Favourites given a big handicap

[matahari]

I've noticed recently that in a high percentage of games where a huge handicap (2 goals or above) is given on the favourite, it fails to beat it. Coincidentally or not, the games where clear favourites (three-way odds from 1.05 to 1.2) won by more than 2 goals almost never were offered on asian handicap. Is this a trend or not, remains to be seen, I wonder if someone has a serious stats backup ?
Also the number of such games (with AH 2 and above) on offer seems to be rising, and it looks like the bulk of the cash books attract, goes on favourite. This could be the reason why more and more games like these are offered, because following a typical square thought it goes "the odds on fav are too short, but if there's a handicap I'll grab it".
The last paragraph is a totally subjective thought by me, but again I'd like to see some stats.

Any ideas ?

 

[acw]

Moderators,

Please move this thread to the NBA forum!

matahari,

As you may understand there are anyhow very few of these type of matches a year. And Macauslot for a long time never posted them. Not when Hong Kong was playing against Real Madrid, neither when the Macau football team itself would play in Macau.
Recently Indosoccer started posting whatever League match you can think of and it seems as if Macau is taking this over, so you may start to find a few more, however if you like betting on these big handicaps, I think you are still better of betting on the NBA. You will find plenty.
None the less I did have a quick look for you at Macauslot's matches for the past two years I found less than 100 matches where one team was giving at least 2 goals. Way too few to make any statement, but already on those few matches there is no bias!

 

[JackDee]

i don't have any stats on this one so i ll just offer my limited and subjective personal experience here. I see the trend of the favourite to not cover a high goal handicap mostly in national teams competitions, where the betting public seems to overestimate the big names, such as england say, and where your typical square thought "the odds on fav are too short, but if there's a handicap I'll grab it" does apply. However i ve noticed that certain teams do cover more often than not and others dont, there is a tendency in the team that is, so it's wiser to judge the particular game and teams. I ve also noticed that in some leagues such as the premiership a anything from 1 upwards is a big handicap to cover, and usually the fav doesn't, whilst in other leagues as my local one (where books it seems have this year unfortunately caught wise and have stopped posting real handicaps for 1.2 favs.) a very strong fav. usually covers, same in holland with ajax and psv. Still, trends are meaningless if you cant get the right angle on the particularities of a game, and most squares dont.

 

[matahari]

acw,

In fact I do remember Macau offer all the 4 matches of Madrid in their Asian tour, in the first two they beat the handicap, in the last two they didn't, I maybe wrong with the order.

If you say that the number of such games on offer is rising then maybe we're in an intermediate period, where no conclusions can be made. However, just an example: why is England-Liechtenstein on offer and Sweden-San Marino not ? I know they love England in Asia, but is this the only reason ? And don't tell me the book expects the same volume on Liechtenstein than on England.

On the few occasions I did have bet on such a big handicap it went on the underdog, and I have no reason to regret that. Is this a trend ? Too few events to draw conclusions...


Jack,

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>
However i ve noticed that certain teams do cover more often than not and others dont, there is a tendency in the team that is, so it's wiser to judge the particular game and teams. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You noticed that, I noticed that, why the books wouldn't notice that ?

 

[JackDee]

because the average square joe doesn't, hence the books give him the proverbial ride. By cropping down goals for teams they feel would be liable to not cover would only sway square money against betting such teams, on the other hand if they issue some big fat -2 goals on a team, the betting public is prone to bet the fav. The books are taking shots as per usual, and the public is more often than not following along.

 

[acw]

I see the trend of the favourite to not cover a high goal handicap mostly in national teams competitions
Nice go, Jack!

Yesterday we had:
Russia -2
Greece -2
Spain -2
Belgium -2
Holland -2.5
France -2
Italy -2.75

Results:
Russia 3-1
Spain 4-0
Belgium 2-0
Holland 5-0
France 3-0
Italy 4-0

How much did you pay your own country (Greece 1-0) to leave it at only a one goal victory?
Do not tell me that they could not have won by more goals!

 

[matahari]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Do not tell me that they could not have won by more goals!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Why not ? However can't see how meaningful this "could" is...
Anyway, I don't like Euro qualifiers, the juicy one today was a friendly: Macedonia, a -1.25 handicap was a gift when Ukraine have never ever won by more than 1 goal in friendlies.

