The European club football season is nearly done and so betting attention turns to the international scene and the qualifying groups for Euro 2024
The question is : Can we apply the +EV CLUB Spreadsheet to the international football fixtures and find good betting value? Or is it a very different beast?
And the answer is : I'm going to give it a damn good try - but it's difficult.
I do have an international football betting spreadsheet - and it has a database of nearly 3000 matches that have been played on a home/away basis since 1998 with records of the teams, the odds on offer, and of course the final result so that we can run all sorts of systems and back tests against the data in order to find the best betting angles.
IS INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL MORE PREDICTABLE ?
My initial thoughts were that international football should be easier. As there are distinct differences in quality between nations, and a more consistent player pool representing nations so that should make the results more predictable and therefore more profitable ... right? Yes! err ... And no.
I'll explain.
International football IS more predictable - there is a distinct home advantage (46% of home teams win, compared to 32% of away teams) - and there are less draws than club football (just 22%) - which means that most often the average bookie and the average punter knows who is going to win and most often they are right too!
Now while being right when betting is a good thing, it's not always a profitable thing in the long term, because the bookmakers will structure the prices being offered accordingly and so the winning price on favourites is usually significantly below "fair value". This means that you can be right 3 times out of 4 but still struggle to make a profit because of low odds.
FAIR VALUE - WHAT IS FAIR VALUE ?
If I put it into a dice analogy - imagine if you were betting on a single dice throw and you won if you could throw a 1,2,3 or 4 - but lost if you threw a 5 or 6. The chance of throwing 1-4 is 66% so the fair value payout is 1.50. This can be tested by imagining six throws landing on 1-6, you will make 50c four times, and lose $1 twice so you will break even overall. That's fair value.
Now if the payout was just 1.25 when you won, then you will make 25c four times, lose $1 twice, and be down $1 (on average) with every set of six throws. Being paid 25c for a win is -EV, it's poor value and the more that you bet the more likely it is that you will be losing money.
SO IS INTERNATIONAL FOOTBALL BETTING FAIR VALUE ?
And betting on international football does not offer fair value either - and I can prove it simply with my captured odds lines and stats.
Firstly let's talk about the betting "over-round" or "juice" that the bookies have in their lines. This is the factor that bookies cut into their odds to try and get a balanced book meaning that they will make a small profit no matter what result. The bookmaker overround on international football is around "108%" for the average bookmaker (an 8% projected profit margin) which is a normal level. This is NOT the culprit.
The problem is that the results in international football are more predictable, bookmakers know it, punters know it, so the bookies cut the prices on the favourites to below fair value and the punters don't care - they continue to pile into a poor bet. The punters collect a couple of wins at poor value and then lose out on an upset. (just like the dice game above)
CAN YOU PROVE IT ?
But I said that I can prove this - how can I prove it?
My proof is a simple statistical analysis of the results and the payouts of international football compared to club football. If you've stayed with me and read the blog post so far then you're about to be rewarded with some really "good sh!t" information - so pay attention !
;-)
We know that the "over-round" doesn't change - no bookmaker that wants to stay in business can afford to do that as punters catch on fast - but when football becomes too predictable then the bookmakers can weight their prices accordingly, putting a low EV price on the favourite that's likely to win and a high EV price on the other two results to attract losing bets.
While that's true of club football too - club football is more competitive and has the ability to produce more upset results - and it's usually betting on those upsets in club football that produces the +EV bets and winning profits overall.
And now I'll prove it by providing a price analysis of HOME / DRAW / AWAY results for INTernational football and compare it to the big four leagues in England, Germany, Italy and Spain plus the Champions League. This data is from home / away game (not neutral games) in the leagues or international competititons since 1998 - it is a shedload of data.
THE DATA
Imagine a theoretical punter who bets on EVERY game - and who bets on every result in every game. IF football was a perfect game with no upsets - then the bookmakers would structure the odds so that the HOME / DRAW / AWAY odds gave a reasonably even return back to them no matter how the game finished.
So look at this data :
International # 2984 games # HW -323 (-11%) # Draw -472 (-16%) # AW -339 (-11%)
England (EPL) # 7981 games # HW .+17 (+ 0%) # Draw -548 (- 7%) # AW -602 (- 7%)
Spain ..(ESP) # 7992 games # HW -103 (- 1%) # Draw -668 (- 8%) # AW -533 (- 7%)
Italy ..(ISA) # 8104 games # HW -484 (- 6%) # Draw -384 (- 5%) # AW -711 (- 9%)
Germany (GBL) # 6712 games # HW .-35 (- 1%) # Draw -395 (- 6%) # AW -312 (- 5%)
Europe .(UCL) # 3445 games # HW -130 (- 4%) # Draw -256 (- 7%) # AW -334 (-10%)
If you don't get the value here ... then I'll spell it out for you. Based on all the top flight football played since 1998 you could break even if you'd placed 7981 bets on Home Wins in the EPL.
That's it - no system - no stats - just bet on every home team to win - and you'd have got your money back. (second row HW +17 units). By comparison if you'd bet on every game to DRAW in the EPL you would have lost 548 units (7%). That's a BIG difference.
More importantly (and back to the topic) look at the basic returns on international football broken down by HW - D - AW , it's absolutely awful. -11% for home/away and -16% for draws !! There are very few big upsets coming through to boost return prices, and most of the winning bets are the favoured teams at low prices and poor EV.
SUMMARY
Those stats are a gold mine of data right there, by using the bookmakers own prices you can see what competitions offer the best chances of returns and also what bets are more likely to payout at fair value.
And crucially if you are trying to find a system that can provide a reliable return on a regular basis you can see what areas you should be concentrating on in order to find value.
I'll be back in a couple of days with some discussion about possible betting systems for international football - and we will trial some specific bets in the June window to see how it goes.
