And Then There Were 30

There are still some games to come this weekend, so no table update yet, but as things stand right now, it's been a poor start to December for the XX Draws. Two of the four Classic selections this weekend lost out to late goals (86' and 89') and the 86th minute was also cursed on Saturday with two Extended selections becoming losers at this time (West Ham United v Chelsea and Nice v Paris St Germain). The latter was particularly galling. When a game is goalless after 75 minutes, it's hard not to expect more than a win on the U3.5 market, although the HT0-0 was already in of course. One draw from four in the Bundesliga for a small loss overall, and I have decided to add the Bundeslayga system to the FTL starting this week. That makes it a nice round 30 entries, although some of the bigger losers appear to have given up. Some of you may have seen a post I wrote on this system earlier in the weekend, but I took the rare step of deleting it because it was misleading - one of my formulas was wrong and exaggerated the returns! Here is how this system came out on its official debut this weekend:

Not a bad start, and as FTL entrant Tony appears to have given up with his lays, this system will fill that void. The Bundeslayga system combines the 'wacky' nature of the Bundesliga with the findings of studies that show opposing odds-on favourites (excluding very short priced favourites which are profitable to back) is a winning strategy.

Pete Nordsted's Drawmaster selections are all done, and he made a small profit with one winner from three selections, the draw in the QPR v Aston Villa game.

Peter Nordsted's Premier Betting had a good midweek and weekend, and is now up 4.72 points on the season.

Whatever happens in the Newcastle United v Wigan Athletic game tomorrow night, Neil is in profit for the weekend. The only question is by how much - he has Newcastle to win.

And newly into profit after a stellar six out of six winners midweek is Premier Edge. The midweek form continued into the weekend, where the winning run extended to nine, before a couple of setbacks were met. Whether or not the final games of the weekend see them end in profit or loss, it's certainly been a good week for them. They also have Newcastle to win tomorrow night.

Little Al couldn't find any draws, and drops back into the red by a little, and the Free Under / Over Soccer picks had another losing weekend.

And then there is Football Elite who extended their losses with just the one winner and one 'no-bet' from five selections.

After a profit in midweek, Talkbet Jon lost his gains back this weekend, and remains in the red, although off his historic lows, and backing the draw in Ian Erskine's selected matches finally produced a couple of winners this week - after 19 losers we hit two in a row, and three in four, as tends to happen with these things!

As mentioned earlier, no selections from Tony, and none from Griff or CKL either.

Back to draws for a moment, and the attraction for betting on these for those who don't need a high strike rate has reached webbo at Betfair Banter, who has seen the light and has now devoted his life to draw finding, or at least the next few weeks.

Newcastle seem a popular pick tomorrow night to beat Wigan, and from the perspective of my own Elo ratings, this is an interesting game. Newcastle and Wigan both overachieved last season, and at the start of this season were ranked 9th and 8th respectively. It's no surprise that going in to this weekend, this over-achieving has caught up with them both, and now Newcastle are ranked 15th with Wigan even lower at 18th. My numbers for this game have Newcastle at 1.9 so the 2.1 available suggests some value. A more sweeping look at other EPL games matching this 'profile' shows that the Newcastle price should be around 1.935.

Away from football now, and a strange new market appeared in the NBA last night - Portland Trailblazers @ Cleveland Cavaliers featured a +0.5 market, which of course makes absolutely no sense as the draw is not an option. Your Premium Charges at work.