Betting Research: Opening Odds vs Closing Odds

Hi everyone,

We want to share with all of you a research made regarding the movement of betting odds, from the opening odds to the start of the game. The goal of this study is to explore the behaviour of the odds from the opening to the final odds, pre-match event. Nowadays, it is very common to see a lot of websites monitoring the dropping odds, but is it really related to the outcome of the game? Is it a useful information for the punter? If you see match odds dropping from 2.00 to 1.60, what does it mean? If the match is not under unusual circumstances, it should show the direction of the money; many punters bet on the team which odds are dropping, but we want to test if that info is helpful for betting decisions.

The study is based on the Match Odds (1X2)  market and the assumption that all games are not manipulated, and the liquidity is high enough.

If you bet following the trends of the dropping odds, as a rule, we want to prove whether it is a profitable system or whether, on the contrary, the final price is already discounted when you place that bet. We want to show you the results of this study.

Description of the research

The experiment consisted of two different test:

1. Betting one unit on the Home Team, closing odds, when they have risen, from the initial price. Same procedure for Away Team.
2. Betting one unit on the Home Team, closing odds, when they have dropped, from the initial price. Same procedure for Away Team.

We will show the results separated between Home Team and Away Team Odds.

• Data Sample. More than 70,000 football games from several years.
• Odds. Odds are taken from Pinnacle Sports, Opening and Closing, pre-match.
• P/L Calculation method. To bet one unit on the Home Team / Away Team, closing odds.

Overall results

These are the results to bet on the Home Team and Away Team when final odds are higher or lower than the opening price.

As you can check, the first impression is that betting on the Home or Away Team when odds are higher or lower doesn’t show anything particularly extraordinary.

The following table to show are the most obvious thing, if anyone can bet on the opening odds predicting always they are going to fall, this punter would make the following profit:

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Opening Odds vs. Closing Odds – Home Team Odds Analysis –

Home Team Odds - Odds range Analysis -

If you check the odds range, you can notice the most favorable odds range between 4.01 and 11.00, with a profit of +163.26 after 3,515 bets, when opening closing odds are higher than the initial ones.

You can see the League details here. Please note that the table only shows 25 results by default, change that in the show entries to display all leagues.

Home Team Odds - League Analysis -

Opening Odds vs. Closing Odds – Away Team Odds Analysis –

Away Team Odds - Odds range Analysis -

If you take a look at the Away Team figures, you will find the opposite result than the Home Team. Here, the profit comes when the odds drop from the opening.

You can see the League details here:

Away Team Odds - League Analysis -

Big Percentage change in the odds 

We usually think about dropping odds as the best way to maximise profits, but what happens if we do the opposite process, search for a huge increase in the odds to take advantage of that rise. We want to analyse the odds movements regarding percentage to test if that could be a signal. Many times the odds undergo significant changes, and we want to confirm if that has a positive effect on the results.

After checking the results, we want to show the percentage range where it made the highest profit; that is betting on the Home Team after a big increased in the odds from the opening price.

Let’s see the table:

Rising Home Team Odds

We wanted to show you the data when the home team odds suffer a huge increase from the beginning; the profit made after that increase is significant. We will study in detail this data because it may be an indication of a possible strategy. Anyway, before jumping to conclusions we have to examine in depth the data and run some tests, and we will let you know the results.

Conclusions

As you can see, if you analyse the data without any filter at all, it seems there is no particular pattern or trend to take a decision about the usefulness of the data. You will meet a lot of punters that find vital this kind of information. In fact, more and more websites exhibit the dropping odds in terms of percentage.

There is an important thing to be taken into account. The bookmakers want to keep a balanced book so that they make a profit regardless of the event outcome. If the odds are dropping, that may lead to some punters to think that the team A is more likely to win because of that, and perhaps the bookie is just adjusting its profit for this match.

The study of the dropping odds should be considerate as another component of the elements of your betting systems, but our experience tells us that it has to be combined with other items of analysis. Besides it could be a decisive factor when you run a particular strategy and some bets diminish in value, so you have to take the decision put out of your system.

The odds movement can be very profitable for trading strategies, such as scalping when you can take advantage following that trend. For that case, it’s crucial to set a stop-loss to reduce risk. It’s difficult to predict when the direction of the odds can turn back, the less you risk, the better for your bank. We will dedicate an entire post to discuss that.

That’s all. We hope you enjoy the report and find it useful for your betting research.

If you want to propose a particular betting system or study to be analysed, please send us an email  [email protected] or using our contact form, we will glad to help you.

Thanks!