Steadbank

Four picks. Two won, one lost, one pushed, and the day finished 0.71 units up at plus eighteen per cent. A quiet Monday, but two of the four are instructive. Al Ittihad won and returned nothing. They beat Al Hazm 3-2, a one goal margin against a minus one handicap, so the entire stake came back. Nothing won, nothing lost. That is the push working exactly as intended, and it is the reason a minus one is a different animal from a minus one and a half. That selection has a history worth telling. It did not exist on the morning card. The Saudi Professional League's new season was not in our database at all, because the competition reference we had stored still pointed at last season. Once the correct season was downloaded that morning the cell ranked and the pick appeared. It then pushed, so all that work changed nothing on the scoreboard. Some days that is how it goes. Isloch was the biggest winner and I very nearly called it unpriceable. One per cent market coverage, no excha...

Ten picks. Eight won outright, one half-won, one lost. The day closed 5.16 units up at plus fifty-one per cent, and it is the best card I have published this month. Spartak Trnava at 2.49 was the biggest winner and the thinnest market on the slip. I wrote at the time that four of the books quoting that line were one shared feed showing a single price four times, that BetVictor's 2.39 was the only real bookmaker number, and that the exchange had three pounds seventy four behind 2.49. Trnava won 4-0 away. Thin is not the same as wrong. Riga is the one worth dwelling on, because it settles an argument I made on the card that morning. I said the bridge lost to the native line once you weighted the draw properly. The bridge paid more on a win, 1.860 against 1.790, and less on a draw. I took the native. Rigas FS and Riga drew 3-3. On a plus quarter a draw pushes the level leg and wins the half-goal leg, so it settled as a half-win. The bridge would have paid more had Riga won and...

Eleven picks. Five won, one half-won, five lost, and the day finished 1.54 units down at minus fourteen per cent. It is the worst day of the week and the losses share a shape worth setting out plainly. Four of the eleven were on the minus one goal line, and three of them died the same way. Nomme Kalju lost 1-0. Slavia Prague drew 2-2. Union Omaha drew 1-1. Not one of those was a thrashing. Two were draws and the third was a single goal. A minus one handicap has no push protection. If your team wins by exactly one the stake comes back, but a draw is a full loss and it settles no differently from losing four nil. That is the trade you make for the price, and on Saturday the trade went against us three times out of four. Al-Ahli won 4-0 and was the only one of the four that was never in doubt. The quarter lines did the opposite, as they are designed to. Pogon drew 2-2 away from home on a plus quarter, so the level leg pushed and the half-goal leg won. Half the stake back plus half...

8 picks, seven settled and one still to come. Three won, four lost. Down 2.41 units on the day so far, and the worst result of the month. The three quarter lines all lost outright and that is where the day went. Aldosivi were beaten 3-1, Vänersborgs 1-0 and Garliava 2-0. A plus 0.25 gives you protection on a draw and nothing else; none of the three drew, so none of the three got any. Three full units. Worth recording that all three had come in shorter than our own number before kick-off — the sort of move that says money has arrived on the other side. I flagged one of them at the time as sitting in the range where a drop rule would take it out, and noted that the rule is untested and I was not going to trim on it. I still would not, on three bets. But it goes in the record, because the only way that ever becomes a rule worth having is if it is written down before it is convenient. The whole lines were the other story. Auda beat Tukums 3-0 and Haka beat SJK Akatemia 2-0, b...

4 picks. Two won, one returned the stake, one lost. Up 0.22 units. Magni is the one worth explaining, because the game was drawn and it still paid more than half a unit. Dalvík/Reynir and Magni finished 1-1. On a plus 0.25 the Draw No Bet half came back and the Double Chance half won at 2.16, which returns 0.55 units on a drawn game. I want to be precise about something here, because I have been quoting these bridges at their winning price and that is only half the picture. When you build a quarter line from two legs, the headline number — 2.857 on Magni — is what it pays if the team wins. On a draw it settles on the Double Chance leg alone, and that is a smaller number. Both outcomes were set out in the slip before kick-off, so nothing was hidden, but the single figure at the top of a bridge is a win-branch price and I will label it that way from now on rather than let it stand as though it applied to every result. Ottawa won 4-0 and both halves paid. That was the pick w...

