Champions League

A quick update from the weekend - one strong draw winner from two, pushing the 2011 ROI to 11.35%, while Football Elite fell into negative ROI on the season with just one winner from five. Laying the favourite after April produced some nice wins with Green Eyed Trader reporting:

A quick mention for the laying the favourite priced between 1.3 and 1.99 you recommended for silly season - out of 21 bets this weekend across the 5 leagues 12 came good and ROI is at 36%. not too shabby!

Indeed not, although I never actually said the favourite needs to be odds-on to qualify. That is a requirement for the Bundeslayga system, but not for the 'silly season system'. The latter is more profitable when including evens and odds against favourites, although some risk averse punters may well choose to lay only those shorter prices.

The game between Chievo Verona and Sampdoria surprised absolutely nobody in finishing 0-0, highlighting the flaw in the strategy of laying these suspicious games pre-game hoping to back back after a goal. As I mentioned in an earlier post, in games like these, the draw price is unlikely to move too much anyway.

Champions League games this week, and the ratings spreadsheet performs surprising well on these inter-league games. Although the lack of data means the match odds are all over the place (for example I have Internazionale at 1.41 v Schalke '04 who are at 9.36, with the draw at 5.4 while in the Real Madrid v Tottenham Hotspur game, I have the home at 1.34, draw at 6.12 and the away at 11.14), the superiority estimates work better. Internazionale are expected to win by 1.5 and Real Madrid by 1.75. Internazionale are the better value at 1.78.