text: Steve Adams – Football-Index
  I mentioned last week that the Predictology web site would be relaunching today and I'm pleased to report it is now live. To celebrate the relaunch they're currently offering 6 months of full unrestricted access for the price of 1, with a 30 day money back guarantee.
  So that's 6 months access for £37.
  In addition to their system builder that enables you to build your own (hopefully profitable) football betting systems, they also offer 10 playbooks full of advanced tips and profitable strategies.
  I've taken signed up and will be looking to use the system builder to build some profitable betting systems of my own.
  When signing up they also provide the opportunity to upgrade to lifetime access for an additional £197.
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 29th January 2019 29th January 2019 Categories SystemsTags 1x2, Predictology
  I've just received news from Football Advisor that they'll be relaunching their Predictology football analysis and betting strategy builder platform at 10:00am on Tuesday 29th January.
  I've been looking forward to the site relaunch. Previously you could explore their database of 22 major football leagues, with results dating back to 2003. Devise betting systems in the leagues of your choice, then test how they would have fared, based upon past results.
  It will be interesting to see what the new service has to offer.
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 24th January 2019 24th January 2019 Categories SystemsTags Predictology
  Football Winner is a new service just launched and they're running an early bird introductory offer. From now until Sunday 2nd December they're offering a 1 year membership for £67 (£80.40 including VAT) compared with £14.95 for the monthly subscription.
  Tips are provided as either win only or win doubles / trebles. They use a 100 point betting bank and advise bets as either 2.5 or 5 points. So you could say they use a 40 point betting bank and bet either 1 or 2 points.
  Profit figures on their site are based upon £10 or £100 a point. So when they say you could turn £100 into £21,077.50, what they mean is betting that would have been the profit staking £100 a point, which would be bets of either £250 or £500, depending upon whether they're 2.5 or 5 point bets.
  A spreadsheet with a full breakdown of their results from 5th May, can be downloaded from their site. Selections are from the main European football leagues, as well as games in the USA MLS, China and International matches.
  The service sounds interesting. I'll be taking up the early bird offer and will be reporting on the blog how the service performs. For testing I'll setup a £200 betting bank and will bet £5 or £10 stakes.
  You can either check back on the blog, to see how they perform, or if you want to try the service for yourself, click here to join.
  When you join they give you the option to also subscribe to an additional Premier League service for £37 for the year. I didn't take up that option, as I'm already following Josh Wright's Premier League selections, so I'll just be reporting the results for the main service.
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 28th November 2018 28th November 2018 Categories BettingTags 1x2, Football Winner
  Freelance writer Patrick Lynch explains why amateur football leagues are the professional way to bet, in his article written for Football Advisor.
  He provides details of the high scorelines that can occur when there is a mismatch between the teams in amateur and women's football leagues.
  He says it's common for games where one team scores over 10 goals during a match and explains why midweek games could be relevant for teams whose players only play part-time.
  He explains a way in which you can find possible mismatches and which sites he uses to check match statistics.
  You can read Patrick's full article at:
  http://insights.footballadvisor.net/2018/08/28/football-betting/opinion-why-amateur-football-leagues-are-the-professional-way-to-bet/
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 29th August 2018 Categories BettingTags 1x2, Football Advisor
  In addition to backing the Premier League selections of Josh Wright, this season I'll also be betting on the following:
  Low Key Soccer Betting System 4 Selections
  Regular readers of the blog will know that towards the end of last season I tested this system, for backing matches to score over 2.5 goals. After 4 months of trial it had made +2.02 points profit, from 75 matches played.
  Not the greatest profit in the world, but I feel the system has potential, so I will continue my test this season. To keep up my interest I'll be backing each selection to £10 stakes, getting the best price I can via the Betfair Exchange.
  I'll start putting my test bets for this system on the blog from this weekend.
  Four Homes Acca
  Again this year I'll be putting the acca bet up each weekend and mid-week when there's enough qualifying bets.
  This bet has now returned a profit for me in each of the past 4 seasons and will hopefully continue to do so. I tend to land the bet 4 or 5 times a year, usually at odds somewhere between 10/1 – 25/1.
