Betfair – double winning on correct score

So with a back bet of £10 on 12.0 means you’ll get £110 in free bets. You can convert that into about £90 of cash. So present lay of 9.0 means you can lay £10 for a £80 liability, meaning about £10 profit (minus original loss) regardless of result. I’m going to let it run for a little while. You could lay £1.50 now to cover your initial loss.

3-1 not looking at all likely unfortunately. 1-1 had the tightest back and lay when i looked last night. Shame.

I got thinking tonight. These correct score bets are really hard to predict and we can be totally derailed when the half time draw doesn’t come up. Maybe we need better strategy for this. I had the score down as 0-1 and my hopes were quickly wiped. I realised some goals were recoverable from e.g. anyone who had a 1-1 as their result can reach it two ways i.e. (0-0 -> 1-0 -> 1-1) or (0-0 -> 0-1 -> 1-1), whereas others are irreversible for certain outcome e.g. 0-1 can only be reached one way, and so a goal for the opposing team spells the end for your profits.

I drew a diagram in excel to map all possible outcomes up to four goals in for the next match (Liverpool v Everton), here is the end result (https://i.imgur.com/TR39Q3w.png). I’ve used the data of “First Team to Score” as I think this is the most reliable information to base my work on. To work out the likelihood of whether the half time score will be a draw I drew a table for each possible outcome of which halves the goals were distributed over, this was pretty time consuming but in the end it gives very valuable information.

I performed some analysis using experimental data and presumed each outcome (Team 1 scores first, Team 2 scores First, neither team scores) had the same 33.33% chance of occuring. The following image shows the results (https://i.imgur.com/zX1380O.png). Analysis showed that 0-0 draws give the best odds, then 1-1, then 2-2, then 1-0/0-1, then 2-1/1-2, then 3-1/1-3, then 2-0/0-2, then 3-0/0-3 and finally 4-0/0-4. Note how unlikely the anything beyond a 2-0/0-2 is in the previous sentence. This decreased chance doesn’t correlate at all with the odds given on the Betfair site. Therefore I’d advise sticking to draws in the current offer, this way you will get the best return for your money over time. Please note that in this example the given figures of 33.33% are purely for demonstration purposes only.

Any thoughts on how to make this strategy better?

Hydro – firstly top marks for your effort and willingness to share the fruits of your labour. Very much appreciated. I’m going to read, and re-read your post again tonight, and view your images to try and fully understand what you’ve done before I give any feedback. Your efforts definitely deserve our attention imo, so thank you.

I’m grunching this behemoth of a thread as I was gubbed by betfair a while back. FWIW my strategy was to back/lay 0-0 (only guaranteed HT CS and result and FT CS that would qualify for fb) using the assumption that I’d extract 90% of freebets received. I’m 99% sure this will have already been outlined ITT?

0-0 @ 10.0/12.5 for e.g
= (10-1)+(9×0.9)
= 17.1 back and 12.5 lay.

This lead to me locking in 3-4 quid no matter the outcome/game.

What I’ve been playing around with myself (in the case of a game with a clear favourite where I think there’ll be goals in the 1st half and possibly not a draw at HT) is I’ll be backing say 2-1 Liverpool, but not laying the qualifier until either team scores in the first (actually in this case I’d lay either if Everton score first, if Liverpool go 2-0 up or best case scenario if Liverpool score then Everton ties it up at 1-1) the odds on 2-1 drop and you make a profit from that initial lay and avoid the qualifier loss. Then if it’s a draw (1-1) at HT, more profit on the 2-1 re-lay. If it stays 0-0, then yes odds on 2-1 rise for a higher qualifier loss of maybe £4-5 instead of say £1.50 – but then because of the HT draw I still stand to profit on the DWOCS re-lay later in the 2nd half. I figure because HT under 0.5 goals for this match is 3.45 or 30% – then 1/3 times I’ll lose the £5 qualifier lay loss on 0-0 at HT, and 2/3 times I’ll profit the extra £2-5 when a goal does come in the 1st half so at least my qualifying losses are covered somewhat (on the man city game last night I made £5.50 on the late qualifier lay in-play in the 1st half, and then another £14 re-laying 1-2 at HT when it was 1-1) Anyway it’s gambling yes – but it sure beats losing that qualifier loss game after game after game. Critics please chime in…

Some great analysis here and tip of the cap for the efforts of you guys in the previous posts.

I tend to see these bets as fun so i’m not looking to guarantee profit, the pay off when they do come in is great and instantly eliminates all qualifying losses up to that point and beyond. I’ve tried 8 times and won twice so far. I do sometimes overlay £10.20 on my correct score and so far each time its meant I’ve broke even but I am well aware that if I did hit a correct score but it was not a draw at half time, I will lose £10-20 (i dont do it if liability is more than that).

Only other comment is on the strategy of going for 0-0 each time. You’ll be gubbed in no time if you keep doing that.

conner, HT draw market isn’t specific for each individual outcome ie if match is gonna be 3-1 the chance of a HT draw will be small compared to that offered by the bookies at start of match. My estimations won’t be correct by a long shot though as I’m deciding likelihood of goals in either half to be split 50%-50% which probably isn’t the case :/

FoG_BLoG my analysis says 1-0 tonight is best chance for a win at 7%