4 picks. All four won. Up 3.67 units, the best return per position of the month. Fram at 2.70 was the longest price and the biggest return. They beat Stjarnan 3-1 giving a goal, which pays 1.70 units on its own. That was the pick where I said the price had drifted our way through the day, out from 2.60 to 2.70, and that two independent ways of pricing the line both landed around 2.71 to 2.77 — so we were taking fair value with essentially nothing shaved off it. You rarely get that at a counter and it came off. Both whole lines won by exactly two, which is one goal from a push. Nõmme United U21 won 2-0 and Fram 3-1. On a minus 1.00 you need two, and both got two and no more. Worth noticing on a clean-sweep day: a single goal in either game and the return halves. That is not a criticism of the picks, it is the honest margin they won by. Recoleta drew and that was a win, not a rescue. A plus 0.50 on the away side is a Double Chance exactly — draw or away and nothing else. T...

10 picks across two waves. Six won, one pushed, three lost. Up 0.15 units — which is to say the morning made two units and the evening handed them back. The early card went four from four. Suzhou drew 0-0 and a plus 0.50 pays on a draw. Forward won 5-0 on a minus 1.00 that was never in question. Rana won 3-1 away. Jerv drew and returned nine hundredths on the shortest price of the day. Two and a bit units by quarter to three. On Forward I had written that the market was moving onto our side — their match price had shortened from 1.68 to 1.40 through the morning while the handicap had not caught up. That was the whole bet, and it came in 5-0. Sometimes the read is right and the game agrees. The late card lost two units. Egersund were beaten 4-0, Flora lost 3-2 at home, Lugano lost 2-1. Three defeats out of six, and one of the three that survived only pushed. Levadia is the push and it is a clean example. They won 2-1 away, which on a minus 1.00 is exactly the handicap...

11 picks across two waves. Seven won, three pushed, one lost. Up 3.88 units and the best day of the month. Three pushes in one day, and all three landed on the number exactly. Gwangju were beaten by one on a plus 1.00. Smedby won by one on a minus 1.00. KTP won by one on a minus 1.00. Three whole lines, three results sitting precisely on the handicap, three stakes returned untouched. I said this after the pushes a week ago and it holds: a whole line landing on its exact number is not a near miss. It is the market and the model agreeing about where a game sat, and the game obliging. Three of them in an afternoon is unusual, and on a day where one bet lost, those three returned stakes are the difference between a good day and an ordinary one. The two Queensland youth games at six on Sunday morning were the two biggest prices on the slip and both won. Gold Coast United U23 won 4-3 at 1.89 and Moreton City U23 won 3-2 at 2.20, both Draw No Bet. I asked you to set them the nig...

5 picks. Two won, two lost, one returned the stake. Down 0.42 units. Västerås carried the day and it was the biggest price on the slip. A plus 0.50 on the away side is a Double Chance and nothing else, so it needed a draw or a win, and it got a 3-0 win at Elfsborg. 2.16 on the exchange against a best of 2.00 in twenty shops — sixteen pips of difference on a price that long is real money, and it was the widest exchange edge of that week. Hammarby I warned you about and it lost. I wrote that the price had been shortening all day and was still moving, and that if it had gone a long way by the time you reached it then it was not the bet I was advising. Eskilstuna won 1-0. The market had been moving against our side before kick-off and it kept going in the same direction after it. That is worth recording rather than glossing: when I tell you a price is running away, the honest reading is that somebody knows something, and often enough they do. Brisbane lost 2-1 and played a go...

