Champions League Idea: week 2

So in week one the bets went very well

Manchester Utd to bt Bayer Leverkusen @ 1.8 generally (1.83 max) WON +0.8

Arsenal to win at Marseille @ 2.5 generally (2.6 max) WON +1.5

Napoli to bt Dortmund (Draw no bet) @ 2.1 (2.21 max which is Napoli (0) on AH) WON +1.1

3/3 :: +3.4

It can’t continue but there are a couple of matches that look to have slightly wrong odds in this second round of matches

Manchester City to by Bayern Munich @3.5 at 3 majors and possibly drifting

Marseille +1.75 at Borussia Dortmund @ 1.8 (1.87 max)

Hope they continue in the same vein.

Champions League Idea

A few years ago I trialled a method where I looked at historical games between Champions League teams by country. The idea was to compare results between countries to get  an idea on the outcome based on the historical matches. Then use those and the odds available to see if there is any value in them.

This week there are 4 games that seem to have value

Manchester Utd to bt Bayer Leverkusen @ 1.8 generally (1.83 max)

Arsenal to win at Marseille @ 2.5 generally (2.6 max)

Napoli to bt Dortmund (Draw no bet) @ 2.1 (2.21 max which is Napoli (0) on AH)

I have not taken the best prices and will stake a fictional 1pt on all of these and some will actually carry real money as well.

 

Unai Emery

Any Spanish football match is followed by both managers and their press conferences. Often they are pretty boring affairs and they drive my son mad when he watches the round ups on a Sunday morning and has to sit through someone answering the same questions again and again. Ancelotti’s press conference after Bale’s debut was a complete waste of time as he sticks to basic Spanish and said nothing of even the slightest interest.

One of the press conferences that we ended up sitting through was that of Unai Emery and I liked the way he talked about the game and what he said. His rounded it off by saying it was a negative result but there were positives to take from it. I like Emery and thought he did well at Valencia and I also have read a bit about him on the internet. He has done very well in his managerial career and this season will be very interesting.

The information in this article is mainly taken from wikipedia and I am not claiming to be an Emery expert. Emery is just 41 and he got his first job at Lorca at the age of 32.  Lorca no longer exists as a club but he took over in November 2004 and at the end of the season the team went up from Segunda B to Segunda. In Segunda the team finished in 5th place, just missing out on promotion to Primera, finishing in 5th place.

Emery left at the end of the season and joined Almeria, who had finished one place below Lorca in 6th. Lorca went on to have a nightmare season being relegated and starting their slide to extinction. Almeria however, finished in 2nd place and were promoted to Primera.  So in Emery’s first 3 seasons he was promoted with Lorca, then nearly led them up to Primera and finally switched teams and won another promotion. Emery stayed with Almeria and they finished in 8th place in Primera in 2007/08.

In a similar fashion to when he left Lorca for a team that finished below them Valencia finished 2 places below Almeria and signed up Emery as their new manager. Koeman had been the manager of Valencia and the season had been a disaster ending it in 10th place. Emery was in charge of Valencia from May 2008 to May 2012 and in that time they finished 6th, 3rd, 3rd and 3rd.  After the third consecutive 3rd place finish he decided to leave. Was Emery bored of finishing 3rd and not being able to break the domination of Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain?

During the time Emery was in Valencia they were in dire financial trouble. Using the transfermarkt web site Valencia made a profit on their transfers in 3 of the 4 seasons Emery was in charge of £4m, £14m, £50m and then finally in his last season they made a loss of  just £1m. Players like Villa, Silva and Mata were sold but Valencia maintained their good form and a profit of £68m on transfers.

He had a short spell in Russia after leaving Valencia which did not go that well. He only lasted 6 months before being sacked but still won more matches than he lost. Russia is a completely different culture and having lived in both of the countries I can easily see why people might fail in Russia. Someone like Emery’s success must also be based on relationships with players and getting them to over perform and I would imagine the language barrier inhibits that greatly.

Emery finds himself at Sevilla now after taking over in January. In the close season he has seen Sevilla sell Navas, Negredo, Medel and Kongdogbia making a net profit of £50m on the transfers. He’s made a lot of signings and some of them look pretty interesting.  He has Marko Marin on loan from Chelsea and picked up Kevin Gameiro from PSG for £6.5m.

Sevilla find themselves with just 2 points from 4 games and 2nd from bottom but as the team in 7th has just 5 points this means very little, especially as they have played 2 of the best 3 teams in the league (Barcelona and Atletico) and also had a tough match against Malaga. The year that he took Almeria to Primera they lost their first 3 matches.

My hope is that the bookmakers underestimate Sevilla. They play Valencia next weekend and I think this is a game that will tell us a lot. Valencia are the clear favourites for the 4th place spot and I am not quite sure why. Djukic has taken over at Valencia and he had a nightmare end to last season with Valladolid. They finished in 14th place and won just 3 of their last 18 games. His managerial record does not look that special and I would not be surprised to see Sevilla finish about them. 11/1 on Sevilla to finish in the top 4 is far more appealing than a tight 3/1 on Valencia.