  I'll be leaving it for a few weeks in order for the teams to establish a fit of form and will most likely start around mid to late September.
  As with last season I'll be backing the selections with a £10 stake.
  Football Advisor Bank Builder
  I have no past experience of this service, but the potential sounded good, so I felt it worth a punt.
  Rather than a monthly subscription the service is charged for per cycle, with an option to upgrade for a full season. The aim is for each cycle to double the betting bank.
  Last season the 1st cycle got off to a rocky start (they have systems in place to hopefully cope with that situation), but the 2nd, 3rd and 4th cycles all managed to double the betting bank.
  I can't say too much about what the system involves, but I would say it's not for the faint-hearted. They say on their site that you almost literally can not lose all your betting bank. While that maybe true, but you could certainly lose a large proportion of it.
  To test the system I'm backing it with an initial betting bank of £150. I'm also putting an additional £300 aside in case things don't go as planned.
  Cycle 1 has been going since the start of the football season and so far I'm pleased to report my betting bank has increased to £211.86 (41% increase). Due to the nature of the staking system this figure could change very rapidly.
  When providing the selections they provide details of the best bookmakers price, plus a main price that is available with at least 2 or 3 other bookmakers. When showing prices on their site they use the main price, which from my experience to date has been readily available to back at. They are currently quoting the betting bank to have increased by 39%, so you can see from that they are quoting realistic odds.
  The success or failure will very much depend upon how high a strike rate they can get on their tips, which they aim to achieve between 85 – 95%.
  I won't be able to provide details of the specific selections backed or amounts staked, but I will keep the blog up-to-date with how my betting bank gets on and what the strike rate is.
  I will be backing all selections for this system via Betfair Exchange.
  In addition to the above, I'll also be looking out for other selection methods to test throughout the season.
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 13th August 2018 17th August 2018 Categories BettingTags Bank Builder, Over 2.5 Goals
  Today we launch our new Live TV Match Previews, where we take a look at what a number of free tipster services are predicting, for the Premier League matches shown live on either Sky or BT Sports.
  Starting with tonight's season opener at Old Trafford, we detail the head to head stats between the 2 teams over the past 6 seasons, compare their league positions, plus look at what the experts are predicting from WhoScored, infogol, Statarea, Cheeky Punter, WinDrawWin and Squawka.
  If you fancy a bet in any of the Premier League matches being shown live on TV, but don't know who to back, take a look at our summary sheet, then simply click the odds to place your bet.
  Gamble Responsibly. 18+. BeGambleAware.org
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 10th August 2018 10th August 2018 Categories BettingTags 1x2, English Premier League
  The Premier League fixtures for next season have been announced. The new season kicks off on Saturday 11th August 2018 and the highlight of the opening day fixtures sees Arsenal play hosts to last season's Champions Manchester City.
  It also sees Manchester United at home to Leicester and last season's Championship winners Wolves kick off life back in the Premier League with a home match against Everton.
  The other teams back in the Premier see Cardiff travel to Bournemouth, while Fulham entertain Crystal Palace.
  Unsurprisingly Man City are favourites at 4/6 with Betfair to retain their title, with Liverpool second at 5/1, followed by Man Utd 13/2, Chelsea 11/1, Tottenham 12/1 and Arsenal 30/1.
  Favourites to be relegated are Cardiff, along with Huddersfield and Fulham.
  For the full list of fixtures see https://www.premierleague.com/news/720651
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 14th June 2018 15th June 2018 Categories NewsTags English Premier League
  In part 1 of my end of year summary of the WhoScored predictions. I looked back at the domestic leagues. Today in part 2 I'll look back at the 4 major European leagues, for which I monitored the selections, plus the Champions League matches.
  I monitored all the predictions for the Champions League matches and started monitoring the European league predictions on 1st December 2017.
  Simon Harrison performed best out of the European league writers, but you still would have made a loss having backed all his selections. There was a loss of -22.61 points for the correct results and -11.50 for the correct scores.
