There are a few betting strategies I use to make profits from football, but in this article I shall concentrate on one market that I do a lot of research on, the bookings market. This market is generally offered for all the live matches on TV only, but nevertheless there are still a few good betting opportunities to be found every week.
I use Betfair to place bets on this particular market. Their market is based on three possible outcomes;
5 points and under
6-8 points
9 points and over
where a yellow card is worth 2 points and a red card is worth 5 points.
The selection I always look to oppose and therefore lay is the 5 points and under. Therefore I want to find matches where there will be at least 3 yellow cards, or 1 red card only to win my bet. This is actually remarkably easy to do, as there is so much diving and cheating in the game these days that few matches nowadays end up with fewer than 3 bookings. Those that do are usually easy to predict because they are between 2 well-disciplined teams or teams with nothing much to play for.
Despite this the prices are still very generous from a layer’s point of view, and in my opinion do not yet reflect the true odds in a lot of cases. I usually find 1-2 matches each week where this is the case, and most of the prices layed are around 4. This means that you need around about a 75% success rate at this price in order to make constant profits, yet I’ve found this to be quite easy to achieve. In fact I once went 17 successful matches without losing on this particular selection.
The trick is to use statistics and team news information to find potential candidates for this type of bet. Firstly you should look at who the referee is, and take a look at how strict they are from a referee league table. Secondly you should look at a fair play league table and see where the two teams rate in terms of discipline. You should also look at the team line-ups when they are announced. This will tell you some important information such as whether the tough-tackling centre-backs/midfielders are playing, for example, or whether the skillful players who draw fouls are playing. Finally look at how much the match between the two sides means, for example, a match between two mid-table sides who have nothing much to play for is likely to have less bookings than a relegation dogfight or a serious title race match-up.
Armed with all this information you should find it quite easy to identify matches where it is highly unlikely, and therefore the odds are in your favour that the match in question will finish with fewer than 3 bookings.
This is just one strategy I use to make money from football betting. To get more information on this strategy plus a number of other betting strategies, please visit the site listed in my resource box.
Jim Buccini is a former full-time Betfair trader who has produced a website detailing proven profit-generating tips and strategies. For more information visit: