Statistical evaluation/backtesting 2021/2022 + the past 5 seasons
Home wins for the top teams
Many think that the easiest way to big wins is through the home wins of the big favorites. When do teams like Real Madrid, Liverpool or Bayern Munich ever lose on their own court? Very rarely. But there are many fallacies behind it.
We took a closer look for you and found out how the 20/21 season would have gone if we had bet on every home win of the top three teams in each country.
The result would have been fatal. Of the 15 teams selected, only three would have made small profits at the end of the season (Dortmund, Monaco and PSG), while all the other clubs would have suffered heavy losses – especially those that fell short of their expectations in the 21/22 season, such as Chelsea (-672 euros), Atalanta (-1364 euros) or Lille (-597 euros), and you often can’t guess that before a season.
This strategy would have resulted in a minus amount of -3373 Euro at the end of the season. Even if you had replaced the three teams mentioned above with others (Manchester United, Olympique Lyon and AC Milan), you would have been able to stem your losses, but you still wouldn’t have made a profit.
However, if you had consistently bet on home wins by some mid-table teams instead of the house favorites, then a substantial profit would have been possible as well.
In the EPL, this would have been Leicester City (+817 euros), Everton FC (580 euros) or Tottenham Hostpur (+676 euros).
In the Bundesliga, Augsburg (+1280 euros), VfL Bochum (+1578 euros) or FSV Mainz 05 (+1154 euros).
In Spain, Deportivo Alaves (+434 euros), FC Elche (+345 euros) or Espanyol Barcelona (+342 euros).
In France, it is FC Nantes (+1470 euros), Stade Rennes (+838 euros) or Racing Strasbourg (+332 euros).
In Italy, only FC Bologna (+508 euros) and AC Florence (+507 euros) made gains – while all the others made losses.
But who can predict such things before a season?
Conclusion:
It makes little sense to bet on home wins of the very big favorites. This is not profitable in the long run. As a rule, the odds are too low to prevent a surprising loss of points.
Home wins with odds between 1.30 and 1.75
Bookmakers and the market are pretty sure about these games. The home team is highly rated, the winning probability of 77% – 57% should actually be enough to bring in three points for the home team. Nevertheless, the balance at the end of the season is again fatal. True, there is still a profit in the Bundesliga (+1075 euros in 66 games with these odds) and La Liga (+1008 euros in 100 games).
But the EPL (-256 euros in 78 games) and especially Ligue 1 (-866 euros in 83 games) and Seria A (-1045 euros) cause high losses.
However, if you only look at the opening odds, which are often available two weeks, but at least one week before the event, you can even make a profit of 988 euros in the end. The effort for this is high with a low return of only 2%.
Considered over a period of 5 years, one would even have made a small, but not appreciable profit in the end only with La Liga.
Conclusion:
For the Bundesliga and La Liga with slightly stronger home teams, this odds range is recommended for consistent bets on home wins. Especially the ROI for the Bundesliga of 16.29% was tempting in the 21/22 season – but this season was a slip, in previous years it would not have been profitable either. For the other leagues, too, it’s simply not worth betting on home favorites with odds below 1.75.
Favorites win away from home (odds under 1.95)
Can the teams favored by the bookmakers at least make a profit away from home? The answer is again sobering: no. With the exception of Italy (+1092 euros in 71 games, ROI 15.38%), where the 2021/2022 season went extremely well for the away teams, betting on away wins for the favored teams would not have yielded a good result. In the English Premier League, there would still have been a small profit of 249 euros (3.56%), otherwise only losses: Bundesliga -975 euros, La Liga -425 euros, Ligue 1 -479 euros.
The teams of RB Leipzig (-583 euros), FC Barcelona (-351 euros) and AC Florence (-400 euros) did particularly badly on foreign grounds. Good investments, on the other hand, would have been Atalanta Bergamo (+423 euros), AS Roma (+306 euros) and Real Madrid (+297 euros).
Conclusion:
Away wins by favorites are not worthwhile in most cases. Only in Italy the favored teams usually keep the upper hand.
Double Chance X2 (or Asian Handicap +0.5)
If you can’t make a profit with home wins, you would actually think that the X2 option, i.e. double chance or not losing away, would be crowned with success.
But again, the opposite is true: only in Seria A would there have been a small profit of 1533 euros at the end of the season – in all other leagues, however, there would have been big losses: Bundesliga -2790 euros, EPL -1865 euros, La Liga -922 euros and Ligue 1 -1621 euros.
Only a few teams would have proved profitable with this option. This list is clearly headed by the Spanish team FC Cadiz (+1464 euros), followed by Brighton-Hove Albions (+920 euros), FC Empoli (919 euros) and Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt (+802 euros).
Conclusion:
the name Double Chance is misleading. Because the odds are very low at the same time, this leads to losses instead of gains in the long run.
Draw
A pure draw strategy would also have been fatal. Only in one of the major leagues would there have been a win: In the Spanish La Liga, there would have been a plus of 1608 euros at the end of the season if one had tipped a draw for all 380 games.
In the Bundesliga (-1818 euros) and in the EPL (-3582 euros), this strategy would have been fatal.
In Italy (-514 euros) and France (-452 euros), the losses would have been bearable, if there is such a thing as a bearable loss at all.
For some teams, however, a consistent bet on X would have been worthwhile. Of particular note here was Sampdoria Genoa with a gain of €2339, followed by Cadiz FC (+€2085), Brighton-Hove Albions (+€1838) and Southampton FC (+€1569). Real draw killers were Arsenal London (-2538 euros), Borussia Dortmund (-2161 euros) and Watford FC (-2161 euros).
Conclusion:
A draw brings in the most, but there is no general strategy for this. We will show you later how to best deal with draws.
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