Do you want to profit from betting on football and you’re aware that you need insider information for the matchups, but do not know where to find them? On Google you will look for something like betting tips and predictions and you will find quite a few different websites with different levels of information quality. Some tips will be good, others bad. On the screen, all the words look the same, and it’s important to try to conclude whether the author writes because he knows something about that game or writes just to get the article published.
Don’t bet on statistics alone
As a general rule of thumb, the vast majority of betting previews will focus heavily on statistical data. They’ll tell you all about the past outcomes of the two teams (or athletes) in question, they’ll tell you streaks, trends, expected goals, home form, away form, goalscoring form, they’ll tell you who is the main goalscorer. Yet they will tell you nothing. You won’t be any wiser after reading this kind of preview, and almost certainly you will be nudged to side with the favorite. That’s how these previews end up. Home team won three at home in a row, the automatic assumption is that they’ll win the fourth game as well.
What these statistical previews are actually doing is misreading the statistics. It’s not very common for them to mention the stats that go against what has been said, e.g. the poor streak that happened just before these three wins in a row. Or the fact that you can’t expect a streak to continue just because it’s a streak. The key information won’t be present in that article, and you’ll be betting on teams that are doing well against teams that are not doing well. Pretty soon you’ll discover that trends can and do shift.
Real predictions
Any real prediction will have a person’s opinion behind it. You need a guy who knows a lot about these teams, who knows what makes a team win and what makes them lose, who do they perform or underperform against. This type of a punter can hold the keys to the game, he can know what it is that really matters, as opposed to throwing a lot of statistical data at you. This guy will likely contrast the two teams together and tell you how will the game look like, what does each team have to do to win and how likely it is. You can be certain that everyone would be writing this way if they knew how – but most writers will focus on statistics alone because they don’t have any real knowledge about the game to write about.
Searching for good sources
You should be searching the web a lot. Try to search from every angle, even search for some strange keywords such as “Eden Hazard player props” or “Eden Hazard predicted number of shots on goal” (which you can bet on at Bet365). You’ll inevitably stumble upon some quality sources, the authors who know what they’re writing about. It’s important to first identify these (come to realize that this author is good), and then to bookmark that author/website somehow so you can access his predictions next week without having to search for it. Sooner or later, you should have a nice group of knowledgeable people you’re following, either through websites, blogs or social media, and you’ll be able to bet more confidently as you’ll have people who are telling you what are the keys to the game.