Soccer

[ray]

Now onto your several examples,

About your Arsenal-Southampton example, 1st of all, if Bowmans had the Arsenal at 1.71 (-140) and Jphan had Arsenal at -3/4 Asian line, I would say their line is pretty close when you convert it into each others.

So, your computed Southampton +.5 line should be 1.85 which is equal to -118.

You are playing with a line,

Arsenal -.5 -140
Southampton +.5 -118

On the other hand, you will have an Asian line available at 10 cents vig from Jphan.

And you would call it not a big difference?

My friend, thats 58 cents line vs 10 cents line.

Not to mention the huge difference in +.5 and +3/4 if you will like Southampton.

Now, about Crastinum.

Using your 4 books for example, you will seldom find a game with combined handicap odds with vig less than 30 cents.

Not before you will have accounts at books like SSP, vierklee, veikkaus, scandic, swett, admira, alpen, etc.

Just to name a few.

Plus you are a yankee, you can't play at megasports, you also lost a lot of good chances most of the time.

Believe me, like Boris, I started to use Crastinum way back since last year when they don't even have 20 books on the list. And this is my comment and it stands,

"That was then, it is now".

Remember, there is no free lunch in this world, actually we are paying the price for ourselves.

Stanley, from the books that you have been using for soccer betting, I can tell that you are a pretty smart guy (I've got the other 3 except worldbet). I believe you will be just fine with your ways. Please consider this is just a friendly advice and don't take it as an offense.

Finally, as we all know that odds shopping is a very important method in soccer betting and it should be a very interesting topic to talk about, unfortuantely this is a bookie's place and you know what I mean.

Good luck guys.

[Cons]

Stanley, first of all I would like to apologise if you took our posts too harshly. Let me assure you that our intentions are peaceful; afterall, we are all here for the same reason. It would be great if you would join our soccer forum as a regular. When I first came to this site, Shawn and Ray welcomed me, and it has grown ever since and continues to do so.

I understand the strengths of your method. By taking a team "not to lose," or even balancing it out so you get your money back on the draw, you have the possibility of shopping around and taking the win and draw at different books, at the best odds available. I see where Crastinum comes into play. I admit I use the same methods like yourself, having had England at VC and the draw at Bowmans, with the draw refunding my England stake.

About the Arsenal example, you mention the odds were -140. OK, let's forget for the moment that the Asian line would move to -0,-0.5. You have Arsenal at -140, which means -0.5 at -140. You then say you can get Southampton at -118 (1.85) at +0.5 (win/draw).

So... Arsenal -0.5 at -140, and Southampton +0.5 at -118. That's almost a 60-cent line.

I agree that Asian lines might be tricky to grasp at first, but you get used to them very soon, and begin to appreciate the options they give you. I used to think they would be -0.5, -1, -1.5 and so on, and so I had to get used to split-lines for the first time. But now I treat them like any other line, and understand their strengths and weaknesses.

If a team is favoured at -180, I can get them on the Asian line at -0.5, -1 at -120. If they win by only a single goal, then when you look at the payout it would be as if you were playing the game at -240. But should they win by more than a single goal, if will end up as a -120 bet. Nothing comes free, but it's an interesting option to have.

About the Man U game, I think that 3.53 on the Wimbledon win/draw compared to Wimbledon +1.5 at 3.00 isn't that good of a deal. Sure, the game ended in a draw. But had Man U scored late in the game, Wimbledon would still have won on the Asian line. If I had taken this bet and was watching the game, I would be sitting much more comfortably knowing that even if Wimbledon concede another goal, then my bet wins. It's simply a case of buying a little extra security. Some like it, some don't.

JPhan offers dime Asian lines but you must remember they close a game AN HOUR before kickoff. Stanley, I use football365.co.uk for live teams before kickoff. Is there any other place you recommend for teams?

Gregg, will Asian lines be available on the new online sytem that's coming out soon? And is the September deadline still valid? One more thing, I would like to switch my currency from USD to EURO, or even Sterling. Once the online system is there, can I do that? It would help me greatly as I use UK banks now and it would be easier to make transactions for me.

[Stanley]

Sorry Ray, I didn’t mean to suggest that your posts were offensive, just I returned to review the thread last night to find 4 posts defending Asian lines against my solitary offering on an alternative. That’s why I felt a little ‘cornered’, but not under attack.

Again, I agree that Asian lines are not that complicated, but they do appear so for the first-timer used to fixed odds betting.

Thanks for the info on 5 Dimes, I have an out with them [I use it for golf] but didn’t spot the soccer matchups a few weeks ago. I’ll keep an eye out for them again ‘cos I agree Worldbet are once of the worst for juicing the soccer.