Continuing managerial success is very tough and if Emery does so this season he deserves to be given one of the big jobs in club football.

About the Secret Betting Club

I’m a bit late posting this but I do like the Secret Betting Club. I have worked with them and for them over the past couple of years and they really stand out. This post explains a bit about them in the form of an interview.

So, just what is The Secret Betting Club?

Well the Secret Betting Club (or SBC as most members refer to us) is an independent reporter on what makes money betting, designed for the ordinary punter.

Primarily our role is reviewing and ranking tipster services, which we do each month through constant proofing and reports that we provide to our members. Recently our remit has also expanded into other areas such as choosing the right bookmakers, interviews with professional gamblers and topics like the best mobile phones and tablets for betting.

As everything we do is independent, we are one of the few outlets that is actually on the side of the punter and not the bookmaker.

What is your background and how long have you been running it?

Well for as long as I care to remember I have been betting and for most of the last decade I have been making money in doing so. There is a small team of us working at SBC and all of us are dedicated bettors, with plenty of success behind us so we don’t just report on it, we actually do it ourselves.

SBC was originally set up back in May 2006 so we have been there bought the t-shirt when it comes to understanding the tipping world!

If someone was to sign up today, what can they expect straight away?

Well there is plenty to sink your teeth into straight away. You can dive into reading our entire back catalogue of past tipster reviews (during our 7+ years we have checked out literally hundreds of services) or read our betting expertise articles and pro gambler interviews.

We also have a number of profitable and ready-made systems for you to use and follow for free, with 1 each for football, racing and golf. All 3 of these have a proven history of betting success, having made a long-term profit for a number of years.

For those looking for the best possible grounding in how to make money betting, we also supply our 100+ page ‘Pro Gambler Blueprint’ for free to all new members.  Its full of advice from professional gamblers on the foundations required for success and the pitfalls to avoid.

We give a heck of a lot away with our service to our members as we want to give you as much as help as possible to make your betting a success. That is our number one priority!

What is the Secret Betting Club forum like? Is it a busy one?

 Everyone who joins SBC gets free access to our forum and so it does get quite busy. There are different sections to the forum, specifically designed to help you get what you want out of it.

If you are looking to share ideas, ask questions or to talk with others in the same boat as you, it’s a great place to start posting. Betting can be a lonely walk at times so talking about it with others who understand what you are going through can be a great help

We also have a thriving free tips area where you can find a number of long-running and profitable betting threads and systems that are updated daily. Some of these are from actual SBC members with others supplied by commercial services sharing their advice for free.

I have been very impressed with the SBC Magazines. Which big name gambling professionals have you had the pleasure of interviewing? Any you particularly recommend reading?

 We have spoken with plenty of big names during our time, with the likes of the award winning betting writer Ed Hawkins (Betfair’s cricket tipster) and a recent interview with top racing tipster Laurence Lambourn just two I particularly enjoyed.

Sometimes it isn’t always the big names that reveal the most however as many of the best known people in this industry are full of hot air. They might talk a lot about betting, but wouldn’t know how to turn a profit from if it bit them on the backside!

That’s why some of our ‘lesser known’ interviews have gone down so well with a recent chat with a pro punter who is making 20k to 30k a year betting on tipsters particularly fascinating. Sometimes our interview subjects wish to remain anonymous, such as our chat with an ex-bookmaker who was happy to spill the beans on what REALLY goes on behind the scenes.

Are the back issues available to new members?

 Yep, all of them are available to download to all new members.

In your experience, how hard is it to find profitable tipsters and what are the usual profits that these tipsters produce?

 It is hard to find profitable tipsters if you are a lone voice in the wilderness – something I hear time and again from SBC members after they join us. There are good ones out there (indeed we have over 20 in our Hall of Fame) but it’s taken us more than 7 years to find the truth on them and to track their records accurately.

Its not just profit levels that matter though as once you have found a winning tipster there is so much more to observe. How easy are their claimed odds to achieve for example? If you can’t match them, then you are done for – and this is the type of analysis we get stuck into. The practical consequences of following any tipster is very important to us.

The profit levels vary and we often like to judge them on a couple of key calculations – Return on Investment (ROI) and Return on Capital (ROC) . These are two useful figures as it tells you how much you have to risk to make a profit (ROI) and the size of your betting bank growth (ROC).

The very best tipsters often have a ROI of around 30% (so for every £100 you stake, you win £30 on average) and a ROC of perhaps 200% per year (basically doubling your betting bank once a year). Some of our members bet full-time and make enough from it to live that way, whilst others are happy to do it part-time and build it up from there.

How much does it cost to become a member and how long does the subscription last?

It costs £79 for a year’s membership to the service. This grants you access to not only the next 12 months content but also our entire back catalogue, plus free systems, forum and more besides. Importantly it also enables us to be fully independent so you can be assured what we state is always accurate.

We also offer a full money back guarantee if you join us and don’t like what we offer (no questions asked) so you can effectively join us risk-free.