4 picks, three of them winners, and the day closed four hundredths of a unit down. That is not a typo and it is the most useful thing on this page. Three from four and level. Neftchi returned 0.28, San Luis 0.25, Sogdiana 0.43. Curicó lost a full unit. Add it up and you are four hundredths of a unit short of where you started. Every card on this slip was an Asian plus 0.25 and the average price was around 1.40, which means each winner pays a third of a unit and each loser costs three times that. This is the arithmetic of a short-price portfolio and it is worth internalising rather than rediscovering on a bad week. At these odds you need roughly three winners for every loser simply to stand still. We got exactly that and stood exactly still. A day that reads as a comfortable win in the strike rate column is a flat line in the bank. San Luis is the one to look at, because it drew and still paid. A plus 0.25 is half your stake at level and half at plus a half. The game finis...

4 picks. One won, two lost, one postponed. Down 1.74 units and the worst day of the month so far. Fram were beaten 5-2 and that was the day. It was the longest price on the slip at 2.10, held at five separate shops, and I spent a paragraph pointing out that four bookmakers were showing 1.80 on the same bet and that taking their number would cost you fourteen per cent for nothing. All of which was worth saying and none of which helps when the game finishes 5-2 the wrong way. A Draw No Bet gives you the draw back; it does not give you anything else. Medellín was postponed, which is a void and not a loss. The stake comes back in full. It is worth stating plainly because a postponed fixture sometimes gets recorded as a losing bet by people keeping their own figures, and it is not one. Three positions settled on this card, not four. The one that won was the one I nearly left off. I described Paysandu as the weakest price on the card and wrote that of everything on the slip it...

4 picks. Two won, two lost, and the day closed 1.03 units down. This was the most confident card I have put out in a while and it is worth being honest about how it went. Banga was the one I liked most and it was beaten 3-0. I wrote that it was the strongest position on the slip, that every possible route onto it was priced, and that the exchange bridge cleared our own number by nearly ten per cent. All of that was true and none of it mattered. Sūduva won comfortably and the bet was never alive. There is a distinction here worth drawing carefully, because it goes to the heart of what this service does. Getting the best of five available prices is a real, repeatable advantage and it is most of what I spend my time on. It is not the same thing as knowing which bets win. On Banga the route analysis was correct — the exchange bridge genuinely was the best number on the market — and the selection still lost. Those two things sit alongside each other and always will. Víkingur dr...

8 picks. Five won, one lost, two pushed. A good day, and an unusually instructive one — two of the eight landed exactly on their handicap and returned the stake, which is worth explaining properly because it happened twice in the same afternoon. Hønefoss did the heavy lifting, and then some. 9-1 against Ullensaker/Kisa II. We were on twice — giving half a goal at 1.39 and giving a goal and a half at 1.90 — and by half an hour in neither was in any doubt. Nine goals is not a scoreline you plan for. Two selections on one match is the most this system will take, and it only happens when both lines qualify independently; here the match repaid both without breaking sweat. The two pushes, and why they are not near misses. Rågsved beat Syrianska 2-1 and Charlotte Independence beat Greenville Triumph 1-0. Both were on a –1.00 handicap, meaning they needed to win by two. Both won by exactly one. That is a push: the stake comes back, nothing is won and nothing is lost. People read ...

5 picks. One won, four lost. A bad day and there is no way to present it otherwise, so let me go through what actually happened rather than round it off. Devonport City was the one that worked. 6-0 against Launceston City, giving half a goal at 1.67. Never remotely in doubt. That is the shape of selection this system is built on — a side the market had priced close when the underlying numbers said it should not be. Glenorchy Knights is the frustrating one, because they won. 2-1 against Launceston United, and the bet still lost. We were giving a goal and a half, which needs a two-goal win, and they got there by one. Winning the match and losing the handicap is a specific kind of irritating, but it is not a bad beat — a –1.5 line is priced at 1.59 precisely because winning by two is genuinely harder than winning. The price was telling the truth. VG-62 had the game taken away from them. Down to ten men in the 27th minute and beaten 2-1 by MaPS, on a Draw No Bet at 1.59. Six...

