Promoted clubs and Over/Under value

Oct 18th, 2011 - Posted by Andrew_Brocker in Football

bettingexpert blog editor. Always taking the alternative route to finding the value.

Email : andrew at bettingexpert.com

Where has the betting value been in the Over/Under 2.5 goal markets in matches featuring promoted clubs in the Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga or Primera? Andrew takes a look at the numbers and finds some angles to consider this season.

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Click here for the BettingExpert 2012/2013 Football Stats Guide. Detailed stats for the 8 biggest leagues of Europe.

I've received a few emails in recent weeks regarding the question of how to assess promoted clubs in terms of Over/Under total match goal markets. How do we frame a market for a club that perhaps hasn't played at the elite level for a number of seasons, if ever at all?

While this is a difficult task with many half-solutions, one way to start is by looking at recent performances of promoted clubs in terms of betting value in the Over/Under markets.

In this article I will do just that and look at the four major leagues of football competition - the English Premier League, Spanish Primera, Italian Serie A and German Bundesliga. We will be looking at the Over/Under 2.5 goals value in matches featuring promoted clubs over the last 5 seasons, from 2006-2007 to the end of 2010-2011.

Overall results

Let's start by looking at the overall results for the Over/Under 2.5 goal market in matches featuring promoted clubs over the last 5 seasons. We will assess each outcome by betting at 'even stakes' and seeing how both the Over and the Under performed in terms of overall betting return. Or in other words, we will bet £1 on both the Over or Under in each match featuring a promoted club the last 5 seasons.

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Overall, we can see that at 'even stakes', the Over has performed above standard bookmaker commission of 4%, with the total % return across the four leagues being a slight loss the last 5 seasons, through a sample size of over 2,000 matches.

We can also see that this was due to the performance of the Over in the Premier League, Primera and Bundesliga with only the Serie A performing below standard bookmaker commission. Further, in both the Premier League and Primera, the Over has produced a profit at 'even stakes' in matches featuring promoted clubs the last 5 seasons.

With regards to the Under, only the Serie A performed above standard bookmaker commission with a loss of -0.46% the last 5 seasons.

Promoted clubs at home

Let's now look at the results for both the Over/Under market when promoted clubs are playing at home.

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In general, we don't see too much to take note of here. Both the Over and Under have performed at around standard bookmaker commission returns, with the Under being slightly better value, through a sample size of over 1,000 matches.

We can see that when promoted clubs are at home in the Premier League the last 5 seasons, the Over has produced a profit of almost 3% while in the Serie A, when promoted clubs played at home, the Under produced a profit of almost 4% the last 5 seasons.

Promoted clubs away

Now let's turn to when promoted clubs have played away from home over the last 5 seasons.

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Here we see a significant trend, through a sample size of over 1,000 matches. When promoted clubs played away over the last 5 seasons, the Over has produced a profit of almost 3% across the four leagues. Just one league produced a loss, the Serie A, but even then it performed above standard bookmaker commission.

The best performed was the Primera with almost 7% profit for the Over when promoted clubs played away the last 5 seasons, with the Premier League at almost 4% and Bundesliga just over 3%.

'Newly' promoted clubs

Let's breakdown the numbers a little now and take a look at what I will call 'newly' promoted clubs. Here we will be looking at matches that featured promoted clubs that had been away from the top flight for 3 or more seasons.

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Here we see that across the four leagues, the Over produced a profit at 'even stakes or just over 1.12% over sample size of over 1,200 matches. But when we look at matches where 'newly' promoted clubs played away from home the last 5 seasons, the Over has produced a profit at 'even stakes' of over 4% through a sample size of over 600 matches.

What did we learn?

Although we have found some interesting trends in this 5 season analysis, it's always difficult to assess the trajectory of any trend going forward. Like I always say, what appears as a trend to some, can be viewed as a good looking coincidence to others. And the oddsmakers will adjust to any serious trend taking place, eventually. Regardless, a trend analysis across a significant sample size is something we can incorporate into our overall analysis of an upcoming match featuring a promoted club.

So let's conclude our analysis by listing the key points:

In matches featuring promoted clubs, the Over has performed above standard bookmaker commission across the four leagues the last 5 seasons.
When promoted clubs have played away the last 5 seasons, the Over has returned a profit at 'even stakes' of almost 3%.
In matches featuring promoted clubs playing away from home that have been away from the top flight for 3 or more seasons, the Over has produced a profit at 'even stakes' of over 4%.

Click here for the BettingExpert 2012/2013 Football Stats Guide. Detailed stats for the 8 biggest leagues of Europe.

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