Punters Who Bet Bookings/Corners Please Reply

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

After reading that Pullein (or whatever he is called) thread it got me interested in the bookings and corners bets.

Im sure we have a good few on here who do these sort of bets so im interested in what factors affect your decisions for these bets.

Thinking on it they seem like very difficult markets to predict but maybe im looking at it from the wrong way hence why im asking for peoples thoughts here.

Any replies appreciated

[pelatis]

Kiko I have placed some booking bets earlier this year.
Factors I used was the referee card average per match (excluding his match with less cards) team average cards and the importance/rivalry of both teams.

[Monty H.]

Im a what you might call a Newbie Kiko, and only recently (since Euro quals)found Corner betting interesting.
Only do it after looking at the stats (which are surprisingly consistant) and keeping in mind the teams motivations.

Edit: Just add that Intrnational competitions are more accurate since its mostly the same players and the same system.

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

Welcome to TDP Pelatis and thanks for replying, you too Monty.

Interesting about consistency looking at corner stats as i didnt think there would be much from that point of view.

Just about to head home to bed but shall look forward to seeing whats been replied to later.

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

Originally Posted by Monty H.

Edit: Just add that Intrnational competitions are more accurate since its mostly the same players and the same system.

Im seeing already there is more than meets the eye here in terms of this style of betting and definately something im interested in now.

Great point there about International competitions although i guess these could be used with sides which will consistently play the formation.

Man Utd for example will play the same system home and away whereas a side like Bolton will differ depending on whether they are home or away and which standard of team they are playing,

[Monty H.]

Few things ive noticed. 1) teams that play away usually have less corners.
2) Red cards make a team play more defensively thus deceresing the number of corners we would expect.
3) If a team is looking for important points, they attack more and have more corners than average.
4) Even if a team usually gets a lot of corners, its more about who theyre up against and tieing against pack defence or a strong organized midfield would yield less corners.

So its really a combination of elements, but as long as there are no surprises in the form of red cards etc. its surprisingly easier to predict than 1X2 and odds are usually around 2.0.

[ONEDUNME]

Originally Posted by Monty H.

Few things ive noticed. 1) teams that play away usually have less corners.
.

Which ties in with the fact that teams that play away do not, usually, win and also are expected to attack less (as Kiko refers to when he says teams often play differently away than at home). Crudely put, a team playing with two strikers is far more likely to have possesion in the final third (and therefore more likely to force corners) than a team who are just wellying it up in the hope of hitting the big man up front.

What hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread is teams who regularly play with one or two "old fashioned winger" type players like Giggs who like to get at the fullbacks and whip the ball in are more likely to force corners than teams who don't have them.

[pydoom]

I have been betting on these markets for several years now and have made a lot of money from them, particularly spread betting, but it has been getting harder. Mainly because it has gained it popularity, which means that prices last less time and are generally tighter than, say, 18 months ago.

I am at work at the moment, but tonight or tomorrow I will put up some of my thoughts and experiences - although once I get going I do waffle on a bit - so it may be a bit lengthy.

[ONEDUNME]

Ah Mister Pydoom, I've been expecting you

Will look forward to it mate

[traeth]

i used to do corners a few years ago , i started backing Man U on the overs when they played at home and made some money , did not make much on Man U away in Europe , had a go on internationals which were much lower, so i lost mainly because i always went on the overs .
So what Pullein says was true about me at the time , the last two season i have made a bit of money betting on the unders on Everton away. I think that it is the unders market is the way to go and identifying the type of teams that play "negative" or without wingers that try to get to the line .
I have never felt confident enough to make big bets on this market .

[mullet1984]

There are certain referees who just have to flash cards

The main one being from my experience as a spurs ST holder , Mr Rennie, he just can't resist.

Get the old 365 in running up and bet cards / corners in running

[pydoom]

As I said earlier I have betting on these markets for 3 or 4 seasons now, both on the spreads and through standard fixed odds bookies, and have done very well out of them.

(Most of what I am going to write about is from a spread betting perspective, but generally the same applies to fixed odds markets as well because most of them will be using the spread markets as a guideline for their prices.)

