Steadbank

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 ...