The Insider Scoop on Variance Betting - March Update

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Greetings. I hope you are enjoying your Interlull. It’s a very good time to go for walks, enjoy the extra light, and take stock of everything that’s gone on so far this season.

Today, I am doing another P&L analysis of my betting over at Variance Betting. This was VERY well-received when I did it back in January, and it’s good practice to keep focused on both the good and bad across the analysis.

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For those who want the preamble, it’s probably best if you read what I wrote back in January. I’ve been a professional bettor off and on for almost 20 years. My bets are much more akin to playing the stock market than what most people think of as “gambling”, and I only play things I have an edge on. Knowing what NOT to bet on is at least as important as what bets you choose.

Variance Betting exists to give my bets to people who want to see what I am playing, and especially to deliver the logic and reasons behind each game in the leagues I cover, so that you can learn to do this stuff better on your own.

If you want to subscribe and join the fun (look, winning is TOTALLY fun), the upgrade link is here.

The gambling world has changed A LOT since I started - one of the key questions I had at the start of the season was:

Could I continue to find edge in leagues I enjoy following, even when the lines have gotten much sharper?

Spoiler Alert: I’m still pretty damned good at this game.

Betting Headlines
EPL = +4 on 122 wagers. (-$445)
Eng Champ = +20 on 169 wagers (nice), +4260
UEFA CL = +6.5 on 70 wagers, +2756
TOTAL = +6571

This isn’t on constant staking. I started at 200 a bet. Then at the midway point of the season, I increased the bet size to the number of subscribers we have for Variance Betting to increase the fun factor. The VAST majority of wagers are on approx 50/50 Asian Handicaps or spreads, but there are a few match outright bets dotted around, and two To Advance wagers in the Champions League (including a winner on PSG at 2.61).

This is a good season, even if it’s a little disappointing in the Premier League just now (partly because of a weird lack of home field advantage thus far, and partly because of what I expect is a leak in my game that we’ll discuss in a minute).

To put it in a different context, if this were my stock portfolio for a year, I would be over the moon with the performance.

[Note: This is compiled to the best of my knowledge across all the wagers I have publicly advised in the VB columns and adjustments made on social media. If anything is in error, it is my fault and you have my apologies.]

WHAT IS THE LEAK?!?
I knew this going in, but I couldn’t help myself…

I have been freestyling Totals without a competent model and I am down 3.5 bets in the PL on Totals, up 1 on the Champ, and up 1 in the Champions League.

The sample size isn’t large, and I’m not even sure it’s -ev, but it’s definitely not as strong as what I’m doing for sides, so I’ll discontinue the practice and think about maybe bringing in a decent Totals model for next season.

I know this seems weird to a lot of people, but these days I am far more interested in growing TTF and Man Down than I am in putting a ton of time and energy into improving my gambling.

If you haven’t checked out the new Man Down podcast, you can find the YouTube link here. The comments have been tremendous so far, and I’m stoked to see where this goes over the next year.

Anything Else?
Not offhand in the Premier League. The two big themes of winners for me this season are betting AGAINST Manchester City (even now), and Forest being undervalued basically all year. I think I have respectively been against and on each of these teams in more than half of their match days so far, which is pretty absurd.

On the negative side, Everton have plagued me lately both for and against, but it’s Arsenal away that has been kicking me in the teeth. They keep covering the spread in away matches even without most of their attackers being healthy, which doesn’t seem particularly sustainable, and has certainly cost me some money.

I think the other BIG leak I have had this season that probably isn’t obvious is not being aggressive in betting my opinions when they contradict the math. MANY readers have messaged me saying, “you clearly had a side in what you wrote that you liked - why no bet?” And the answer is, I’m still coming back into the game and getting comfortable, but I’ve been tracking these situations and I absolutely will be more aggressive on instinct bets next season.

Even if HFA has been super weird this year in the PL, I’m still irritated I haven’t done better.

Championship Thoughts
I’m holding 8.6%, which is basically in line with my historic averages for this league. When your record is that good, there aren’t going to be many obvious leaks or bogey teams.

Coventry went from a negative in the first half of the year to a nice +2 based on their crazy run recently. The metrics never moved much, but Lamps got the results.

My most bet on team this season has been Millwall (I found that weird), with Oxford United second and Sheffield United third. It’s the Blades that have powered home the most wins for me, though, at +7 on their matches.

In Chris Wilder we trust?

UEFA CL
This Champions League season has been fascinating to watch and to gamble on. I’m holding a measly 13.3% on only 70 wagers, which certainly has a lot of luck factored in (the PSG To Advance vs Liverpool helped a lot).

Inter Milan have daggered me the most on bets, with Leverkusen right behind them.

But the shock here is the fact that I consistently found value on Barcelona and Real Madrid all the time - I’m +10 on those two teams combined. I basically can’t remember a year where the market undervalued the Spanish giants in this way, and I happily took advantage of it.

Some Other Notes
We’re creeping up on 20K subscribers on TTF. I wanted to say thank you for reading the daily stuff Kim and I produce. We are creeping ever closer to full rumour mill time, when the transfers come hot, heavy, and ridiculous. I am very excited.

We also surpassed 500K downloads on the TTF podcast this month, which is staggering given it started at the end of July last year. It’s good progress, but I’m pretty sure in a couple of years we will be 10xing that in annual downloads.

All the best,
—TK