It is definitely true to say that selling (or betting under on fixed odds) is by far the most profitable option –for the 2005/06 season I was selling corners/bookings almost 80% of the time and the 20% of buys that I did actually made a significant loss for the season. Now that could be luck, or it could be that I was better at picking the low corner games than the high ones, but mostly it is because the markets are priced up in favour of selling/going low. The only reason this is done is because the bookies expect the weight of the money will come down on the other side as most people like to bet on things happening as opposed to things not happening, if you see what I mean. People want to see goals, corners, bookings etc. and their instinct is to bet on these things to happen and if they don’t think they will happen their general instinct is not to bet at all, rather than sell/go low.

Obviously this is a mass generalisation, but it does hold true. There is another important reason why the spread quotes are mostly overloaded to the buy side, which is not relevant to fixed odds betting and that is best explained using an example.

In the bookings market the spread companies (and most of the bookies) use a system of awarding 10 pts for a yellow card and 25 pts for a red. Then, for example, they will quote 40-44 for a particular match – meaning that if you think it’s going to be a clean match you would sell @ 40 or if you think the opposite you buy @ 44.

Now, obviously the least bookings possible in a match is 0, so if you sold @ 40 your maximum possible profit is 40 pts. If, instead, you had bought @ 44 expecting a lot of cards you would now have lost 44 pts.

Now, what is the maximum number of bookings/sendings off possible – well who knows, but 100 pts is not uncommon and certainly I’ve seen 150 – the point is that you can only have a rough guess. So, if you have bought @ 44 that means your maximum profit is unknowable. However, if you have sold @ 40 then it is your maximum loss that is unknowable and that is what people do not like.

So, if you buy in these corner/booking markets you have a maximum possible loss that you can calculate easily and a possibly limitless maximum profit potential. So, you can easily choose an appropriate stake size relative to your bank. If you sell in these markets, however, you have an easy to calculate maximum profit potential and a seemingly limitless maximum possible loss. Now, it is very difficult to choose a stake size because you have no idea how much you could lose. Many people also look at the maximum profit and decide it is just not big enough.

So, the vast majority take the option with the most certainty and seemingly least risk and they buy. The spread companies obviously know this and so the quotes are almost always weighted to that side. As far as I can see you must have an overwhelmingly good reason to be on the buy side of any of these type of spread markets because they are so weighted against you. That’s not to say that you should never buy, but you must be sure beyond reasonable doubt of your reasons as there is precious little margin of error.

Of course that is all only marginally connected to this thread, but I did warn you that I would waffle. I’ll have a break now and then try and return to the point.

[pydoom]

Reading back through that I think I have been fuck all help to you Kiko, so let's have another go and I'll try not to get sidetracked

The 1st thing I look at are the stats and by stats I do not mean a simple figure for the average that has been calculated simply by dividing the total amount of corners by the number of games played This will tell you nothing at all and if you base your bets on these figures you will lose money in the long term - that approach was probably alright 3 or 4 years ago, but not anymore. At the very least you must separate the figures out into home and away because some teams are just totally different home & away - this year sheff utd had around 80% of their home games have over 11 corners, but away from home 75% of their games had under 11; aston villa were around 70% under 11 at home, but about 60% over 11 away.

Really you want to look at figure broken down into for and against, because it may be no use betting on over 11 corners in a match between 2 teams whose high corner counts are mainly because they concede shed-loads, but win very few.

I like to actually look at the figures for each match individually, because freak matches do occur which can distort the average figues and it also should be remembered that just because a team was involved in many low corner matches at the start of the season it doesn't mean that they still are playing in such a way. So, recent figures should be considered more important than those from a few months ago.

What I tend to find is that each season there are usually several teams who can be relied upon to consistently be 'over' or 'under' teams - either at home or away or sometimes both. Then there will be the majority of teams who have no real pattern and can only be relied upon to be inconsisent and just screw you about. Basically, it just a matter of being paitient and waiting till you get a match-up between 2 complimentary teams -

for example, as noted earlier sheff utd were an over team at home and this was mainly due to them winning many corners as they were only an average conceder. So, you want them to be playing a team involved in many over games away from home, which, from last season, could be watford, portsmouth or reading. Reading would have been my 1st choice of these because not only did they concede many corners away from home they, unlike the other 2, were very good corner winners on their travels as well.

