Odds-On In The EPL 2012-13

In the wake of last weekend's once-in-a-season success of all odds-on favourites in the EPL, I took a look back.

In the 2012-13 English Premier League season, 221 of the 380 matches (58%) saw one of the teams starting at odds-on (using the average odds from Football Data).

141 (64%) of these 'certainties' won, for a net loss of 1.51 points.

Had you combined such selections playing on the same day in multiples, you would have lost 14.43 points.

March 30th would have been a good day, with a five-fold earning 6.61 points, and with the round completing with games on the 31st and April 1st, all seven odds-on selections would have paid out at 25 to 1.

Round 37 was also a good one, with the six odds-on teams all winning, at 13.73, but as the laws of mathematics show, combining negative value bets into multiples only makes losses worse.

Only one team (of 30)  priced at sub 1.3 failed to win, (Chelsea at 1.23 v Southampton on January 16th) and as I have commented on before, and incorporated into the Bundeslayga rules, the 1.3 band seems to be the watershed between profitable backing and profitable laying in football.