Tournament Progress Betting
This article was first published to the Ultimate Stats Betting Pack, World Cup group
A copy of the Ultimate Stats Betting Pack for the 2018 World Cup in Russia available here.
Tournament Progress Betting
We are now a mere matter of days away from the start of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.. Over the remaining days, we'll be providing a daily update on the latest news, matches, betting odds, markets and promotions to keep an eye on.
Latest News
Egypt arrived in Russia yesterday but Salah sat out the first training session which will do nothing to reduced concerns around his fitness levels heading into their opening match against Uruguay on Friday. That said, he looked happy and in good spirits as he watched on and spent time with the fans.
Amusingly, Russian fans are currently being taught how to smile ahead of the World Cup.
Betting Strategy
– Tournament Progress
The tournament progress markets have proven a positive route to profit for us in the past, both from a backing and laying perspective. The trick is not to get to hung up on predicting the whole tournament and ending up with a winner. You'll drive yourself crazy with the permutations. It is better to focus up to the quarter final stage only.
The reason for doing this is two-fold. Firstly, once you reach the quarter finals, pretty much anything can happen from that point onwards but, more importantly, by focusing on the quarter finals the permutations are a lot easier as we know which groups will play each other in the last sixteen, thus dramatically reducing the potential match ups.
We know that:
Group A will play Group B
C v D
E v F
G v H
Armed with that knowledge, we can go group by group and rule out the likely no hopers and then you will, in most cases, be left with 2 or 3 teams from each group. Of those, you will generally have a clear idea on who should win the group.
Of those group leaders, you then need to decide which of those may ‘slip up' and potentially come 2nd instead of 1st and whether that moves them into the ‘danger zone'.
I'll give you an easy example.
Belgium and England will should qualify from their group. They will then have to play one of Colombia, Poland, Senegal and Japan each – compared with who they could get in other groups, these all look like winnable games. So you would most likely be wanting to back both England and Belgium reach the 1/4 final stage, or at minimum not backing against them doing it.
Conversely, if we look at Group C and D – Both France and Argentina should win their groups, thus avoiding each other. That would leave them with winnable games and realistic route to the quarter finals. Both are similar to England and Belgium for this to happen.
However, if France or Argentina start slowly, which is not impossible for either side and one ends up coming second in their group, they will have to play each other for a place in the quarter finals. That makes both potential lay candidates.
It also suggests it's worth looking at the possible second place teams in both groups, who will then present value to reach the Quarters,
Sides to consider in this example: Croatia (3,25), Nigeria (11.00), Peru (10.00), Denmark (5.50)
Today's Pre-World Cup International Friendlies
We have just the two games today with a baring on the World Cup, with most sides having completed their pre tournament friendlies.
Belgium take on Costa Rica which is similar thinking to Englands game, against the same opponents, and will have their opening match against Panama in mind. Depending on the effort levels put in by Belgium, it should be a fairly routine win.
Again with the caveat of it being a friendly, I'm quite interested in our second match between South Korea. As I've mentioned, Senegal are a side I like going into the tournament, despite failing to win the last four games (including a nil all draw with Luxembourg). South Korea have had a similarly poor showing on the friendly front with three defeats and just one win in the last five. I'm not expecting as much from South Korea a the tournament as I am about Senegal but it will be interesting to see if either sides raises themselves for this one.
Hot bookmaker specials
SunBets have an attractive offer at the moment which, more importantly, is available to both new and existing customers.
Place a £/€25 bet on the Top Goalscorer market and receive a £/€5 free bet every time your player scores.
With odds around 8/1, Neymar would not be a bad pick in this market. Especially when you consider he scored this cracker the other day on his first game back!
This article was first published to the Ultimate Stats Betting Pack, World Cup group
A copy of the Ultimate Stats Betting Pack for the 2018 World Cup in Russia available here.
Jon is the Founder and Chief Tipster at Football Advisor and Predictoloy. He started life as data analyst in the digital marketing field before find his true calling in the world of Football and Horse Racing Betting.
Jon has been sharing his professional expertise since 2009 and specialises in using objective data analysis and subjective experience of betting built up over more than a decade of professional betting.
In 2014, Jon also launched (and continues to run) the trusted Football Advisor service service which provides a variety of football and horse racing betting models and portfolios. A few years later, Jon launched the Predictology platform which is the worlds first betting system builder and analyser covering a wealth of football betting related statistics covering more than 200,000 matches.
Jon has also lent his knowledge and expertise to several of the trusted Premium Services offered by the respected Secret Betting Club, including Football Lay Profits. Racing Bet Profits and, most recently, Racing Lay Profits.