How to use FootySimulator in football predictions competitions

Suppose there are four correct scores that you fancy betting on. Now, you could put the same stake (say �1) on each individual tip. Betting on this set of fixtures would cost you �4 but you would would win �6 for each 5-1 correct score, �7 for each 6-1 correct score and so on. Turning �4 into, say, �7 is nice enough but there are riskier but potentially more lucrative alternatives.

Henceforth, let's assume that all correct score bets are 5-1 - this is a reasonably conservative assumption. If you placed a �1 double on two correct scores you would win �36 if they both came up or zero if only one came up. You would win �36 and not �25 because a 5/1 winner turns �1 into �6 and not �5 (you get your original stake back too). If instead of a double, you bet �1 on three selections, you would win 6x6x6 = �216 if all three results came up - rather than �6 + �6 + �6 if you did three single bets. Of course, the chances of getting three out of three are remote. Wilder still, you could place a �1 accumulator on 4 matches to win �1296 but you would win nothing for even 3 correct scores.

So there is a trade off between regular but relatively insignificant wins at one end of the scale and massive but infrequent wins at the other. There are bets that fall in between these two extremes. Here I will talk about one called a Lucky 15. The Lucky 15 consists of 15 bets on 4 selections. Four of these bets are singles, these are your bread and butter. If only one of your four selections is correct, you will win that bet. Most bookmakers pay double the odds if you only get one selection correct. So, using our earlier staking plan, you would have made 15 x �1 bets. 14 would have lost but the fifteenth would have paid you �1 (stake) + �10 winnings (�5 doubled) = �11. So you have nearly recouped your stake for one out of four. Not as good as if you had done singles alone but not a disaster.

Six of the fifteen bets are doubles i.e. there are six ways of pairing together any two selections from your original four. If you got two out of four scores right, you would win �36 for your win double and �12 for your two win singles - a total of �48 for a �15 stake - more than treble your investment.

Four more bets would be trebles as there are four ways you can select (or perm) three matches out of four. Should you be lucky enough to get three scores right out of four, you would stand to win:
One correct score treble = �216
Three correct score doubles, each worth �36 = �108
Three correct score singles, each worth �6 = �18
GRAND TOTAL = �342

Your fifteenth and final bet in the Lucky 15 would be your accumulator, your grand slam. It would only pay out if you got every selection correct - but what a payout! For four out of four, you would win:
One correct score accumulator = �1296
Four correct score trebles, each worth �216 = �864
Six correct score doubles, each worth �36 = �216
Four correct score singles, each worth �6 = �24
15 winning bets, GRAND TOTAL = �2400

And that's just at odds of 5/1. The first time I landed a correct score treble, the odds were 7/1, 7/1 and 9/1.

To conclude, the Lucky 15 is a great bet for guaranteeing relative security for a low rate of success while offering great odds if you land three or four correct scores together. An Irish woman famously backed all 7 of Frankie Dettori's wins at Ascot in 1996 but won a mere �19 by doing them all as singles.


* If you can't decide which four matches to bet on, FootySimulator can help.
If you are a subscriber to FootySimulator, you can use the Analysis Stats feature to determine which of your saved games are the most likely to bring a correct score. This gives the percentage chance for the most likely correct score for each fixture.
One of the main themes of FootySimulator is value betting. It is important to maximise the difference between the probability of an event occurring and the price the bookmaker is offering for it. I cannot over-emphasise the benefit of having accounts with as many bookmakers as possible in order to maximise your margins. A hypothetical correct score may be available at 5-1 with one bookmaker and 6-1 with another. This may seem like a small difference, but if FootySimulator predicts the correct odds should be 9-2, that discrepancy means the difference between you getting 1/9 extra value and 1/3 extra value on your bet. Consider that bookies become very rich on margins much smaller than that. You owe it to yourself to shop around and get the best price for your selections. Betting on anything other than the best price available eats into your profit margin.

FootySimulator has affiliate links with a large number of bookmakers. If you don't yet have accounts with the ones we have on display, please click on one of the banners dotted around this website and open an account. It helps keep our costs down and it may get you that crucial extra point on a big correct score bet one day.
Unless you've got it in a correct score accumulator, never bet on a game to finish 0-0. That may sound like odd advice but any bookmaker offering odds on correct scores will also offer odds on the first goalscorer. The prices for 0-0 and no goalscorer will invariably be the same yet their probabilities are not.

If you look at a first goalscorer betting slip, there will be small print at the bottom along the lines of own goals do not count. Thus if the only goal of a game happens to be an own goal, you will win a no goalscorer bet but not a correct score bet on 0-0. Indeed, there have been some rare occasions when more than one own goal has been scored. The point is, the no goalscorer bet is a few percent more likely to be successful than the 0-0 bet for the same price. And finding those few extra percent here and there is one of the key differences between a winning gambler and a losing one.
Predictions competitions usually follow a basic format along the lines of 3 points for a correct score and one point for a correct result. Occasionally they come with subtle variations such as a joker game where a nominated prediction scores double, or an "odd one out bonus" where the predictor of an unusual result gets extra points.

Although this is uninspiring advice, the best advice here is play the percentages. Unless there are bonuses for freak results, always go for the most likely score. When running simulations for a game, FootySimulator gives values for mean, median and mode. You should value the mode prediction above all others because this represents the most common outcome. If there is a joker bonus in your competition, you can use the analysis stats section of this website to show which correct score predictions come with the highest percentage of confidence.

There are two drawbacks to the 'playing the percentages' strategy. Firstly, you may get a freak week with a lot of unusual results. The second eventuality is that you may get a decent score but there are so many people in the competition that one of the other players guesses a few lucky correct scores and pips you to first prize. So FootySimulator is of greatest merit when playing the long game, you a more likely to win the seasonal competition than the weekly one. Alternatively, you could choose to mix it up a bit, combining the most confident correct scores predicted by FootySimulator with a few speculative flyers of your own for those harder to predict games. And if you believe in the history of a fixture as well as recent form, remember that Club FootySimulator doesn't just make predictions. It holds head to head records and details of home and away form for the competing teams.

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