Fink Tank Value System Update: Big Winners landed

It’s been an interesting festive period to say the least with the big teams  appearing to join Wayne Rooney in focusing more on the festive cheer than their hard working opponents.

Most of the top teams were over turned in the festive/ new year period with last night’s Man U defeat the icing on the cake. It’s been a bad period for Alex Ferguson, but the Fink Tank value system has had a cracking time. Here are some of the bets it picked out recently:

  • Villa to beat Chelsea away at 14.8.
  • Blackburn to beat Man U away at 21.0
  • Sunderland to beat Man City at home at 7.0
  • Fulham to beat Arsenal at 4.33
  • Bolton to beat Everton away at 7.5
  • Newcastle to beat Man U at home at 5.5

Continue reading

Champions league value bets: Man City over priced at Villarreal

Value bets for the group stages:

Using the Fink Tank/ Dectech ratings we can also hunt out some value bets the upcoming group stage matches. We tested the Fink Tank ratings on the EPL last season using a value betting approach and found some very positive results. Click here for a summary of the results and an outline of how we identified a value bet from the ratings.

Essentially if the ratings imply a better chance that the bookie odds are implying, you take the bet. If the ratings give a team a 40% chance of winning and the bookies are implying just a 30% chance, then you have a value bet. It may not be the most likely winner, but if you buy enough things at under market value, eventually the profits will emerge through the short term noise.

Here’s what the ratings threw up in the last round of Champions League games. 

Results so far: 
The ratings have flagged up lots of value in the underdogs, but so far, the ratings haven’t landed any major shocks.
Bets: 45
Profit/ loss: -17.75 points
Tuesday’s games:  
First up, here are the English team’s chances tonight according to the Dectech ratings:
  • Villarreal vs Man City: Man City 51.6% Chance. No value with City.
  • Man U vs Otelul: Man U 87.2% chance. No value with Man U.
  • Arsenal vs Marseille: Arsenal 56.1% chance. No value in Arsenal.
  • Genk vs Chelsea: Chelsea 71% chance. No value with Chelsea.
The English clubs are all likely winners but the bookies are offering no value according to the ratings. Continue reading

Champions League Value Bets: Value In the Gunners At Marseille

Value bets for the group stages:

Using the Fink Tank/ Dectech ratings we can also hunt out some value bets the upcoming group stage matches. We tested the Fink Tank ratings on the EPL last season using a value betting approach and found some very positive results. Click here for a summary of the results and an outline of how we identified a value bet from the ratings.

Essentially if the ratings imply a better chance that the bookie odds are implying, you take the bet. If the ratings give a team a 40% chance of winning and the bookies are implying just a 30% chance, then you have a value bet. It may not be the most likely winner, but if you buy enough things at under market value, eventually the profits will emerge through the short term noise.

Here’s what the ratings threw up in the last round of Champions League games. 

Results so far: 
Results have not been good so far with the last round of matches being a virtual wipe out. Most of the bets have been 4.57 so the ratings are clearly finding more value in the underdog so far. The trouble is that the underdog is yet to properly bite. Continue reading

Champions League Value Bets: Can Anyone Beat Barca?

In last year’s Champions League final, Barcelona gave Manchester United a lesson in how to play football. As good as United were, Barca were just untouchable.

As the 2011/2012 builds momentum, there is a lot of talk about how United have learned from that game at Wembley. But can they do it this time or are the Catalans just too strong?

Likely winner & value bets

To help us determine this, the guys at Dectech have calculated the % chance each team has of winning the Champions League this year. This will adjust as the season progresses, but right now, here are their predictions for the main teams and UK interests. We’ve also added the best bookie odds and whether these offer value.
Continue reading

Euro 2012 Castrol Ratings Round Up

For the last 10 days, we’ve been testing Euro 2012 value bets according to Castrol’s ratings as well as picking out some value bets of our own. Castrol ratings are powered by the Detech, the same team behind the powerful Fink Tank Ratings.

See Monday’s post here:

Update: 

Tuesday’s value bets were not as successful as the previous weekends to put it mildly with a lack of under dog victories hurting the record. We covered the draw well enough though and the damage could have been a lot worse if the ratings hadn’t picked out the value here as well.

Still, things could be a lot worse with the record from the current campaign as follows:

26 bets
26 points staked
+4.24 points
+16.31% ROI.

Our bets: 

Not much luck with the highlighted bets so far with the wrong handicap choice hurting us again. This time we should have gone with the Double Chance instead of the Draw No bet.

Latvia vs Greece: Latvia Draw No Bet @ 3.75 Bet 365. Draw. Stake Returned. 
Malta vs Georgia: Malta Draw No Bet @ 3.65 Expekt. Draw Stake Returned. 
Denmark vs Norway: Norway Draw No Bet @ 3.00 William Hill. Home Win, Loss. 

The next Euro 2012 games are in October, so next up for the Castrol ratings/ Fink Tank test will be Champions League fixtures next week.

For more tests of ratings, tipsters and systems like this, join the Smart Betting Club. 

Welsh Dragon to roar? Not likely according to Castrol’s ratings

Last Friday we looked at value bets according to Castrol’s ratings as well as picking out some value bets of our own. Castrol ratings are powered by the Detech, the same team behind the powerful Fink Tank Ratings.

The ratings managed to pick out some huge value in the Euro 2012 fixtures, with a profit of +6.83 points from the 12 points wagered. Highlights include Latvia beating Georgia at 5.68 and Hungary beating Sweden at 4.50. Continue reading

Welsh Dragon to roar? Not likely according to Castrol's ratings

Last Friday we looked at value bets according to Castrol’s ratings as well as picking out some value bets of our own. Castrol ratings are powered by the Detech, the same team behind the powerful Fink Tank Ratings.

