THE FORM LAB 2.5 GOAL STRATEGY

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1 Welcome to the Form Lab 2.5 Goals Strategy Guide. THE FORM LAB 2.5 GOAL STRATEGY This guide outlines a simple way to quickly find profitable bets using the Game Notes available in all levels of Football Form Lab subscriptions. This simple strategy could have made you a level stakes total of points over 894 bets in major football leagues in the last two football seasons. At 25 per bet, this is a profit of over 2,000 before you apply any discretionary analysis of your own. New users can get started with a 28 day free trial of Form Lab Lite today. Table of contents: Form Lab s Powerful Game Notes... 2 Over/ Under 2.5 Goals... 4 Game Notes To Edge Your 2.5 Goal Bets /2011 Game Note Profits /2012 Game Note Profits... 7 Let Form Settle Increase Profits... 8 Further Improving The 2.5 Goal Strategy Performance... 9 Getting Started Get started with a 28 day free trial of Form Lab Lite today. P a g e 1

2 FORM LAB S POWERFUL GAME NOTES Form Lab s game notes use an algorithm to scan the team trends for any relevant betting ideas. This is an excellent shortcut to finding betting ideas for those without enough time to do their own research or for it to be used as a starting point for your own ideas. For example, the game note for Fulham vs Man City highlights the over 2.5 goals market as a good betting idea. Bet Idea: Over 2.5 match The bookies give odds of 1.92 on there being over 2.5 goals in the match. The game indeed ended with over 2.5 goals, landing a points profit on the game. Two ways to access Form Lab s Game Notes: There are two ways to find Game Note ideas as follows: 1) Use the Game Notes tab. The quickest way to find game notes that highlight 2.5 goal opportunities is to click on the Game Notes tab at the top of the page and either search for the League that interests you, or search specifically for +2.5/-2.5 goals. Here s how to find ideas via the Leagues tab. P a g e 2

3 Here s how to find ideas using the Markets tab 2) Use the Match Data Tab Another way to find Game Notes is to use the Match Data tab. You ll find the Game Notes in the bottom middle tab. P a g e 3

4 We suggest you use the Game Notes tab first then use the Match Data tab to help fine tune your selections. OVER/ UNDER 2.5 GOALS The over/ under 2.5 goal market is an particularly strong market for form lab. This is an ever popular betting medium is betting as in certain matches, it can be easier to predict the number of goals rather than the match outcome. For example at certain times of the season, in a tight relegation dog fight, the result could go either way, but goals (or lack of) could be a better focus for your betting. The main goals market you will most likely be using will be Over/Under 2.5 goals. This sometimes confuses people who are new to football betting as there is obviously no such thing as half a goal! So why is 2.5 goals is used? It s so bookmakers can offer the bet on a single line. In reality with 2.5 goals betting, you are betting on there being over 2 goals or under 3 goals. By referring to 2.5, you have everything on a single line as three is above 2.5 and 2 is below 2.5. Basically, if you back over, then you need three goals to win, if you back under, then you want no more than two goals. GAME NOTES TO EDGE YOUR 2.5 GOAL BETS P a g e 4

5 When it comes to goal betting trends, different leagues have their own characteristics. For example France had 57% of games go under 2.50 in the 2010/2011 season, while Germany had just 44% of games go under. The Premier League is emerging as a strong over 2.50 goal market as well. Form Lab not only helps you identify these trends, it also helps you beat them. The table below shows the main European leagues and their over/ under 2.5 goal betting trends for the 2010/2011 season. The league average shows the bias in that league for games being over 2.5 goals or under. For example, the premiership had 54% of games go over 2.5 goals in 2010/2011 season. The Note Correct column refers to the accuracy of the betting notes with the final column showing you whether the game notes beat the league avera ge. You can see that in all but two leagues, the game notes were more accurate than the league average. In the Premier League, games ended with +2.5 goals 69% of the time when it was highlighted in a game note versus the general league average of 54% of games going /2011 GAME NOTE PROFITS You might wonder whether this out performance actually translates into betting profits. It s all very well spotting games that are more likely to go +2.5, but if the bookies are already pricing this in with their odds, you re not going to make a profit. Thankfully in the 2010/2012 season, Form Lab s game notes not only beat the league average, they also pulled in a healthy profit. P a g e 5

