How to Select 3 Draws Or 5 Aways in Football Betting – The Final Steps
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The British Treble Chance is the game of picking winning lines of 8 score draws from a list of 49 matches on a coupon. Some punters prefer to lay stakes on, for example, 3 draws or 5 aways. This article briefly outlines how the most likely candidate draws or aways can be identified from a ranked match list.
Ranked List
In an earlier article I wrote about how to prepare a list of match assessments. This is a list of the matches on the coupon, with a numerical assessment against each one. The numerical assessment is just a number which reflects the probability of the match being a home win, a draw or an away win.
We then sort this list in order of ascending probability (match rating is the term I use). Those with the lowest match rating I mark as aways, and those at the other end I mark as homes. The matches with the mid range assessments I mark as reasonably draws.
Now, with 49 matches on a coupon, knowing where to draw the line 'between away / draw / home probabilities is a key decision.
Analysis of recent coupon results shows that approximately 45% of matches were home wins over the season, with 26% being aways and 27% score or non-score draws.
Picking our Candidates
Now, on the face of it, this would suggest that we just divide up our ranked match evaluations in line with these numbers. But, we do know that not everything goes to form, we get some surprise results and even some matches which look like certain home wins can end up with away results. Also of course, no forecasting system is perfect even if all results came out in line with team form.
So, the borders between home / draw / away are not clear and we need to cast our net more wider and cover more matches (in the treble chance). For 3 draw or 5 away forecasts though, the problem is tougher – we have to pay much more attention to individual matches, team changes, injuries and other factors.
The 3 draws we need will lie somewhere in the list of 20 potential drawings we have selected. So, how do we find them. We do not! We simply set our coverage so that we are 'perming' any 3 from 20. Now that's a lot of lines – 1140 separate bets in fact. Even at 20 pence a line that's over £ 200 in total, way too much for most punters. And of course the odds from the bookie may not cover this. If we are looking for, say a 3 to 1 return (£ 600), then we would need fixed odds of 3000/1.
Trim the List
One way we can make this work is to trim the number of lines – that is, reduce the coverage. So, we would need to shorten the list to say 12 selections. Any 3 from 12 would be 220 lines – about £ 40 at 20 pence a line, and we would need fixed odds of 600/1 for a target return of 3 to 1 (£ 120).
To shorten the list would mean eliminating selections – this is done by analysis in detail of the matches and teams, or simply by taking the higher / lower rated matches off the ranked list, some from the Home Win end, and some from the Away win end, and in proportion to the usual results percentages (45% homes, 26% aways). This is, roughly, 6 homes and 2 aways removed to reduce the coverage from 20 matches to 12 matches.
It may be difficult to find an online cookie who offers such bets, and you may need to place such a bet in person at the cookie's premises.
(c) 2010 Phil Marks