is sure to score goals, with both teams normally
doing their damnedest to do so. Over 90 minutes it is
reasonable to expect that a goal or goals will be scored.
That is why, before a game starts, the odds against it
ending with no score are quite high – usually over 10
decimal odds (9/1) rather than under, but depending on
the relative strengths of the teams.
I’m wanting to lay that 0-0 scoreline but not at these
odds which are too high for me. I wait until half-time
and look for games that are still without goals and
then by careful selection, which I’ll come to, lay those
games where I expect a goal to be scored.
Now, of course, it doesn’t matter which team scores a
goal, or how many, as long as one team scores a goal.
Then I’ve won my lay bet. I tend to wait until the second
half is underway for a few minutes before placing my
lay bets because the lay liability drops then to around the
3 decimal odds mark (2/1). I’m happy with that. I’ll give
some examples from my own lay bets later.
When I started this plan, I rashly would look for games
from any league in the world that were scoreless at the
break, and then lay the 0-0 score. Probably through
good luck more than anything, I did quite well.
But I realized that I was being rather unprofessional,
so decided to research different leagues from different
countries at www.soccerstats.com to see if there were
any major differences regarding the frequency of the
the final score of 0-0 – the score I was trying to avoid.
I didn’t find any significant differences – except for
one, and it was one I was delighted to see because it
was on home territory, the Scottish Premier League.
And that is what my plan is now based on...
As I write this (at the beginning of March), the Scottish
Premier League has been playing for 28 weeks this
season. In those 28 weeks, the total number of matches
that have been drawing 0-0 at half-time is 47. Some
weeks there has been none and the most was fie. The
most frequent number was two. These, then, were the
matches I wanted to lay for the 0-0 score. How many
of them actually ended 0-0, or to put it another way,
how many successful lays did I have? Only fie ended
without scoring, meaning that I had 42 successful lays.
That equates to an almost 90% success rate.
Each unsuccessful lay would have cost me, I reckon,
less than 3 points, but we’ll allow a loss of 15 points to
be on the safe side. The profi, therefore, was 27 points
– a return on your investment of close on 60%: whilst
not a life-changing, lottery-sized profi, it is still a nice
little earner.
I’ll now give, as confimation of the kinds of odds to
expect, the fiures for the last Saturday of February,
my most recent results. There were four 0-0 scores
at half-time that day, and the odds I laid, just into the
second half, were 2.96, 3.55, 3.75 and 4.1. That would
be typical for the whole season.
Just to repeat and make quite clear what I am doing,
here it is again: I look at the half-time score of all
Scottish Premier League matches, on Saturdays,
Sundays and mid-week, and note any that are showing
a 0-0 score line. I wait until the second half is under
way for about fie minutes, and then lay the 0-0 score
in all of them. That’s it, and that is what has made me
profit.
Before leaving my idea, I must bring it up to date with
its latest, and most unlikely, success. Celtic, unbeaten
in their last umpteen games, were at home midweek
to St Johnstone, a team in the lower part of the league.
The half-time score was 0-0, so a bet was indicated,
with the expectation that Celtic would score a few in
the second half.
That didn’t happen, but St Johnstone scored one to win
the game. A bet-buster? Yes, but not for the plan. Staying
with mid-week games, just out of curiosity, I looked at
about a dozen English League games that were 0-0 at the
break. Of these, only one ended up 0-0 at full-time, so
again a very good profi could have been made.
For anybody who likes my idea but may be looking for
a bit more action, I have some further suggestions to
make... From my research I would recommend that you
concentrate on two other leagues: English League One
and the Eredivisie League in the Netherlands.
Bringing things right up to the minute, on Saturday 7
March when I looked at the Scottish Premier League,
there were no matches drawing 0-0 at half-time, so I
took my own advice and looked at the English League
One. There were four with a 0-0 score line. I layed
the 0-0 as I’ve explained, all around the three liability
odds, and before very long all four matches had a goal
scored. Job done.
I have some ideas for making the plan even better but,
in all honesty, it is working so well in this simplest way
that I am reluctant to complicate matters with more
work.
what I forget to mention is that the matches you focus
on must appear in the Betfair in-play coupon. The
matches must have the facility for us to bet in-play.
He mentions www.soccerstats.com in his article, and
this is a website you football afiionados should become
very familiar with. It is the perfect site for uncovering
football niches, as the Patriarch has done. Here are some
pointers specifi to the 0-0 half-time score and whether
we should expect a goal in the second half...