5 picks. Four won, one lost. A good day, and the first one in a while, so I want to go through it properly rather than take a lap. Keflavík did the heavy lifting. 3-0 against KA Akureyri, and that scoreline paid on both of the day’s selections. The –1.00 handicap needed a two-goal win and got three, so it settled in full at 2.09 profit — the biggest single return on the card and the only price above 2.00 all day. The Draw No Bet on the same match came in at 1.69. Two bets on one match is the most this system will ever take, and it only happens when both lines qualify on their own merits rather than because I liked the look of the fixture. They did, and the match repaid both. It is worth being clear that this cuts the other way just as hard — a 0-0 there would have cost a full unit on one leg and a stake return on the other, and days where the double lands are the reason the cap exists at two rather than three. The Keflavík –1.00 also makes a point about where these prices ...

4 picks. One won, one half won, two lost. A losing day, and it comes in the middle of a run that has not been enjoyable — so rather than skip past it, I want to go through what actually happened. Nasaf did the job. 2-1 away at AGMK, carrying a quarter-goal start it never needed, at 2.03 — comfortably the best price on the card and the only one above 2.00. That is the shape of bet this system is built around: a side the market has slightly underrated, taken at a price the market has not caught up to. Neftchi drew 0-0 and half won. A +0.25 handicap is two half-stake bets: half at level, half at +0.5. The draw voids the level half and wins the other. At 1.21 that returns a small profit rather than a full one, which is exactly how the line is supposed to behave. No complaints there. San Lorenzo is the one worth looking at properly. They were carrying +1.25 — they could lose by one and still get half the stake back. The bet was alive deep into the match at 1-0 and then conceded ...

11 picks. Five won, two pushed, four lost. The two pushes are worth explaining, because they are the difference between a flat day and a bad one. Forward carried the day. 1-0 against Nyköpings on a –0.5 handicap at 2.63, which was the top price on the whole board and the only selection above 2.10. One goal was all it needed and one goal was all it got. That is the bet this system is built to find: a home side the market had priced as a coin flip when the underlying numbers said otherwise. Eidsvold won 4-1 giving a goal and a half, which is the kind of margin that makes a –1.5 line look easy in hindsight. It was not easy at 1-0 or 2-1. Junkeren stayed in it for an hour. The two pushes. Paide beat Kuressaare 1-0 giving exactly one goal, and Trelleborg drew 2-2 on Draw No Bet. Both return the stake. Neither is a win and neither is a loss, and people sometimes read a push as a near miss — it is not. A –1.0 handicap that wins by exactly one is the line doing precisely what it i...

7 picks today. A deliberately short card — more on that at the bottom. Smedby did most of the work. It was the only price on the card above 2.00, and it was only there because of the route: no bookmaker was pricing the Asian line properly, but a –0.5 handicap and a straight match-winner bet are the same thing, and the match-winner market paid 2.00 across three firms that price independently of each other. Smedby won 2-0 and returned the full unit. That single bet is over half the day. Kvik Halden won 5-4, which is a ridiculous scoreline for a bet that only needed them to avoid defeat. We had the half-goal start and never needed it. FC Caspiy is worth explaining properly, because it is the case people find confusing. A +1.25 handicap is two half-stake bets: half at +1.0 and half at +1.5. Caspiy lost by exactly one goal. The +1.0 half came back as a refund, the +1.5 half won. So a defeat still paid. That is the whole point of the quarter line — it buys you a soft landing on the...

9 picks today. Five winners from nine and the day still finishes down a unit, which tells you where the losses landed rather than how many there were. The two biggest prices on the card both went, and neither went narrowly. Nõmme United were beaten at home by Trans and Vålerenga lost 3-0 to HamKam having been, on the numbers, the best-supported bet of the day. Between them that is two units gone at prices that were supposed to be the ones worth having. South Hobart repaid the double. We held both the -0.50 and the -1.50 on the same match, which is two positions on one 90 minutes and the kind of thing that reads badly when it goes wrong. They won 3-1 — by exactly the two goals the deeper line needed. A minute of Launceston pressure at 3-2 and half of it disappears. PEPO also landed on the exact margin, winning 2-0 in Finland when a one-goal win would have handed the stake straight back. Mercedes drew 1-1 and still paid, because the half-goal start covers a draw — that one was ...