 

[JackDee]

yesterday was unlike other days in euro qualifications and good teams covered the large goal handicap. With the exception of france, and to some extent Spain (when thy do manage to actually win), neither holland, nor italy, have won and covered in their previous games. In the games you posted the covered/not covered/push ratio would be 4:1:2, and with the addition of Norway not covering over Luxembourg, that would be 4:2:2 which seems good enough as negation of what i said, but bear in mind that a few other factors apply here to, namely, that it's the end of the qualification season and most of the punching bag weak teams are both worn out and have not much to strive for and that the strong teams are willing to put in a good, conveincing performance for a clear, and in most of the cases here celebratory wins in front of the home fans, as all favourites (except one) where playing at home. But, like i said, most importantly the weak teams were both demoralised and had nothing to play for.

As for my home team, of course they could have, but that's not worth much, but considering how stressed they were in front of this historical opportunity to qualify over spain for the first time in 20 something years, and also how counter football defensive n. ireland is, i did put something down on the 1-0 exact score, for a good profit. You got one very important game to seal victory, a team such as the greek one that scores 1 or 2 goals a game and have accepted neil over their past 5 games, and another such as n. ireland that almost never attack and play with something like a 10-0-0 formation in every game, i doesn't take a genius to bet the 1-0.

 

[SkyMasterson+]

You can't use yesterdays games as a good example as some of the teams needed to win to qualify and in other cases some of the teams that got beaten were already out etc. I believe that matahari has the bones of something profitable here but only in run of the mill league encounters. Cup games etc are slightly different.

 

[acw]

neither holland, nor italy, have won and covered in their previous games.
What?! Holland did not win and cover?
Holland -2 vs Belarus 3-0
Holland -2 vs Austria 3-1
So them giving 2.5 goals to Moldova was it
such a big surprise that they would cover?
And Italy simply did not play any match giving at least 2 goals previous to their last match against Azerbaijan, though they may have been giving 2 goals away. That match was not with many books, but then still they won that match by 2 goals.

Honestly I think this whole conversation remains kind of useless, because there are simply not enough matches having a 2+ handicap, but even given the limited no. of matches, then from what has been posted so far is even untrue.

I will be honest enough to say that I have not discovered any biases in the Asian handicaps created by the books! And Jack I truly do not believe because the average square joe doesn't, hence the books give him the proverbial ride. By cropping down goals for teams they feel would be liable to not cover would only sway square money against betting such teams, on the other hand if they issue some big fat -2 goals on a team, the betting public is prone to bet the fav. The books are taking shots as per usual, and the public is more often than not following along.
Personally and I posted about that already in my thread Fighting for the favourites I think the complete opposite is happening these days even for the 2+ handicaps. Here in Asia even the average square is not that stupid. I know this guy that bets on the favourite 95% of the time, but he did not bet on Holland. He said:"2.5 goals is too much. There is no need for them to win at all, so why should I bet on them". And he was not alone! In Macau Moldova opened at Even Money getting the 2.5 goals. They came close to only getting 2/2.5 goals.

 

[Antonioli]

i think the +2 -2 handicap happened twice in the EPL this season, one was with Man Utd, the other was Chelsea, i forgot whether they covered or not~ Real Madrid is the only team i can remember, it was last week, they let in a last min goal but win 2-1. Afterall, +2 -2 is such a tricky line for the top 3 leagues, the Favourites usually are the top 10 teams in europe, they are just 50/50 with no obvious trends.

 

[JackDee]

"Here in Asia even the average square is not that stupid. I know this guy that bets on the favourite 95% of the time"

isn't betting illegal in asia, or most of asia? If it is so, then i guess the average square, may not be that square to take the bet and risk some heavy asian style punishment, as the europian betting junkie who ll pop around his local betting shop after buying a couple of cold ones and bet and lose "recreationally", but i could be completely wrong here...As i could be wrong with square behaviour too. All i know, with no stats to back it up, is that big national team favourites, in the past few years, is most of the time a losing bet, be that with -1 or -1.5 on the handicap or in their moneyline.

 

[acw]

Jack,

Sorry for the late reply! I have been kind of busy lately and wanted to give a serious reply for which I have just taken some time.

