19th-21st Aug 2023 Italian Serie A Spreadsheet Value Bets

Ciao ragazzi! It's time to look at value bets for the final league for the weekend - as the Italian Serie A finally gets underway for 2023/24.

Here is what the sheet has to say about the opening weekend in Serie A :

1. EMPOLI to beat Verona at odds of 2.39 with 46% chance for 109% value.
2. UDINESE to beat Juventus at odds of 4.33 with 36% chance for value of 150%
3. Torino and Cagliari to DRAW at odds of 3.60 with 33% chance for 119% value.

While I run my eyes over those stats and like the look of :
4. LAZIO to win at Lecce at odds of 2.10 with 68% chance for 143% value


Let's discuss shall we ?

Let's start at the top, Empoli are rated half a goal better than Verona, and are considered 46% likely to win based on 431 previous games - so this sort of matchup in strength happens a lot and I have high confidence in the percentage estimate. So around 2.15 would be fair for the home side and we can get around 2.38 to 2.40 if your quick. Take it.

Then there is the upset pick of UDINESE to beat Juventus but really what else can you do here. Juve are slightly stronger rated at 1048 to Udinese's 1031, so Juve are more likely to win at 38% to Udinese's 36%, but the prices for the two sides are miles apart with the home side getting 4.33 compared to Juve's miserly 1.70. Udinese do beat Juve from time to time - they last won in 2020 and were paying 5.25 that day too. It is the value play.

Picking a draw between Torino and Cagliari is not a shock - these two sides are decidedly average, and there are plenty of draws in Seriue A between average sides as somehow it's considered honourable. We have data from 470 previous games in the last 25 season in Serie A with similarly marched sides and 33% of those games finished all square. Getting paid 3.60 instead of 3.00 is getting a 20% edge. Take it.

Finally, I have LAZIO at a good price to win away from home. What worries me here is that Lazio are pretty obvious favourites based on history and club size, and it's pre4tty clear that they're a goal better than Lecce. I expected prices around 1.50 - not 2.10 - but those good prices ar still there - so I'll take it.

Ok - so that's it - four picks for Serie A - and value picks for all four main leagues. If you would like to see me do this EVERY weekend - then how about leaving me a comment to prove that someone is actually reading this stuff eh?