>Saturday Round Up

>Well, not bad for a single day considering the less than spectacular January I’m having – this is where good record keeping comes in as there are a number of holes in my game that I’ve identified and I’m going to spend the rest of the month plugging them.

For example, I definitely need to change my approach to goals markets. Half of my losses for this month have been in this area: in fact, only I’ve won only four of seventeen bets on goal markets this month, which is pretty dreadful. I need to stick to over/under 2.5 and not get involved with any of the more ‘exotic’ markets – ‘both teams to score’ markets are a good example of a quick route to the poor house.

In a low scoring league such as the Greek Super League this season – and not counting today’s games – the ‘both teams to score’ numbers look like this:

139 total games, both teams scored in 55 of them – 39.56%. About half of those 55 games ended in draws. It’s therefore reasonable to assume that in about 60% of games in Greece, both teams will not score. Furthermore, only 43 of those 139 games featured over 2.5 goals: that’s 30%. So a ‘typical’ Greek game is likely to be under 2.5 goals with either one or neither side scoring.

In comparison, the numbers for Portugal – where there are slightly more goals per game but the majority of games are still under 2.5 – are as follows: in 123 total games, both teams scored in 58 of them (47%) and only 20 of those games were draws (34%). So once again, it’s reasonable to assume that in a majority of games in Portugal, both teams won’t score although it’s less clear cut than the Greek example.

Armed with that information – even though it’s not comprehensive and comes from two relatively goal shy competitions – it should help my decision making in goals markets.

NFL games previews will be up later.