The Tenner Bet has been flirting with a new kind of lady.
If Formula One is the supermodel of the betting world, this week's bet is more Miss Coatbridge 1986 but without the stilettos (unless, of course we're referring to the one Mrs TB keeps threatening to plunge into me). If this metaphor strikes you as somewhat odd, nay meaningless, then I suggest you go elsewhere for your betting fix, 'cause it's all downhill from here.
This week, I have been mainly poking around in the lower reaches of league football to stock up on information for a system I've been ruminating over for some time. Goalrush bets – or the Sky Soccer Saturday bet, as I prefer to call it – is more simply identified as betting on both teams to score. There is a caveat, though, chiefly that because neither you, nor I, are millionaires from betting it is difficult to predict without research. And while that admission is not exactly rocket science it is important to take into account.
In the Sky Soccer Saturday bet – the one that requires more laboriously extracted exes than a referedum voting slip – punters go in search of a winner that will pay out anything in the region of nine billion to 1 for correctly predicting 120 fixtures in any given weekend.
Fortunately, the Tenner Bet is aiming for a rather more conservative amount this weekend.
THE SYSTEM
You gotta have a system, as Vic Reeves used to say. And the system, as rudimentary as it might seem, is this: if you're looking for both teams to score then it would be a fair bet to start with the frequency with which each team manages to find the target or rather fails to score. For example, earlier this week, the Tenner Bet backed both Torquay and Yeovil to score when the side's met in the Johnstone Paints Trophy at Plainmoor.
Torquay's games-without-a goal record stood at 25% before kick-off, the very same percentage as Yeovil's. On top of this, the clean-sheet records were taken into consideration. At 8.3%, the visitors looked a certainty to concede and did so very early on; Torquay, meanwhile, have had just three shutouts in 12 games since the season began. Thus, it came as little surprise that Yeovil equalised in normal time nor that the game finished 2-2, albeit after extra-time. That said, so far, the fail-to-score stat seems to hold greater weight than that of the clean sheets.
A good example of this comes in the Irn-Bru First Division where Dumbarton, who have not kept a clean sheet this season, take on Falkirk, who possesses the same unenviable record. I'm steering clear as Dumbarton are simply miserable in front of goal, failing to register in five of their eight games to date.
THE BET
Tottenham v Chelsea looks a cert despite the latter's high clean-sheet ratio. Spurs have not failed to score in a league game this season and the fixture has been high scoring. Elsewhere, West Brom-Manchester City is a solid pick. A league below, Crystal Palace and Millwall looks the bet of the day while the stats show Preston v Sheffield United, Plymouth v Rochdale and Alloa v Ayr United are heavily weighted towards positive outcomes. The accumulator pays 18.12/1.
SEASON'S TOTAL
Well, it was an F1 bet last week as the profit of £55.06 reflects.
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