The Betting Insiders report has just landed on my doormat.
I read it cover to cover as soon as it lands.
The piece that caught my eye, especially as I'm thinking about my Premier League bets for the weekend, is regarding home advantage.
Leon Pidgeon has done some detailed research on whether home advantage exists.
And more specifically, how much should it effect the selections we bet on.
The first shocking stat is that over the last five seasons of English and Scottish football you could just blindly back the away team and almost break even (0.16% loss on investment)
That's at bookmaker prices!
Leon goes on to analyse individual leagues both in the UK and all over Europe to see where home advantage is a factor and where it is not.
It wouldn't be fair for me to share the stats publicly. After all Leon has put in hours of work and club members have paid for this research via their subs.
But the point I want to make is that this research goes against one of my rules of football betting.
That is that the home, away, draw football markets are tight and that my profit needs to come from the side markets where I can be more expert. Than the experts.
What this home advantage research shows me is that we can get ahead of the bookies in the lower leagues.
It makes sense that odds makers will be looser in these markets where not so much is bet.
In summary I have learned that…
- In every league the percentage of home wins is higher than aways or draws. As you would expect.
- In some leagues that advantage is lower
- More pertinent to us, in some leagues there is value in the home prices
- And in others there is value in the away prices (Leon gives valid reasons why this might be the case)
This research doesn't mean that I'm going to be blindly backing homes or aways in the relevant leagues, but rather that I will factor this into my footie bets.
And it might herald a move back into the match odds market. Which I currently only use for trading.
What do you think – feel free to argue in the comments 😉
Source: Betting Insiders Club
Today's Selection
Southwell 1.20 Caledonia Prince – Win Bet
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