Kevin Pullein: should you bet on things that you have never bet on before?

So you are a football bettor thinking at this unusual time of betting on a competition you have never bet on before. Should you? And if so, how should you?

The right answer to the first question depends on the reason you give. Essentially, you should bet if you think you can get an edge.

If one of my colleagues has studied a fixture, written a preview and given a tip, you are right to think it could represent value for money. This is a good reason. You might have grounds for thinking you can come up with a different angle of your own. This is also a good reason, so long as you have good grounds.

If you can find your own edge now you will kick yourself that you did not find it before. It probably would have lasted longer before.

In normal circumstances you are more likely to uncover a value-for-money betting strategy on a low-profile event than on a high-profile event. Because nearly everybody prefers to bet on high-profile events, so bookmakers give most of their attention to them.

Events that in the past would have attracted little interest will now attract at least a bit more interest. Because now they are the only events.

And where might you locate an edge? Ask yourself what the obvious bets are. How are most people who do bet going to bet? The odds for those things are the ones that are least likely to be in your favour. Consider in greater depth the alternatives. Usually it is better to be cheering an outcome bookmakers will also be cheering.

Academics writing about betting say the art of bookmaking is moving the odds to balance liabilities in a way that ensures a profit whatever the outcome.

That is how bookmaking is supposed to work in theory. It might be how bookmakers would like their business to work in practice. But most of the time it is not how their business does work in practice.

In almost every market on almost every event there is one outcome on which almost everybody is going to bet, whatever the odds. If that outcome occurs bookmakers lose money on the market.

But over time they win a lot of money. So those popular outcomes must occur a lot less often than the odds imply. They must represent especially bad value for money. Sometimes, though only sometimes, others will represent good value for money.

Ideally you should have records going back many seasons. Establish what happened in previous seasons and what has happened this season. Has this season been unusual in any way, for one team in particular or the competition in general? And if it has, is there a reason? Answering this question, admittedly, could be hard.

But if you are satisfied there is no good reason there might be value for money in betting on a return to something closer to normality. Again, the opposite of what other bettors will do.

The best way to bet on low-profile events is the same as the best way to bet on high-profile events. Selectively do the opposite to everybody else.

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