Eighty One Combinations
Eighty One Combinations
If you read my previous article, you will have seen a piece on English Premier League clean sheets and how they can help you make data driven choices in regard to your midweek accumulators – something that has hopefully lead you on the way to beating the bookmakers.
However in this article, I am going to move north of the border and turn my attention to the Scottish Premiership, while in doing so I am going to see if the dominance of two certain teams can help me land a midweek six-fold.
With 12 teams in the Scottish Premiership it means that there are 6 matches in any given gameweek and that means there are 729 different combinations when it comes to trying to pick out a six-fold accumulator.
Although what if there was a way to shorten the amount of combinations available and therefore give us a much better chance of winning a very healthy return? Can it be done, well it can if you have two dominant teams in the division.
GLASGOW PAIR
For this method it almost needs a two step activiation and a lot of faith in both Rangers and Celitc for the bet to get over the line. Then again, with the way these two teams have been head and shoulders above the rest of the competition, this might not be a big a leap of faith as first thought.
Let’s say that Rangers and Celtic are already winners and are automatically on our midweek coupon, that means the amount of combinations available is cut dramatically to 81, which in turn gives us a much better chance of winning a six-fold.
Now we just have to pick four different outcomes instead instead of six – giving us a 1 in 81 chance of winning. Or perhaps we give ourselves a slightly better chance of doing so, because we are going to bet a lot of these combinations.
56 to be precise and why 56, because that is the amount of combinations that hit the odds threshold for this upcoming gamweek. However, from here we are not looking for the shortest odds but the largest odds and the reason for this is that the league is highly volatile in terms of results.
With Rangers and Celtic pulling clear, it means that the other 10 teams (8 excluding the Glasgow duo’s opposition) can quite easily take points off of each other and therefore backing the four favourites might be a fruitless pursuit.
Therefore with the likelihood that at least one of the remaining four results will go against the grain, it makes more sense to back the combinations that are higher up the scale in terms of mapping out the potential winnings for each of the 81 available combinations.
With 10p bets on 56 separate lines, it means that just over 66% of the available combinations are winners (if Rangers and Celtic unlock that level) and they all will retutn more than the £5.60 initial outlay.
This means that the odds could be 586/1 or they could be 92/1 or anything in between – so sizeable odds but remember we have hedged our bets to give ourselves as much combination coverage as possible
WHERE CAN IT GO WRONG?
Of course no method is foolproof and there are a couple of traps along the way.
Rangers and Celtic fail to both win – bust
Rangers and Celtic win but it lands in the remaining 25 combinations – bust
But with us not just picking a straight six fold and hoping for the best, it does at least give us a ‘better’ chance of scooping a win and ultimately it comes down to the absolute dominance of the two Glasgow giants.
By assuming they will win each week, 648 combinations have been removed and trying to pick a six-fold becomes that little easier. That is if both Rangers and Celtic get over the line later this evening, fingers crossed they will.
Happy punting and thanks for reading. Dan
If this has grabbed your interest and you would like to discuss/feedback then please feel free to drop me a message at dan@realfootballman.com. While I am always looking for new football/data projects to work on and if you feel that my skills would be of use, I can be contacted at the same address.
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