6 picks today. The best price on the card was one we nearly did not have at all. KV are in the Icelandic third tier, which the odds screens do not carry, so on the face of it there was no market. There was, at eight different counters, and none of them quoted the +0.25 line we wanted except one. Splitting it instead — half on the draw-no-bet at 2.15, half on the double chance at 1.70 — came out at 1.92 against the 1.86 available as a single bet. KV won 6-3, so both halves paid in full. The lesson is a dull one but it keeps earning: a line missing from the screen is not a line missing from the market. Fylkir was the other one that existed in only one place. Not a single bookmaker priced them at -1.00 — the board ran to -0.5 and then jumped straight past us to -1.5, because they were 1.17 to win the match outright. The exchange had it at 1.36 with about a tenner behind the price. They won 3-1, which on that line is the narrowest possible full win. Another goal for Völsungur and the...

6 picks today. The best price on the card was one we nearly did not have at all. KV are in the Icelandic third tier, which the odds screens do not carry, so on the face of it there was no market. There was, at eight different counters, and none of them quoted the +0.25 line we wanted except one. Splitting it instead — half on the draw-no-bet at 2.15, half on the double chance at 1.70 — came out at 1.92 against the 1.86 available as a single bet. KV won 6-3, so both halves paid in full. The lesson is a dull one but it keeps earning: a line missing from the screen is not a line missing from the market. Fylkir was the other one that existed in only one place. Not a single bookmaker priced them at -1.00 — the board ran to -0.5 and then jumped straight past us to -1.5, because they were 1.17 to win the match outright. The exchange had it at 1.36 with about a tenner behind the price. They won 3-1, which on that line is the narrowest possible full win. Another goal for Völsungur and the...

13 picks today. Two goals in the closing minutes decided how this one reads. Internacional de Palmira were 2-1 down in Boyacá, which on a +1.25 line is a half win, because the +1.0 leg pushes and the +1.5 leg pays. A third Patriotas goal at the death turned that into a full loss, a swing of better than a unit on one kick. Not long after, Flamengo had a goal disallowed against São Paulo and drew 1-1. At 2-1 the -1.00 line pushes. At 2-0 it wins. Neither was a poor read and both finished a single goal away from something entirely different. The -1.00 line did the rest of the damage. Yelimay drew 1-1, Flamengo drew 1-1, and a draw on that line carries no protection whatsoever, so the full stake goes every time. Add Seoul losing outright and that one line accounts for three of the six losses. Jerv supplied another two on its own. We held both the -1.50 and the -0.50 on the same fixture, they went down 2-1 at home to Lysekloster, and a single wrong read cost two units instead of one. ...

9 picks today. Santos will not enjoy reading their own numbers. Twenty one shots to five. Sixty four percent of the ball. Expected goals of 1.74 to 0.86. Twelve corners to one. Fifty seven touches in the Chapecoense box against five at the other end, and ninety one entries into the final third against thirty nine. Neymar scored twice and finished with a 9.5 rating off nine shots. Santos still did not win. They led at the interval, conceded to Marcinho straight after it, put through their own net on the hour, and needed a Neymar penalty in the 89th minute simply to draw level with the team sitting bottom of the table. Matheus saved five, two of them big. On a -1.00 line none of that pays, and the full stake goes. Haka and Charlotte did the quiet opposite, winning by exactly the two goals their line asked for. Haka was the only pick on the card priced above our own model, 1.69 against a derived 1.688, so the best value we held was also the one that delivered. Both quarter lines cam...

