Betting Football In-play and the Importance of Bank Roll Management

You've probably heard me say it before, there is no 100% guaranteed profit system, and even though in-play football betting can be profitable, this can only be achieved with diligence, patience and proper bank roll management (BRM). In the world of football betting - before the offset anyway - there is no such thing as certain. A football team might have 80% possession, and triple their opponents dangerous attacks, but could still lose or draw. The amount of people I see lumping on a favourite using their entire bank roll is insane, and by doing this, it only takes one loss to completely wipe out all your profits completely. So what do you need to do? It's simple, be diligent, be patient and have proper bank roll management.

• Diligence -- It's important - to keep a sustainable and profitable in-play football betting strategy - that you research your picks accordingly before placing the bet. For example, a team might have 70% possession and look the dominating side, at face value it looks a good bet to put on. If you'd done your research though, you'd find that even though this team is strong sitting at the top of the table, they've lost their main striker due to injury and haven't scored in their past 3 games as a consequence. If you're struggling to find pre-match stats, there are various websites, but I personally use http://www.soccerstats.com/ for most of my initial research. In this particular said scenario, if the value is good, it would be a sensible idea therefore to bet on the dominating side to either win or draw. You won't get as much back, but it's a safer bet. How do you calculate value? The easiest way is to work out the overlay; the overlay is the percentage advantage that one has over the bookmaker. For example if one was to have a 10% overlay, this is would mean that their return on investment (ROI) or %profit on turnover should equal 10%. The overlay is calculated by the following formula, and bets should ONLY be made on positive overlays, always keep this in mind: 
  
  overlay = (probability * bookies price) – 1

• Patience -- This is where most people struggle. They have a nice run, and then start lumping all their money on silly bets and accumulators for larger rewards. In the case of betting, larger rewards always mean larger risks, and 9 times out of 10 you'll lose your bank roll because of it. You'll never build a bank roll over night, it takes time, and this is what you've got to be most patient about. Initially you'll see small returns (£5 on a 2.0 odd bet will return £5 profit), but as time goes on, you'll see greater returns (£20 on the same 2.0 odd bet will return £20).

• Proper bank roll management -- When it comes to BRM, I use what is called a fractional Kelly strategy that is an offset of the generic Kelly strategy (you can read it in more detail here). The Kelly strategy has been mathematically proven to help you efficiently manage your bank roll if you follow it correctly. It takes into consideration the probability of a particular bet winning, but the value of the bet also (the overlay which we calculated above). The calculation can be found below, I use 10% as my chosen fraction, which means whatever the value of the full Kelly strategy would give me, I'm using only 10% of that to be safe: 
  
  money to bet = (bankroll * chosen fraction) * (overlay/(odds - 1)) 
  
  So for example, if you have a bank roll of £500, this is how the sum would look for how much you'd put on:
  
  (£500 * 10%) * (0.30 / 1.60) = £9.38

All this advise can be used in conjunction with Betmaid (the review can be found here) to increase your chance of betting profitably with in-play football.