Regarding the legality of betting in Asia let me tell you about Indonesia. As you may know Indonesia was colonised by the Dutch for some 400 years, which is not really true, but Indonesians like to say this in order to blame others for their failure in growing up themselves. When the Dutch officially left in 1949, they kept the Dutch law and have ever since been too lazy to translate it into their own language. This explains why Indonesian law students still have to learn Dutch. This is a true story! But does the law have any meaning in Indonesia? Recently they ranked 5th on the list of most corrupt countries in the world. And believe me everyone participates in it! Smaller squares included. Basically anything can be done, as long as you have money.
The Indonesian capital, Jakarta, has its time at GMT+7, which is a bit odd, since Singapore, Hong Kong and even Bali are all at GMT+8. More logical will be Jakarta at GMT+8 too. Years ago there were talks suggesting a time change, but former Indonesian president Suharto rejected this. The reason was that on Saturdays he did not want to wait an hour longer for the EPL to kick-off. Dinner finishes by 8pm. Waiting another two hours was too much for him, so Jakarta is still at GMT+7. This is also true.
Even more true is that some ten years ago Suharto got a little bit fed up with the Dutch minister for development (Pronk) complaining about his human rights policy. During his 30 years in power Suharto had stolen enough money by that time, so he did not need the Dutch development money anymore. He wanted to get rid of it. Knowing that the Dutch are very stingy he knew too that he should not allow them to get rid of him easily, so he did ask something in return for his rejection of Dutch development money and that was that the Dutch football matches would be broadcasted free of charge to Indonesia. Yes, those Indonesians are totally crazy about the game and do like to have a bet on it! It is a big shame that Indonesia with its 200 million habitants still does not have a decent national team. A friend of mine just started a football school, so lets hope this will change in the near future. Anyhow so for years Dutch football was on Indonesian TV. Not anymore. Things are going a bit downhill these days. Megawati, the current (female) president, likes Italians. I do not why. But on a Sunday evening there are three Serie A matches on local TV?!?!!? The EPL has been pushed to the cable providers. Nightlife in Jakarta is going downhill too and most recently there will be a new visa policy to enter Indonesia, which pushes me out!

Getting back to the subject of this thread for tonight’s match between Real and Partizan. Real gives 2/2.5. Which side will it be?

And Jack,
Did you know that there are guys that have no sense of humour and they are not American? True story!

 

[Dr.Strangelove]

acw, that is quite funny yet pretty educational post

Excellent question about Real –2.25 - anyone care to answer?

 

[SkyMasterson+]

Okay I will chip in with a selection here even though I normally don't. I have bet madrid -2,-2.5 at 2.00. I have never ever layed such a high handicap but I believe that Madrid should not be treated as a normal team. This team has so many superstars that only one competition matters to them and this is it. La Liga is a side issue that is nice to win but a little boring and I believe they only really get motivated for these ties and if they win tonight (probably their easiest game) they are almost guranteed a spot in the next phase. They are at full strength whilst their opponents are defintiely missing Kralj and Ivic and there are doubts about Nadj and West. Added to this they are pretty much out of the competition now. Seems worth laying the goals to me

 

[matahari]

The last time Madrid had such a handicap in CL it was against Lokomotiv last season (2-2). Not saying it has high chances to repeat itself, but as these are so rare occasions, one cannot draw enough statistical conclusions.
Personally I think that the handicap is just a correct one, should it be -2 I'd probably be on Madrid, should it be -2.5 then I'd be on Partizan, but this one is sharp enough to stay away.
Partizan is a team that don't know how to defend, the only thing they know is attacking, and the easiest preys for Madrid are the teams that come to Bernabeu to defend, the ones that come to attack have a fair chance of getting something from the game.

 

[JackDee]

acw, good read.

the real madrid is a no bet for me too, no edge either way, although if someone put a gun on my head and asked me to choose, i d take madrid, but fortunately i don't have to.

 

[acw]

matahari,

You just came up in my mind!
In Macau Glascow Rangers is giving 2.5 goals to Dundee United. I could not believe my eyes, when I saw the handicap this big on the match, but then (after I bet) I saw that I mixed up Dundee with Dundee United! Grrrrr!

 

[matahari]

acw,

See, the public also follows my advices, Dundee Utd are already 1.875 from 2.025. Now, talking about weak lines, how do you like Livingston +1.5 at 2.30 ? Sorry for not telling about this on time, had to take it quick.

 

[acw]

Now, talking about weak lines, how do you like Livingston +1.5 at 2.30 ?
I find it hard to judge these matches with big differences in team strength, as I do have an opinion, but discovered that there are quite a few biases to deal with too, which I have not bottomed out (yet).