The second half of this football season
I've changing my usual 'fixed-odds' bet for a different market. Coral (and most other bookies) have a 'both teams to score' market (Coral call it 'Goals Goals Goals') and the point of the bet - if it wasn't already clear -, is to select matches where both teams will score in a game. The result doesn't matter. A game could finish up 99-1 and that would still be a good result if you've made that selection.

Take last Saturday, if you look at the matches that were played (Prem league thru Scottish First)all bar 12 games would be a winner.

I usually go for between 4 and 7 selections with the odds for most game in the 5/6 or 8/11 price bracket, the prices aren't fantastic, but a five-fold bet soon sees the return adding up.

A £5.00 stake on a 5 selection bet usually returns between £65.00 and £85.00

To win a tenner on the National Lottery you are looking at odds of 52/1, and you need 3 of your 6 chosen numbers to be drawn. With the football bet, every game is played so in theory they could all be 'winning matches' you aren't limited to just 6 numbers.

So far, this is the market I've had the best, and more frequent returns on. Small stakes, resonable returns and regular wins.

Of course, I might just be having a bit of luck, but with a bet costing less than the cost of a couple of pints once a week, it is hardly 'problem' gambling.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 29 Apr 2011, 16:26, 3 replies)

Interesting
I used to regularly do doubles on the results of matches and got reasonable returns until a period in about November when all the results started going screwy. I've still made far more out of Ladbrokes than I've ever got back on the lottery though.
( evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Fri 29 Apr 2011, 17:06, closed)

Obviously it pays to have a look at the matches before making your selections.
Last week, Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool all kept clean sheets and were quite easy to ignore, but I still consider this to be a fairly sensible bet.

You only need a couple of wins in a season to avoid spending any of your own money repeating the bet for the duration.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Fri 29 Apr 2011, 17:34, closed)

Not everyone is interested in football and can make bets accordingly.

( girlinthehole, Fri 29 Apr 2011, 19:07, closed)

coincidentally,
I also won on these last week. A bet on 18 teams to score netted me 134 to 1 odds. Most of the games came in before half time, and i was left sweating on Southampton until i sacrificed a small child to a random dark god in the 84th minute. And then they scored two.
I've found Coral give you better odds when betting on the football (better online than in the shops usually) but William Hill lives closer to my home.
And yeah. I only had 50p on it and not my mortgage.
(searlichek, Sat 30 Apr 2011, 0:52, closed)