While the bookies constantly improve their soccer prediction methods and try and avoid paying out, we can still find holes within their predictions. The question is how. There’s no one million-dollar answer. Even so, you’ll find two ways that may make it possible for you to beat the bookies. A proven way is to analyze non-measurable match information. Yet another way is to improve on statistical prediction models employed by bookmakers.
The very first method requires you to analyze data for example match type or priority, which is not utilized in statistical models. Among-the most prominent factors that may influence the outcome of a soccer match are:
Match priority. Each team has to define its priority for the forthcoming matches, since team resources are limited. European national cups are good examples for the very best teams of low priority games.
Match time is essential, since soccer predictions are usually inaccurate at the beginning and by the end of the season.
Players’ injuries, illnesses and transfers especially in the cases of key players. Bookmakers’ odds tend to be calculated before this data is accessible.
European Leagues – predictable and unpredictable. The Italian, Norwegian, French and Spanish leagues will be considered predictable. The unpredictable are the English and German leagues, especially at the beginning and also the end of the season.
Other reasons are pitch conditions, team managers, match attendance, weather conditions and, bear in mind, pure chance.
To analyze all that information for every match would be a complicated and time-consuming task. The alternative is to use advanced statistical prediction methods, which constitute an improvement on bookies’ prediction models.
Why can their models be further improved? Foremost, when analyzing bookies’ predictions carefully, it’s easy to notice that their models are determined by average statistics. Low odds usually correspond to teams with good table positions and vice versa. It is clear that the precision of their models suffers when team skills change. Thus, by taking into consideration team skill dynamics, you can enhance your profit by placing a bet on highly priced underdogs.
Second, the bookmakers’ models do not distinguish between the attacking and defensive strengths of soccer teams and don’t remember the fact that soccer teams choose different strategies when playing at home or away. When you discover ways to distinguish between attacking and defensive strengths, you can readily forecast the total number of goals and beat the bookies at under/over bets.
Statistical models which were developed over the past couple of years explain historical match results with regard to changing skills and strategy. Bookmakers don’t use such advanced models. Properly designed and optimized time-dependent models can predict just as much as 70% of matches, outperforming the bookies’ predictions whose accuracy is much lower.