The ratings managed to pick out some huge value in the Euro 2012 fixtures, with a profit of +6.83 points from the 12 points wagered. Highlights include Latvia beating Georgia at 5.68 and Hungary beating Sweden at 4.50. Continue reading

England favourites to beat Bulgaria…But there’s no value in it.

The bookies have England as hot favourites to beat Bulgaria away tonight, but according to Castrol’s ratings, there’s more value in backing Bulgaria.

Last summer we used the Castrol ratings to find value bets in the World cup and had a happy time of it. The final total was +10.49 points from 32 points staked. Click here to check out this tracking experiment.

So for the remainder of the Euro2012 qualifiers, we’ll be tracking where the value lies according to Castrol’s ratings and picking out some value bets of our own. Castrol ratings are powered by the Detech, the same team behind the powerful Fink Tank Ratings.

First here’s the % chances given to the UK’s home nations:

Bulgaria vs England: England 52% chance.
Scotland vs Czech Republic: Scotland 34% chance.
Wales vs Montenegro:  Wales 33% chance.
Northern Ireland vs Serbia: Northern Ireland 16% chance.
Ireland vs Slovakia (Not UK of course, but lots of interest here as well):  Ireland 55% chance. Continue reading

England favourites to beat Bulgaria…But there's no value in it.

The bookies have England as hot favourites to beat Bulgaria away tonight, but according to Castrol’s ratings, there’s more value in backing Bulgaria.

Last summer we used the Castrol ratings to find value bets in the World cup and had a happy time of it. The final total was +10.49 points from 32 points staked. Click here to check out this tracking experiment.

So for the remainder of the Euro2012 qualifiers, we’ll be tracking where the value lies according to Castrol’s ratings and picking out some value bets of our own. Castrol ratings are powered by the Detech, the same team behind the powerful Fink Tank Ratings.

First here’s the % chances given to the UK’s home nations:

Bulgaria vs England: England 52% chance.
Scotland vs Czech Republic: Scotland 34% chance.
Wales vs Montenegro:  Wales 33% chance.
Northern Ireland vs Serbia: Northern Ireland 16% chance.
Ireland vs Slovakia (Not UK of course, but lots of interest here as well):  Ireland 55% chance. Continue reading

Fink Tank Value Picks 2011/2012

Fink Tank provide predictions on football games based on their model which is roughly based around shot on target. We tested their English Premier League ratings in the 2010/2011 season were very pleased with the results, returning over 50 points level stakes profit. 

How we tested it: 

For our test, we use the predictions from Fink Tank/ Dectech and only bet when the predicted % chance is better than the predicted chance implied by the available bookmaker odds.

Fink Tank/ Dectech provide their predictions in the form of estimated probabilities for the home win, draw and away win. You can then compare this to the available odds to assess whether a particular game offers value.

Here’s how the probabilities are displayed by Dectech/ Fink Tank

For example if the game is Blackburn vs Wolves, Fink Tank might give Blackburn a 51.4% chance. This means that according to the ratings, Blackburn should win 51.4 times out of a hundred.

Finding value

The next step is to find out if those ratings offer value. The ratings might give Man U a 68.3% chance of an away win against Blackpool, but are the bookies taking this into account with the odds they are offering?

Here’s how:

Step 1) First we need to compare like for like. This means we need to see what the ratings percentages are equivalent to in bookie odds.  To work this out, divide 100 by the predicted percentage. So for the Man U game, divide 100 by 68.3. This gives decimal odds of 1.46.

Step 2) Check for value. Now use an odds comparison site such as www.oddsportal.com. If the bookmakers are offering odds above 1.46 on Man U to win, it means there is value in the bet, but if they’re offering odds below 1.46 it means they are being too tight with the odds.

The difference between the predicted probability and the available odds gives you a measure of the % value available.

Here’s a typical table that we worked with:

Ratings Performance in 2010/2011.

We took this value betting approach last season to test the ratings. This meant we’d bet on the team if their predicted chance was greater than the chance implied by the bookie odds. E.g. Dectech gave Bolton 53% chance, the bookies only gave them a 45% chance. It doesn’t mean you’re going to win, just that you are more likely to win that the odds imply.

A point is equivalent to a mythical £1 on every bet.

Here’s the home & away comparison.

BetsProfitROI
All bets31052.3716.89%
Homes15326.617.00%
Aways15227.618.00%

The ratings performed superbly last season when taking this value betting approach. As good as these results appear, it certainly wasn’t a smooth ride with the profits coming in fits and starts, usually as big winners were landed. Notable highlights included West Brom to beat Arsenal away at 17.50, Newcastle to beat Arsenal away at 13.04, Wigan to beat Spurs away at 12.59 and Wolves to beat Liverpool away at 10.00. These four bets alone account for the bulk of the profits made over the season! This is worth bearing in mind before we read too much into last season’s results.

You can check our testing posts from last season with this link. 

 

2011/2012 Season. 

This season we’ll be posting the full list of value picks exclusively on our members’ betting forum, but we will continue to post up a couple of games each week here.

A word of warning though in that the ratings may be a little off in the first few games of the season if they are based on last year’s stats, so we suggest caution in the first few weeks.

As an example, here are 3 of the top value bets from the first weekend of betting in the Premier League this season.

Fink Tank

  • Newcastle Utd – Arsenal:  Newcastle @ 4.33 Corals = 23.84% Value.
  • Fulham – Aston Villa: Fulham @ 2.2 Various bookies = 4.5% Value.
  • QPR – Bolton: Bolton @ 3.47 Pinnacle Sports = 37% value

To get the full list of qualifiers each week, sign up to the Smart Betting Club today.