  Throughout the monitoring period there was never a point when the selections really looked like being in profit and if it hadn't been for an excellent final week to the season, when a combined profit of +29 points was achieved, the overall loss would have been much higher.
  The monitoring of Jacopo Piotto's Serie A predictions started well enough. He was showing a profit after the first month and was still in profit at the end of February, but from there until the end of the season, nearly -100 points were lost, mainly due to the lack of correct score predictions.
  Overall the correct result bets didn't fair too badly with a loss of -7.66 points recorded, but a loss of -83.5 points for the correct scores was where the damage was done.
  Things didn't start well for Eric Devin's Ligue 1 predictions. By early February (just over 2 months into my monitoring) his bets would have wiped out my fictitious 100 point betting bank and as such I ceased reporting the performance on the blog. I did however continue to monitor the predictions.
  Results picked up after I stopped reporting them and by mid-March the loss had been reduced to -64 points. No good for anyone backing the selections with a betting bank of only 100 points, but then I'd suggest that maybe a betting bank of 200 points maybe more suitable (or at least a bigger bank for the correct score bets).
  From mid-March until late April results again took a downturn and by 25th April they hit a new low of -113.86 points, but that was as bad as it got.
  In the final month of the season, when other writers were struggling with their predictions, Eric hit a good run of form and ended the season with the loss reduced to -63.67 points, split -16.17 for the correct results and -47.5 for the correct scores.
  If there's one thing we can glean from Eric's selections, it's the importance of setting your betting bank to the right level for the selections being backed. Don't be too greedy and stake too big a proportion of you bank on each selection, otherwise the betting bank will have run out by the time the bets take an upturn in fortunes.
  Daniel Busch was another writer to exceed a -100 point loss and I stopped reporting his selections at the beginning of April.
  Unfortunately for Daniel I can't report any turnaround in performance after I stopped reporting. The final 6 weeks of the season saw the losses continue to mount up and by the end of the season he'd made a loss of -13 points for the correct scores and -123.5 points on the correct scores.
  The correct scores were clearly Daniel's undoing. He only managed the correct score 8 times out of the 188 matches I monitored.
  As with the Premier League games, the predictions for the Champions League matches were split between Josh Wright and Ben McAleer, with Martin Laurence been given 1 match to predict.
  Josh made the predictions for 100 of the CL matches, with Ben chipping in with 24.
  Josh was unable to replicate his good results of the Premier League, backing his correct results would have made a loss of -5.24 points and the correct scores a loss of -20.5 points.
  Ben didn't perform any better, with a loss of -2.72 points for the correct results and -10 points for the correct scores, from far less matches.
  The damage was done in the group stages of the competition. At the end of the group matches, they'd made a combined loss of -41.25 points. Results improved during the last 16 stage, with the overall loss being reduced to -21.10 points. Things then dropped off again in the latter stages of the tournament, although Ben was close with his prediction for the final.
  Looking back it seems understandable that they were unable to achieve much success in the group stages. The top seeds in the groups were usually heavy odds on to win their matches, so little profit could be achieved backing them to win and with many of the matches resulting in plenty of goals, trying to get the correct score spot on was not the easiest of tasks.
  A bet I much prefer for those type of matches, is the goals under / over bet. Maybe next year I'll monitor to see how they get on using their score predictions to bet in the over/under 2.5 goals markets.
  It's not an easy task predicting the result for every league match and my hat goes off to the guys at WhoScored, for their efforts. Backing all their selections blindly probably isn't the way to go, although given Josh Wright's performance this year I feel his selections are worth a punt.
  The majority of the time the writers are pretty well informed about the teams in the leagues they're covering and if not backing their predictions, taking notes of their comments in the previews can be helpful when deciding your own bets.
  Author Steve AdamsPosted on 5th June 2018 7th June 2018 Categories BettingTags 1x2, WhoScored
  For a large part of the season I've been monitoring the performance of the WhoScored predictions. I started recording the results for the Premier League and Championship on 8th September, followed by the other major European leagues at the start of December. Then I added in English Leagues One and Two, plus the Scottish Premiership, when they added them to their site towards the end of January.
  You can see a summary of how each of their tipster performed in the table below.
