Drowning in Draws, Visas and Trousers

It was a good weekend for Draws with the second round of EPL games this weekend producing no fewer than five. 

Two of them (Southampton v Leeds United and Brighton and Hove Albion v Newcastle United) were 'Close' qualifiers, with the next most probable Draws (Wolverhampton Wanderers v Fulham and Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur) also finishing without a winner. 

Someone was happy:

The fifth Draw of the round, last night's Liverpool v Crystal Palace match, was an unlikely addition to the Draws column, although a very welcome one personally.

The high rate of Draws won't last though. The record percentage of Draws in top flight English football is 32.25% set in 1973-74 when the average number of goals per game was 2.4 whereas this season so far looks to be close to last season's 2.82 goals per game and goals are not good for Draws as most of you will know by now.

The extra Draws are coming at the expense of Away wins, which are currently at an EPL all-time low of 20%, but of course, it is very early days. Four of the Big 6 are away next weekend and all are odds-on.

During the weekend, @statsbet Tweeted the following:

@oddsvantage and myself were both curious as to what this might be a reference to, and it's our old friend Psychoff who is very generously offering one-to-one trading mentoring for the very reasonable price of just:

Which seems an absolute bargain for 30 hours of live trading with someone who is (modestly and self-described) as "one of the best football traders of all times (possibly the best one)".

Possibly, but probably not. If there was ever a huge edge trading liquid football markets, you can be sure that it's long been identified and blunted by the big players in these markets and if the edge is on Turkish Third Division matches, well the liquidity just ain't going to be there. 

Back in 2010 I wrote about Psychoff:

I wonder how long it will be before we see an invitation to share in the joy - for a small price of course.

While I was right about the invitation to share in the success, I have to admit that I was way off on the 'small price'.

Rumours on betting forums are that the money is needed for immigration purposes, i.e. generate an income, pay tax on it, and get a visa for the UK, but as one commenter wrote: 

Coupled with the fact, if it happens to be true, the reason behind the course is to pay tax to acquire a visa, you'd have to be completely bonkers to sign up.

Mind you, this was in 2020 when the cost was significantly cheaper and:

He's offering the basic and advice course for £2499!!!

The cost seems to have risen fairly rapidly from £1,000 to the current £39,999 but while there are many comments regarding the cost, there aren't quite so many saying what great value the course is. 

I've looked at the testimonials. There's no feedback from anyone who's done the £24K course.

With the median UK 2021 (April) gross salary at £31,772 I'm not sure demand for this training will be particularly strong, but I'm certainly beginning to think that offering the "Sacred Trading Manuscript" for a small fraction of this £39,999 was a big mistake. 

Future copies will be just £9,999 and you don't even have to watch hours and hours of live football every week. Just follow the rules, bet, forget, collect, and enjoy life.

And as a bonus, the results of all systems are easily verifiable, something which isn't the case for in-play trading 'systems':

It may surprise no one that there was no reply to this question. 

Finally, and following on from the Kiké Hernandez and The Case of the Extra Tight Pants story, Baz quite reasonably asks:

Will you try tight trousers to improve your betting? Publish the results please.

Unfortunately the answer to this question may well be known in just a few weeks given that August is not proving conducive to weight maintenance, never mind weight loss. It's a holiday month with children and granddaughters, ice creams, birthday cakes, meals out and other temptations that I can normally resist proving temporarily irresistible. 

Additionally, and while less of a factor than calories ingested, my exercise routine has also been significantly disrupted and my monthly goal of 100 miles on foot is in serious danger of being missed for the first time since November's feeble 93 miles.

I do have a week left in the month after my daughter and grandchildren leave, so if I am not too worn out, a few ten-mile days should get me over that line.

And then it's into the NFL season (pre-season has already started) with the NHL and NBA not far behind. Oh, and a World Cup.