Arsenal and Manchester United failed on Saturday afternoon, with both sides losing despite dominating their respective games ... and once again I get a mailbag full of abuse from idiot punters who've bet big on these two games.
One of the things I read (although I just deleted most of them) was a rant asking how I can rate Arsenal at 76% or Man United at 66% and then still carry on with publishing the spreadsheet when they lose?
It's important understand probability - 76% is not a guaranteed winner - neither is 95% for that matter - and 76% favourites will still fail to win a quarter of the time.
If you bet big on one game then you risk taking a loss. If you spread the risk over several games then the calculations are more liekly to deliver profits.
On Friday/Saturday I recommended :
5 Likely winners.
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Everton / Chelsea and Boro won - while Arsenal and ManYoo lost. If you'd put 100 quid on each of them then you'd have returned £488 for a loss of just £12.
That's not too bad an a day of "shocks".
6 Value Bets.
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Chelsea, Boro, and Portsmouth (yes Pompey!!) won - while Sheff Utd, Arsenal, and Reading all lost.
Let's assume that you stake these smaller because they're riskier and put 50 quid on each of these then you lay out £300 and get £507.50 back !
That's around £200 up overall - albeit thanks largely to Portsmouth's shock win - but then it was part of the plan to take advantage of a good price.
SUMMARY :
You cannot expect all picks to come in. If you decide to take one or two games - then that's your decision but you need to accept that it's your choice whether you win or lose.
The favourites went 3-2 for a small loss, the value bets went 3-3 for a tidy profit ... and to me it backed up the real benefits of the spreadsheet to help to quantify risk.
Remember that gambling is a adults past-time - so if you do choose to bet and you lose - then take it on the chin and admit who had the final decision and stop firing of crappy emails eh?
Thanks for reading - now back to normal service.
:-)