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In this article, we review the June results from our Sports Bettor group and Live Betting +.
Nothing lasts forever, and June reminded us of that in our pre-match betting group, The Sports Bettor. After an outstanding run of eight consecutive profitable months, we recorded our first losing month in a long time. Let’s take a look at what went wrong.
Our biggest bet of the month, staked at 5/5 units, unfortunately lost, and that naturally had a significant impact on the overall results. We backed Senegal to receive no cards against Iraq at the attractive odds of 3.20, a market that will always involve a fair amount of variance. Unfortunately, Senegal picked up not one but two yellow cards, making it a costly result in a World Cup tournament where referees had generally been reluctant to hand out bookings.
We also got Sweden’s corner prospects against France wrong. We backed Sweden to cover the handicap, but they fell well short. The numbers from the group stage had looked encouraging, and France had yet to cover a -3 corner handicap in the tournament despite facing, in some cases, weaker opposition than Sweden.
That raises an interesting question: How much weight should we place on group-stage statistics? Was France’s eventual 9-1 corner victory simply an outlier? Or do the tournament favourites — particularly the very biggest contenders — find another gear in the knockout rounds that they never need to show during the group stage, where qualification is often almost guaranteed?
We also have to admit that we backed goals in matches that never really developed in the direction we had anticipated. Both Ghana vs. Panama and South Africa vs. Czech Republic were expected to produce plenty of goals, but neither game lived up to those expectations. It’s a good reminder of why betting on high-scoring matches involving teams that naturally prefer tight, defensive football can be problematic.
Once the opening goal is scored, one side often becomes content with protecting its lead and falls back into the defensive structure it is most comfortable with. At the same time, the trailing team does not necessarily possess the attacking quality required to break that organisation down. Of course, every match is different and deserves its own analysis, but there is probably a valuable lesson in thinking twice before turning two naturally defensive teams into an “over” bet.
Fortunately, alongside those disappointments, there were also plenty of excellent bets where both the analysis and the outcome were spot on. We were early in backing DR Congo to beat Uzbekistan at odds of 1.98. The closing price was significantly shorter, and despite conceding early, the Africans fully deserved their 3-1 victory.
Morocco +0.5 Asian Handicap against the Netherlands was another strong contender for Bet of the Month. Judging by the flow of the game, Morocco arguably should have been favourites, as they limited the Dutch effectively while creating several quality chances themselves. Spain -2.5 Asian Handicap against Saudi Arabia was also comfortable throughout and was never seriously in danger.
For the year as a whole, we are now showing a profit of 86 units from 268 bets with a return on investment of 111.14%. This marks the third consecutive six-month period with at least a 7.5% profit, something we are naturally very pleased with. July has also started strongly, so hopefully June was simply one of those inevitable downturns that every long-term sports bettor experiences.
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Our live betting group delivered an excellent return in June, finishing with a return percentage of 114.23%. Put simply, for every €100 staked, you received approximately €114.23 back.
The profit was built on a series of excellent in-play bets and strong reads of how matches were developing — one of the most important skills if we want to generate consistent long-term profits. A perfect example was the French national team, whom we backed not once but twice late in matches, both times successfully.
The first came with France drawing 0-0 against Senegal after 62 minutes. It was obvious that Kylian Mbappé and his teammates had decided they were going to win the match, and they eventually did so convincingly by 3-1. If we can continue identifying these momentum shifts and timing our entries correctly, there will be plenty of value to exploit.
The same applied in France’s match against Sweden. Normally, a 2-0 lead is far from ideal when backing the favourite at -0.5 Asian Handicap, because the favourite already has the result it needs — especially in a knockout match. The key question becomes: Can we trust France to keep attacking?
In this case, we placed greater emphasis on what we had seen during the group stage, where Sweden had been exposed in a 5-1 defeat to the Netherlands — another team blessed with exceptional pace in attack. The question was simple: Could players like Kylian Mbappé punish an increasingly adventurous Swedish side in the same way the Dutch had? Our answer was a resounding yes, and shortly afterwards France sealed the game with a third goal to make it 3-0.
Naturally, there were also bets that missed the mark — there always will be. We were completely wrong when recommending 0-0 at half-time in Norway vs. Iraq, and it proved to be another excellent example of just how influential the cooling breaks can be.
Norway and their attacking stars had started cautiously before the cooling break, which led us to expect no further first-half goals. But after play resumed, the entire character of the match changed, with three goals scored in just fifteen minutes.
One valuable lesson from this tournament is therefore not to assume that the pattern of play before the cooling break will continue afterwards. The World Cup has repeatedly demonstrated — and did so once again on Wednesday evening in England vs. DR Congo — that cooling breaks provide the perfect opportunity for tactical adjustments that can completely change the dynamics of a match. An analysis based purely on what has happened is of little value if it has nothing to do with what will happen in the next phase of the game.