As in my normal betting team news is not of great interest to me, but there are some teams for whom certain players are very important in terms of corners or bookings. Peter crouch at liverpool is one of the best examples - when he is playing they win far, far more corners. Jermaine pennant is also a big corner winner, both for liverpool and a couple of seasons ago for birmingham.

In the bookings markets certain players can be even more important deciders as to whether to bet or not. Last season fulham, for example, were quite low card earners and so were worth looking at. By halfway through the season it became clear that if either helguson or queudrue wasn't playing for them then they were an even better bet as they were accounting for a great portion of their bookings.

The most important consideration for corners bet in particular is also the hardest to decide with any certainty and that is how the match is going to play out. Nothing kills a potential overs corner bet like a goal in the 1st 10 minutes for the favoured home team - except if they get a 2nd and then you can just forget about it. Likewise, your nice under 11 corners bet is likely to be in great danger if the away underdog scores a very early goal. Looking at this season is a good example of just how important the 'match script' is.

Man Utd look like a team that are going to win many corners, with their 4-4-2 formation and 2 great wingers; arsenal are built quite differently, they have no real wingers and try and play straight through the middle of teams most of the time, so they are not going to win as many corners. Away from home this is true as man utd won more corners than any other team, but at home arsenal actually won around 30% more corners than man utd did. The reason is that while man utd generally were not pushed not hard at home very often, whilst arsenal, especially at the start of the season were constantly chasing the game and racking up some huge corner figures.

The reason that I think you have to now think in as complex terms as this is that the bookies have now tightened up their act. Up until maybe 2 years ago the corners were very fixed in their structure - all uk leagues were under/over 11 corners and all european leagues were under/over 10 corners. The only thing that would vary would be the price, but that would rarely go below 1.9 because there was not much money going down.

Now these markets have gotten more popular the bookies have responded by dropping down to under/over 10 on some of the uk games and even pushing it up to under/over 12. The same has also happened in europe with under/over 9 now not being uncommon. Plus some of the bookies are so quick to cut prices down to as low as 1.72. This has removed most of the margin for error now and you must be selective in your betting - gone are the days of being able to bet on more than half of the Premiership games in a week and win them all.

It's not all bad news, though, because this increased interest has led to new markets being offered - 1st half corners, where under 5 seems to be the industry standard which does provide a little margin of error; corner supremacy bets, which can be very profitable if you can find the right match-up between teams and probable match script; goals x corners - I think this is just a 'fluff' market, but you never know

Plus, on the really big TV games all the bookies now seem to want a share of the corner-pie and the ones who don't normally touch this market often make errors - ..cough!!..BWIN..cough!!

Actually, this season the German league provided some of the best bets - teams to keep an eye on are schalke & werder bremen for over 10 corners at home - especially schalke who concede almost as many as they win.

For under 10 corners at home look no further than arminia bielefeld who only won an average of just over 4 corners per game and were very tight defensively as well - at least in terms of corners.

Then there is also the new offsides market that Skybet have experimented with at the end of this season - maybe that's where the next lot of money is to be made

[pelatis]

As for me I had used a stats program (leaguepad) that helped me a lot in finding the games with many bookings. However it was clear really soon that apart from some teams that had lots of bookings in many matches, it was more or less a bet having to do with the referee. Some refs never awarded more than 5 cards in their matches as a rule of the thumb even though they should have, while others had a tendency to use more cards.

My problem was that a program like leaguepad had its league data from user contributions, who in some leagues never collected any bookings. Since bets like that rely in stats, I'd like to know whether any other programs with league stats exist and if anyone employs any of them.

Copying from my blog:

OFI Crete - Kerkyra (Corfu) +2.4 Sunday, March 11th, 2007
Pick: Over 5.5 bookings Result: Not registered
Stake: 3/10 Odds: 1.80


OFI and Kerkyra are the two top teams in bookings.
They have an average of 3.33 and 3.41 bookings per game respectively.

Referee Skoufitsas has an average of 5.6 cards per game.
Their first round match had only 4 cards, however referee Gaitatzis is not a strict referee (average only 3 cards per game).

[Monty H.]

Downloaded the freeware ver of this program, but after your post pelatis, relying on other users is not something im prepared to pay the amount theyre asking..
Howcome theres no reliable source like FA's posting this data? like Mastercard for the CL ..?

Edit: aint it posible to use those files in excel, access or SQL ?