9 picks today. The pick of the night wore the wrong name. The Michigan Bucks who put four past Peoria have not been the Michigan Bucks since 2019, when the club left Pontiac for Flint and became the Flint City Bucks. Founded in 1995, four times champions of USL League Two, the most decorated amateur outfit in the country, and still filed by FootyStats under the old badge. That is how a Michigan side turned up between an Icelandic rout and a pair of Argentine handicaps. Víkingur supplied the rout, five past Keflavík. Halifax went down 3-2 in Canada and the Gold Coast youngsters shipped four before dawn, the two that got away. Both Argentine dogs lost by a single goal, which on a quarter line is not a defeat but a half, so the red ink runs thinner than the two losses suggest. Västerås SK 2-0 Örgryte (Sweden Allsvenskan) — Home AH -1.0 Västerås @ 1.98 — won St Patrick's Athl. 1-1 Dundalk (Ireland Premier Division) — Home DNB St Patrick's @ 1.23 — void (draw) Gimnasia Mend...

5 picks today. Belgrano opened the Clausura with a home win over Rosario Central, and ÍH ran riot to a 5-2. Only Navbahor let us down, held to a draw where it needed a two goal win. Navbahor Namangan 1-1 Qizilqum (Uzbekistan Super League) — Home AH -1.0 Navbahor @ 1.58 — lost Orense 2-1 Aucas (Ecuador Primera Serie A) — Away AH +1.25 Aucas @ 1.20 — half won ÍH 5-2 Hafnir (Iceland 4. deild) — Home AH +0.5 ÍH @ 1.38 — won Belgrano 2-1 Rosario Central (Argentina Liga Profesional) — Home DNB Belgrano @ 1.84 — won Athletic Club 2-1 São Bernardo (Brazil Serie B) — Away AH +1.25 São Bernardo @ 1.28 — half won Day close: +0.46u (4 paid of 5). Running: +YYY.YYu. DR

5 picks today. Every pick at least half landed, a clean sweep across the five. Westchester were the standout, seeing off the New York Cosmos 3-0. Plus both USL League One favourites came good on the night. Fluminense SC v Atlético Tubarão (Brazil Catarinense 2) — Home AH +0.25 Fluminense @ 2.03 — won Jaro II v GBK Kokkola (Finland Kakkonen) — Away AH +0.50 GBK @ 1.62 — won Portland Hearts of Pine v Union Omaha (USA USL League One) — Home AH +0.25 Portland @ 2.09 — half won Náutico v Londrina (Brazil Serie B) — Away AH +1.25 Londrina @ 1.44 — half won Westchester SC v NY Cosmos (USA USL League One) — Home AH +0.50 Westchester @ 1.30 — won Day close: +2.56u (5 paid of 5). Running: +YYY.YYu. DR

A quick note from the desk to share something we’ve been building. We are always looking for ways to hand you a better number, and this one goes right to the heart of the Asian Handicap so we wanted to walk you through it. We’ve taken a close, deliberate look at the vig  and the margin every bookmaker quietly folds into a price. It is the difference between what a price says and what the game is truly worth, and on the Asian Handicap it is where a surprising amount of value hides in plain sight. So we built a way to track the vig live on the exchanges . The exchange is where the sharpest money in the world meets, and it sets about the fairest price there is  margin stripped almost to the bone. By reading that true exchange margin and mapping it across to the handicap, we can derive an Asian Handicap price that reflects genuine fair value, rather than the padded figure a bookmaker would prefer you take. What that means for you is simple. On every pick you now get a ...

A quiet green Friday. Five of the nine landed outright, but at prices this short a card like this only pays a little when two of them miss, plus 0.29u on the day, and it was Bahia that made it green. Bahia were the bet we leaned on hardest, the one true outlier on the board with a pair of books alone at 1.98 on the minus one line while the rest of the market sat around 1.61. They paid it back in full, seeing off Chapecoense two goals to nil to clear the handicap with a goal to spare. Close to a full unit from a single bet, and without it Friday reads red. The two that stung were the kind you take on the chin. Charlotte Independence’s second string could not find a way past Appalachian and went down nil-two, a Draw No Bet that only ever needed a point it never threatened to take. Changchun Yatai were the sore one with one-five at home to Wuxi Wugou, a quarter-line favourite taken apart, and there is no soft landing on a night like that. The rest of the margins fell our way. Lion...

