38’ Gavin Brennan
Gareth McGlynn 74’
Robert Duggan (og) 88’

Background – Derry are 1.14 favourites to win this match. Extremely strong favourites. However, this is not reflected in the half-time scoreline which sees outsiders Drogheda 0-2 up away from home.

Now is the time to back a comeback by the 1.14 favourites.

What can we do?

Back Derry at odds much better than the prematch odds of 1.14 (we would have lost on this
occasion as Derry did not win the match but would have backed a very short odds team at far greater odds).

Lay Drogheda in the match odds at 0-2 at odds much lower than were available pre match.

Lay 0-2 scoreline in the Correct Score Market.

RECENT EXAMPLES

As this article is taken from the archives of What really Wins Money, I want to include some up to date examples of how we can enter the betting market in time for the 2nd half.

Manchester United – a half time gold mine?

A look at Manchester United’s performances in some matches this season relay that after the Fergie halftime hairdryer, they tend to up their game.

2nd September Halftime Southampton 1 Manchester United 1

The Fulltime result? Southampton 2 Manchester United 3

15th September Halftime Manchester United 0 Wigan 0

Full time Manchester United 4 Wigan 0.

23rd September Halftime Liverpool 0 Manchester United 0

Full time Liverpool 1 Manchester United 2

As an aside, the above match is a great example of an alternative market we can focus in for half time betting, that is the 0-0 correct score market. Laying 0-0 at half time in matches where at least 1 goal is expected is a good policy because 1) we still have a 2nd half to go 2) the liability for the 0-0 correct score will have reduced dramatically from its pre match odds which is good news for layers.

10th November Halftime Aston Villa 1 Manchester United 0

Full time Aston Villa 2 Manchester United 3

17th November halftime Norwich 0 Manchester United 0 ( another opportunity to lay the 0-0 correct score)

Fulltime Norwich 1 Manchester United 0

24th November Halftime Manchester United 0 QPR 0

Fulltime Manchester United 3 QPR 1

Getting to know a team’s habits can also help in determining a halftime strategy. Southampton this season are scoring regularly. So what do you do, as on 10th November, when its 0-0 in the Saints v Swansea match?
You lay said 0-0 as you could have done in a couple of Manchester United matches. I did that at nice odds of 3.5 ( shorter the better for layers) and the 2nd half produced 2 goals.

Look out too for teams such as Real Madrid who as recently as 27th November were playing at home to Alcoyano in the Cup. Guess what the score was at halftime? 0-0. The fulltime score was 3-0 to Real Madrid.

In this instance if a 0-0 would be a huge shock, you can delay your entry into the betting market as late as possible in order to lay the 0-0 at shorter odds or indeed back Real Madrid at better odds. This tactic I call Delay-react-trade and is something for a future article.

Bottom line

Turn your football betting into 2nd half betting. Here are the advantages:

– The odds in all markets will offer greater value (using in-play facilities at bookmakers such as
www.bet365.com and www.betfair.com) because the expected result has not materialised.

– Backers can back their original fancies at better odds.

– Layers can lay markets at lower odds (and remember betting exchange layers want low odds when they lay).

– There will be greater urgency in the 2nd half for a fancied team to redress the balance. Halftime
team talks can work wonders (ask Benitez in THAT Champions League Final).

So which matches do you choose?

Quite simply, let the bookmakers do the work for you. Focus on matches where one team’s odds
indicate they are the hot favourites. I normally focus on matches where one team is 1.6 odds or over and wait until half-time.

If what was expected has not occurred by halftime, consider using in-play bookmakers or betting
exchanges like Betfair, and utilise the value odds available for both backers and layers.

Today's Racing Selection courtesy of Value Backing Extra.

Sandown 2.55 Dashing George 1/4pt win @ 4`1 Bet365 BOG