The end is nigh…

The end is nigh.I’ve seen the signs for the end of days: a Mr. Trotter becoming a millionaire, and David Moyes winning a home match without conceding.

And it’s with the Champions League that I’d like to start.

Here’s a neat way to profit from the ‘Curse of the Champions League’ (while I’m on this Doomsday theme this week!)…

Take a look at Chelsea’s matches this season… They can be found in full here.

What do you see?

Shall I tell you what I see? The Curse of the Champions League ( soon to be made into a major motion picture starring Ronnie Corbett).

Let’s go back to September 2013. Chelsea were due to play Basel on 18 September. Before that match, they had an away match against Everton. They lost 1-0.

On 1 October 2013, Chelsea were due to play Steaua in the Champions League. Before that match, they played Tottenham away. They drew 1-1.

On 2 November 2013, Chelsea were due to play Schalke in the Champions League. Before that match, they played Newcastle away. They lost 2-0.

On 7 December 2013, Chelsea were due to play Steaua in the Champions League. Before that match, they played Stoke City. They lost 3-2.

It took a 90th-minute goal for Chelsea to beat Everton in the match directly before their Champions League match against Galatasary on the 26 February 2014.

And this week, they beat Galatasary 2-0 at home. In their Premiership match before this match, they lost 1-0 to Aston Villa.

This is not just a pattern for Chelsea. Big teams such as Barcelona have lost 1-0 away to Rayo Vallecano directly before their match in the Champions League against Manchester City.

Borussia Dortmund are also a classic example of this. They lost their last four league matches prior to a Champions League match.

This idea of laying these teams before big matches will probably work better when the team are playing an away league match prior to a Champions League match (Stoke 1: Arsenal 0, anyone?), so do watch out for this when the Champions League continues next season.

It’s been a great tool to exploit when football trading. Myself and my merry band of live chatters picked out some great trades last weekend through my Delay-React-Trade (DRT) service. One was a lay of Dortmund at odds of 1.41, simply because of the Curse of the Champions League!

Take DRT for a spin if you can. Full in-depth statistical research gets to the heart of each football match, seven days a week, and at the weekend our live chats turn that research into low-risk high-reward profits.

Staking plans? The saviours or the villains?

I’m on the side of the former. I love money management as it brings discipline to your betting systems.

Let me show you a great example…

This betting idea started as a laying idea. It was logical in its origins. I thought to myself: ‘Why don’t you look to oppose – lay on the betting exchanges such as Betfair – horses who are favourites in All Weather races where the favourite has the poorest record of success?’

Look below at a screenshot taken from www.racingpost.com and focus on meetings with an ‘(AW)’:

Clicking on ‘FAVOURITES’ above at www.racingpost.com will bring up this box. My task was to simply note the race type with the lowest percentage of winners. In this example, 2-year-olds handicap races have a 32% strike rate for favourites. Lay the favourites in these races therefore, surely?

Actually not quite. With the power of staking plans, we can actually produce a reasonable backing system…

A 41% strike rate is achieved since 2 October backing favourites in the worst-performing races for favourites on the All Weather. But using a special staking plan, and restricting our selections to odds of 3.5 and less, a £100 betting bank has turned into £427.

The largest stake at any one time was a manageable £27.50, and considering we had to withstand a losing run of 12, I think this is reasonably good performance.

The staking plan in question can be found here. It does seem to offer some protection when a losing run is hit. In order to withstand a run of 12 consecutive losers without decimating the betting bank is some feat.

This is one of a number of ‘Home-Grown’ betting systems I share with readers of What Really Wins Money. They all tend to profit long-term, and my goal is to create systems which require no need to do any form reading or anything like that.

This staking plan looks perfectly suited to this strategy. We will get a steady stream of winners simply because of a focus on favourites, and as long as these winners come frequently enough, we should continue to profit long-term.

Ain’t it grand!?

With the Grand National upon us soon, I’ll be providing you with the stats and trends for the meeting as well as doing another live market reading on my Twitter blog @whatreallywins. I hope some of you came along for Cheltenham. The live market reading was actually pretty successful –at all of the other meetings during the festival.

Live market reading is simply taking your cues from the live betting market. We can use three different markets – the Sporting Life live shows, the Racing Post live market in tandem with the Racing Post betting forecast, and the Betfair live market.

They can highlight horses strongly fancied and those favourites you should back (my leap-frogging idea in a recent e-letter).

I’m off now to cancel my appointment with Mr Trotter. Now he’s a millionaire, I expect he won’t be coming over to do some work on my chandelier with his brother.

A pity.