  Of the Leagues I monitored, it was only the Premier League where they had more than one tipster making the predictions. Overall they made a combined loss of -13.11 points, but that doesn't paint a true picture on how the individual tipsters performed.
  Martin Laurence made the predictions for 3 matches early in the season, which isn't anywhere near enough to draw any conclusions, so I'll ignore his selections.
  The rest of the matches were split between Josh Wright and Ben McAleer, with Josh covering nearly twice as many matches as Ben. You'll see from the table above that Josh was the star performer, making a total profit of +92.47 points profit backing all his selections in both the correct result and correct score markets.
  His correct results produced a profit of +8.97 points, with a success rate of 51.3%, where as backing his predictions for the correct scores produced a profit of +83.5 points, albeit from a lower strike rate of 13.6%.
  He managed several high priced correct scores, including his prediction Liverpool would win 3-2 at Leicester at odds of 21/1, Watford would win 2-1 at home to Arsenal (15/1), Liverpool would win 4-1 at West Ham (21/1), Arsenal would win 3-2 at Crystal Palace (21/1), plus other double figure betting returns.
  It was Josh's ability to seek out the big priced correct scores that set him apart from the other WhoScored writers, but the +8.97 points profit for the correct results was equally as impressive.
  Next season I'll be looking to see if Josh can continue the good form of his predictions and will be looking to back all his Premier League selections with small stakes.
  Ben McAleer was unable to replicate the performance of Josh. As the above table shows, he was almost the worst performer out of the WhoScored writers, racking up a combined loss of -103.27 points, which was spilt -23.77 points for the correct results and -79.50 points for the correct scores. Needless to say I won't be looking to bet on Ben's selections next season.
  Harry Smith was just about breaking even after the first 6 weeks of monitoring his predictions, but then during a 3 week period from the 27th October to 18th November he banked a combined profit of +77 points, thanks mainly to some good priced correct score predictions.
  At that point things looked really promising, but alas he was unable to maintain such fantastic form and by 3 months later all the profits and more had ebbed away.
  By the end of the season he'd recorded a loss of -24.31 points for the correct results and -31.50 points for the correct scores, giving an overall loss of -55.81 points.
  It's disappointing to report such a big loss, when things had looked so promising early on, but it goes to show that it's worthwhile monitoring results over an extended period, before backing any selections with your hard earned cash.
  Jake Sanders was given the task of predicting the League One matches. He joined the site on 27th January and pretty much broke even during his first month. March didn't start well and by the middle off the month he was showing a loss of -27.81 points, with the majority of the loss due to his correct result predictions.
  Over the next few weeks Jake managed to recoup the losses, thanks to a number of correct score predictions, but he wasn't able to keep the good form up until the end of the season and finished up with a loss of -24.82 points.
  He managed a good level of correct scores, but getting the correct result was his undoing.
  Gabriel Sutton stated his League Two predictions at the same time Jake Sanders joined WhoScored. He jumped into an early +30 point profit, but that didn't last long, as his selections often went against the most likely result.
  By mid March he was showing a loss of over -50 points, but correct scores predictions for Crewe 3-1 Forest Green (18/1) and Crawley 2-3 Wycombe (28/1) almost got him back to break even. After that losses gradually mounted up and he ended the season with -16.04 points for the correct results and -33 points for the correct scores.
  Backing the bigger priced teams may look like it offers better value for your bets, but that's not necessarily the case.
  Graham Ruthven was another of the WhoScored writers who returned a profit on his predictions. He started predicting on the site at the end of January and only covered 87 matches up to the end of the season, which isn't really enough games to draw any major conclusions.
  After just over a month, he'd recorded a combined profit of +30 points. He then spent the next couple of months giving most of the profits back, but then did well on the penultimate week of the season to lock in some profits.
  He banked a profit of +24.5 points for his correct scores, but recorded a loss of -13.64 points for the correct results. A good performance, but I'd want to trial his predictions for a lot longer, before making a decision on whether to back them or not.
  In Part 2, I'll complete my summary of the WhoScored tipsters, with a round-up of the European leagues and Champions League predictions.