A second hard day to end the weekend, and we want to be straight with you about it. Both the result, and what we have found underneath it. First the card, and it is worth being clear about how the losses came, because this was not a day of beatings. Germinal went a goal down after 22 minutes and pushed for an equaliser all night that never came. Guaireña chased a single goal from the first half deep into stoppage time. Lakeland lost to the only goal of the game. Three of our bets beaten by one goal each, the sort of tight calls that go our way on another night. The heavier defeats were real enough, Almagro by three and Perth by two, but the shape of the day was our teams making chances and not taking them. The good news held up too. Ballard won 4-0, Subiaco and Juventus won 1-0, Racing’s draw was enough for their bet, and Fortaleza’s narrow loss still gave us half a win. Four wins and a half against six losses. Here is where we will not give you half the story. Some of this wee...

A rough Saturday, and there is no point pretending otherwise. Ten bets went out and the favourites just kept coming up short. On a thin summer card, that is how a losing day gets built. Four of them came in. NWS Spirit’s youngsters won 5-1, Wanderers beat Progreso 2-0, Almirante Brown’s 1-1 draw was enough for their bet, and Estudiantes Caseros were comfortable 3-0 winners. After that it was hard going. Nanjing lost 2-0, Juventud lost 1-3, Blumenau lost 2-0 and Rafaela lost 1-3, each one beaten by the second goal rather than the first. Gwangju had a goal and a quarter of cover, but a 1-3 defeat was too much for it, and Zhetysu’s 1-0 loss left us with half a loss. We take it on the chin. One Saturday like this does not change what the numbers say over hundreds of bets. Short priced favourites win far more often than they lose, and the days they all miss together buy the days they all land together. We reset and go again. Settled bets 1. NWS Spirit U20 5-1 St George Saints ...

A brilliant Friday, and exactly the kind of day the whole thing is built on. Six bets, not a single loser. Four winners, one half winner, and one that handed our stake back on a draw. Up 1.85 units on the day. The two goal and a quarter starts did the business. Drogheda won 2-1 at Dundalk and Botáfogo drew 3-3 at Sport Recife, and with that much in hand both came home comfortably. The draws were kind to us as well. UAI Urquiza were held 0-0, but our bet only needed them not to lose, so it landed. Peninsula Power’s goalless game gave us half a win. Riverside Olympic won 1-0 for a clean one, and Deportivo Maldonado’s 1-1 draw meant our Draw No Bet stake came straight back. No stress and no scares, just short priced favourites doing their jobs. We want a lot more Fridays like this one. Settled bets 1. Peninsula Power 0-0 WDSC Wolves (Aus QLD NPL). AH Peninsula +0.25 @ 1.16. HALF WON, +0.080u 2. Launceston United 0-1 Riverside Olympic (Aus Tasmania NPL). AH Riverside -0.25 @...

A frustrating midweek card, three of the five in profit but the maths landing at minus 0.945u — the winners too short to outrun the two full losses. The shape of a thin summer slate, where the favourites that miss cost more than the ones that hit return. The USL League Two favourites split two from three. Lakeland United and Fort Lauderdale United both won 1-0, settling their minus 0.5 lines for plus 0.53u and plus 0.25u, but Black Rock could only draw 0-0 with FC Boston Bolts, and a minus 0.5 favourite that fails to win is a full loss however tight the game. Three short-priced home favourites, two delivered, one stalled — and at 1.53 and 1.25 the two that won simply do not cover a single 1.67 loss. The two Brazilian picks went opposite ways. Ponte Preta lost 1-2 to Criciúma, but the single-goal defeat pushed the plus 1.0 leg and won the plus 1.5 leg of the plus 1.25 for a half win of plus 0.275u — the quarter line doing precisely what it exists to do. Athletico Paranaense’s Un...

