Why Betting Opposites Attract

A couple of years ago I remember chatting to a bigwig at a bookmaker, discussing the rise of football betting and how they were making money out of it. Each weekend he’d be cheering on the underdogs because if one of Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Celtic or Rangers lost they’d be guaranteed a healthy profit, often in excess of £1 million.

I wasn’t shocked about a bookmaker making money, after all they’ve done that for hundreds of years, it was the big swings in profit/loss that surprised me. I’d always assumed they made profit with their margin, they do to a certain extent, but losing favourites provided the real boon.

Creating a perfect book with profit on any outcome turned out to be a fallacy. With the ‘big four’ dominating the Premier League at the time, they carried the most bets and money, creating lopsided books with heavy liabilities on the favourite.

The teams in question may have changed, with Man City replacing Liverpool, but the process is the same. Bookmakers welcome the public warmly as they pile onto the favourites and clean up when one fails to win.

If we want to make long-term profit from betting, we are better served thinking like a bookmaker rather than the public. To explore this approach we will start to highlight football favourites that we want to oppose.

As the old adage goes – you never see a poor bookmaker.