6 ROI = Return On Investment Your profit divided by the total amount staked. These returns are based on the best available price only with recognised, respectable bookmakers at kick off. We did not have the odds for France s League 1 for the 2010/2011 season. Not every league is profitable, but a decent profit is made overall acro ss the leagues. Observing the distribution of results, one key trend to notice is that the best results tend to come when you bet only in the direction of the general bias for that league. For example, the Italian Serie A historically has more games going -2.5 goals so it makes sense to not fight the trend and bet only on -2.5 goals for that league. We have gone back more than one season to identify these trends, but the main biases are as follows: Serie A: -2.5 goals. La Liga: No strong overall bias. Premiership: No strong historical bias (but +2.5 goals increasing). Bundesliga: +2.5 goals. Now let s look at the results if we bet only in the direction of a historical bias if there is one: P a g e 6

7 We are able to increase the total profit by making less bets. The total profit is points from 486 bets, which represents an ROI of 10%, or 10 profit for every 100 you put at risk. At just 25 per bet this could have returned 1, over the course of the 201 0/2011 season. This offers an excellent rate of return and this is before you improve performance further with optional additional analysis. 2011/2012 GAME NOTE PROFITS The 2.5 Game Note system continued to make a profit in the 2011/2012 season, thanks especially to the inclusion of France s Ligue 1, which was missed in 2010/2011 due to data not being available. First, here are the returns for all Game Notes in 2011/2012: We have a return of points profit, giving an ROI of 4.73% which is good considering the highly competitive bookmaker pricing in these markets. Now let s look at the returns if only betting in line with the league s historical bias: P a g e 7

8 The points profit increases to 29.18, giving you an ROI of 5.72%. In the 2011/2012 season, this filter provided only a margin uplift, but results were still improved nonetheless. At the very least, this shows how the Game Notes provide you with a solid short cut for your betting ideas. LET FORM SETTLE INCREASE PROFITS The early part of any season can see some strange results as players regain their match fitness and managers struggle to imbed new systems. For the Daily Report recommendations that are part of the Form Lab Black subscription, we avoid the use of Game Note inputs until we can see some clear trends in both home and away form. The cut off point is usually the start of October and applying this to the Game Note system has an immediate impact on results as the following table for the 2011/2012 season from October only shows: P a g e 8

9 If we apply the league bias filter, we can improve results further as follows: Although you might be tempted to jump in at the start of the season, the implication is that you would be better off waiting for the form to settle down on the big five leagues and instead focus on the summer leagues of Scandinavia and the Americas which will be more stable at that point. FURTHER IMPROVING THE 2.5 GOAL STRATEGY PERFORMANCE Letting early season form settle is perhaps the simplest way to increase the performance of the Game Note strategy, but there are other ways to increase your potential profits. Form Lab s Game Notes automatically summarise the best trends for you, but you can easily increase performance by performing some additional analysis of your own. A key filter might be to check the consistency of any betting trends which might give you further confidence in a bet. The game note below highlighted a strong chance of +2.5 goals in the Swansea vs Bolton match on the 29 th. P a g e 9

10 You could double check this trend by looking at the match goals form table under the match data tab. We can see that Bolton have the most games going +2.5 goals in the last 20, but also that the trend his highly consistent, making this a strong bet. Team News P a g e 10

11 If you are a subscriber to Form Lab Black, you can benefit from the player analysis and daily reports which help you determine if any key players are missing that might upset any betting ideas. For example, if there was a game note hinting at there being +2.5 goals in the Monechengladbach vs Hannover game on the 29 th, you might have been interested, but finding yourself needing more reassurance with the best odds being just This reassurance might have come in the daily reports which highlighted that Hannover are less likely to keep a clean sheet when defender Steven Cherundolo is absent. GETTING STARTED Whether you follow the 2.5 goal game notes blindly or apply your own additional analysis (recommended), we we re confident that the Form Lab 2.5 Goal Strategy will provide you with a solid platform for betting profits. Remember the Game Notes are really just the start of what Form Lab has to offer, with key trends, pre match queries and other powerful tools at your finger tips. In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to upgrade your subscription, please feel free to contact us at support@footballformlabs.com Get started with a 28 day free trial of Form Lab Lite today. P a g e 11