A losing Monday, the column closing at minus 2.195u across seven picks on a thin summer card. Two won, one half won, one pushed and three lost — a below-par strike on a quiet, low-volume slate where the favourites asked to win largely did not oblige. The three full losses all came from sides that simply did not turn up. Sportivo Barracas were beaten 3-2 by Yupanqui, the Double Chance broken. Amazonas lost 0-2 at home to Itabaiana, both legs of the plus 0.25 gone. And Figueirense went down 3-1 at Brusque, a two-goal defeat that cleared out both legs of the plus 1.25. When a favourite loses outright there is nowhere for the handicap to hide. Where the lines did their work, they did it quietly. Mercedes were the pick of the day, a 3-0 away win at CSR Espanol banking the plus 1.25 in full at 1.27 for plus 0.27u. Benjamin Aceval drew 1-1 with Deportivo Capiatá, the draw covering the plus 0.5 Double Chance for plus 0.36u. Sao Bernardo lost 2-1 at Vila Nova but the single-goal margin ...

A near perfect Sunday, and the day that answered Saturday in full. Ten picks staked, ten of them returned a profit, and the column closed at net plus 4.075u with not a single losing bet on the card. Nine won outright or were rescued by the handicap and the tenth half won, which is about as clean as a high strike rate slate ever runs. The two American lower division favourites were the engine of the day. Ballard were devastating, a 7-0 win over Tacoma Stars settling the minus 0.5 line at 1.38 for plus 0.38u, and Project 51O matched the ruthlessness with a 6-1 win over Davis Legacy for plus 0.50u. Ironbound made it three from three in USL League Two, a 3-0 win over Staten Island on the minus 0.5 for plus 0.44u. Three straight favourites, three routs, no anxiety. The Double Chance favourites all held. Rīgas FS II were the pick of them, a 2-0 win over Super Nova II banking the plus 0.5 at a generous 1.67 for plus 0.67u. Deportivo Santaní beat General Caballero 2-1 for plus 0.50u, a...

A red Saturday, and the kind of day a long season has to absorb from time to time. Eleven picks were staked, six of them paid, but five went down as full unit losses and the column closed at net minus 2.46u. The pattern was the mirror image of a good day: the damage came from clean favourites failing at the front of the card, while the quarter and Double Chance cushions that usually rescue us could not stretch far enough to cover it. The green that did arrive came from the smaller northern leagues. ÍBV were the best of the night, a 1-0 win over Valur in the Icelandic top flight settling the Draw No Bet at 1.83 for plus 0.83u. Skála followed in the Faroese league, a 1-0 win over B68 landing both legs of the plus 0.25 split for plus 0.43u. Three Double Chance favourites held their end: Quilmes beat Atlético Atlanta 2-1 for plus 0.37u, Vancouver FC saw off York9 2-0 for plus 0.34u, and Temperley edged Tristán Suárez 1-0 for plus 0.35u. Levadia completed the winners, a 3-1 result at Tr...

A green Friday, and a hard fought one. Eight picks, six of them either won outright or were rescued by the handicap, two went down, and the column closed at net plus 0.36u on eight units staked. It was a night where the quarter and three quarter lines did the heavy lifting: three of the winners lost their actual matches by a single goal and still paid, which is exactly what those cushions are there for. The two clean favourites carried the top of the card. KoPa were the pick of the day, a 4-2 win over STPS in the Finnish regional programme on the minus 0.5 line at 1.70 for plus 0.70u, never in doubt once they pulled clear. Cooks Hill United backed it up down in the Australian Northern NSW grade, a 3-1 win over Valentine that settled the plus 0.5 Double Chance at 1.44 for plus 0.44u. The two League of Ireland games were the story of the night, because both of our teams lost and both still returned. Sligo Rovers led at the Showgrounds through captain Will Fitzgerald, but a red ca...