Re: your Coventry-West Ham example. You can’t compare –278 with –160 and –385 with –180 because you calculated the first nos. on a ‘plus-tie’ basis. So if the game was a draw, both bets would win. Like you show in the Arsenal-Southampton the real computed line would be about 58c. Again, less value than the 5 Dimes lines, but I showed that with my four outs I could reduce the line on the Motherwell-Hearts game by at least 40c, even more if a 5 Dimes line became available. That would make it not that much different to a JPhan line if they were to offer lines on leagues other than in England and Italy.

Re: your Liverpool-Everton example. No, I wouldn’t bet on Liverpool plus the draw. Most of plays are on straight wins, but the request from niltes was for info on reducing soccer to 2-outcome wagers. My system is therefore complimentary to any straight winners I play, not a substitute for them.

I generally only play a favourite plus draw if the odds are at least 2.0. Hence this weekend I might be tempted to play Chelsea to win or draw against Middl***oro, the odds for this at Worldbet are 1.20. Skinny odds, but right now [Tuesday] it looks a very safe bet. Any potential European hangover should depend on tonight’s performance against Hertha.

I would probably parley it with Man Utd to beat Southampton to get odds of 1.41. Still, not a great return, but by using more than 1 out I’m confident I could raise those odds to somewhere approaching 1.70 for a two-team parley on what look to be very safe plays. I’ll check it out when more weekend odds become available. The main point though is that I have the choice to do this, I can parley teams and I can give a handicap to any team, not just the one allocated by the bookie.

I wonder if niltes even dreamed of getting such detailed answers to his question?

[Stanley]

Thanks for the invite Cons, I'm sure I'll be posting regularly on your soccer threads, but they're usually so long, there's not much more I can add! LOL

As for team news, football365 is great as is their e-mail service. I also look to www.skysports.co.uk/skysports/FOOTBALL/PREMIER/ and www.fa-carling.com for team news/injuries for English games. But as the teams are not announced until 1/2 hour before the game, there's not much difference between them in who names the actual team lineups first.

Do you know of any sites that give injury/team news for any other non-British leagues? Football.sports.com give news items and scores for many of the other European domestic leagues, but I don't remember seeing any team news other than for internationals or European ties.

[AussieVamp2]

you are not going to have heaps of luck in English for information on other leagues, but it is definitely out there in the native language, you just have to grow massive link collection and use a translation site or two and go for things like www.soccernet.fi
and www.sport.de for example
came across another good Norwegian one today

[AussieVamp2]

couple of sites that are in anglais and quite useful :-

www.soccerone.com - expanding its coverage
into other continents and leagues other than 4 major european ones - speaking of which is Blatter senile or what? 'All leagues should have the same
schedule as European ones' If he wasn't
senile, he would realise it snows in some
places in Europe, so they don't even have the
same schedules, and they shut down, etc. If the Australian league did it the might of the AFL and NRL would crush it...... and Asia and South America would be happy to do it, I am sure.

www.soccerage.com (reincarnation of bits of Rete!, apparently)

[ray]

I would also like to add something to Shawn's response.

Talking about the migration from Hon Kong to North America, it actually started since the early 90's, mainly because of the 1997 issue - the year that British officially return Hong Kong back to China. Some people just fear of the communist and want to protect themselves and their children, so they went overseas.

Canada is their top priority, mainly because Canada accepts investment migration, once you put certain money on investemnt in Canada, you will get a passport. Then its the US and Australia, some of them went to UK, but its not a favor spot at all, Singapore is one of the spots but the numbers of migration also can't compared with North America.

This group of guys are mostly belonged to better than average middle class income group. Most of them will have a good finiancial background since they all have a decent job in Hong Kong.

I won't be surprised that somebody told me that some of them are high roller bettors.

The simple truth is, when gambling is banned in a place like Hong Kong, there will be still a lot of different kinds of gambing going on illegally everyday.

I don't know about the present situation, but I remembered several years ago, there were some places at Toronto and Vancouver had opened at Wed morning about 4:00 and Fri midnight 23:00 to Sat morning till 6:00. The reason? Satallite live coverage (and maybe also betting if they can find a way to do it) for Hong Kong racing - the races with average biggest pool in the world.

Never been to those places but I've seen quite a lot of people in there (on TV).

Finally, about a week ago, somebody asked a question here, where can I find a local guy?

One of the answers is to go to a Chinese restaurant, try to talk to the owner or the waitors.

90% of the Chinese owners of the restuarants will bet American football/NBA regularly and heavily.

80% of the Chinese cooks will also be the same.

About 60% to 70% of the waitors (giving that he is a Chinese or Vietnamese or Thai) will know how to help you find a local guy OR actually he is the local guy.

[BOOKYBASHR]

Ray,
English premier league soccer can be found under basketball propostions on the 5 Dimes site.
5 Dimes doesn't "have a home" for soccer wagering yet. A soccer page is in the works where games may be parlayed. Just waiting for the programmers.

[niltes]

Just a shade more than I really need to know.

[AussieVamp2]

heh

Stanley, you reading here still, or too much golf?