I’ve been telling you football’s coming home for the last two weeks but it’s still not arrived home to its mansion in Berkshire with its wag wife Chardonnay.

But it’s close…

The Scottish Premier League and English lower leagues traditionally kick off next weekend, which is when I’ll be returning to my live chats at weekends for DRT club members.

It’s a chance for those who enjoy football to profit from the beautiful game  by trading matches based on what the stats tell us will happen.

I’ll also be debuting my in-play stats service during these live chats.

Quite simply, I have a live feed to certain matches where I interpret the shots on and off target, corner stats and possession stats, and try to predict who will score next based on these stats.

Simply put, if a team has 65% possession and leads the corner-count 7 corners to 2, with 4 shots on target to their opponent’s single shot off target, who do you think will score next?

It’s not rocket science and you can do it yourself at websites such as www.squawka.com, which provide a fairly good live in-play stats service, as well as a momentum chart that can show you who’s dominating and who’s starting to improve during the match.

The chart is called the ‘performance score over time’ – you will find it in the ‘overview’ section of the match of interest. It is a kind of ‘momentum’ chart. This one shows two well-matched sides. If one team was weaker, you’d find it below the ‘0’:

Before this page is the stats page:

These stats are excellent for predicting what might happen as the match progresses. Again, these stats point to a tight match. Use this website during the Premiership. Get in touch if you want to see how I use these stats to profit in-play.

Are short priced handicap favourites vulnerable?

Take notice of the following races… I’ve been tracking them for a while now, and the favourites tend to lose more often than they win. Here’s an example from today:

Notice firstly the title of the race: ‘Handicap’. I look for handicap races. Now note the Betting Forecast: Welsh Bard 13/8 and a big price gap to Whistling Senator.

Normally I’d be interested in backing Welsh Bard, but over time I have noticed how these obvious handicap favourites tend to get beaten more often than not, and at shorter odds.

How can you use this information? If the handicap race is an 8 or 9-runner race, perhaps look for an each-way alternative? A focus on horses under 3.00 decimal odds to lay should turn a profit. But do let me crunch the numbers first!

This is another of my ‘Home-Grown’ systems which try to make betting easy because it involves no form analysis whatsoever.

Why don’t you see if you can spot these possible lays and see how often they lose at low odds?

Laying odds-on shots…

Have you been keeping a track of odds-on shots at www.betfair.com?

Here’s an example of some odds-on shots (odds below 2.00)…

Can you see the multitude of odds-on shots here, just in the tennis? Believe me, not all of these odds-on favourites will win.

A good way to lay an odds-on shot in the tennis is to look an outsider winning the first set; so, above, If Brydan Kleio wins the first set against 1.31 Adrian Mannarino, lay Kleio, hopefully at below 2.00.

Look to win a specific amount. It could be £5, £10 – whatever. At no stage will your money at risk be above your target. Stop when a lay has been successful.

Football has an ample supply of lays too.

Here’s a quick glimpse of the coupon. I would look to lay a team such as Dnipro (reserves) away from home at 1.69 (odds on as it is below 2.00).

And to the horse racing…

Here’s an example for how you can profit from horse racing. I found it on Youtube, along with a video on how Michelle Obama is in fact a man (as is Serena Williams ) – that’s something for another email.

This video, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgzaX42csos, is by Tony Hargraves, who I met in London once on a Betfair trading course. He knows his onions and offers a great strategy for profiting in horse racing.

If I were you, I’d note: 1) the race type he chooses; 2) the odds he chooses. This could be another leftfield way of profiting from laying odds-on shots.

I would recommend these videos on Youtube by Tony Hargraves – or The Badger as he’s also known.

I’ll try and put a blueprint together regarding how to profit from laying odds-on shots soon, so look out for that.

I’m off now to take a weekend away before the football starts. It’s going to be mayhem for me now, from August to next May. There’ll be silly footballer’s haircuts, silly footballer tattoos, silly footballer celebrations and hopefully some silly DRT profits to be made!

Have a great weekend!