CORNER PUNTING

[Antony OLBG]

Nice 1

[The Shark]

Thanks cjthedj I'll have a look into that.

[johno]

anyone keep track / keep betting on corners in a game???

[aye66]

If you google "betting on corners" as of today 31 Aug 2006, this (almost 2 year old) thread appears on the top of the list.... so I reckon it's time to revive this thread and post some thoughts of mine regarding this market with a typical (for me) long-winded post. Hopefully it's an entertaining read!

One would suspect that betting on corners originated from spread betting. I won't go into the basics of spread betting in this post. Over the years, the fixed odds bookies have had to compete with these spread betting firms and therefore you can now bet on corners in-running at bookies such as Bet365.

But anyway, this post is about my attempts/experiences of mastering the art of punting on corners using a fixed odds firm.

Bookies Strategy:
They will offer 3 selections in this market by taking a stance on the expect number of corners in the match. The below is typical:
Under 10 corners = 10/11
10 corners exactly = 6/1
Over 10 corners = 1/1

This will give you a total book percentage of around 112%, which is pretty typical for a fixed odds premiership 1X2 market. Under/Over a certain level of corners would not usually be priced above evens as they would want to prevent arbitraging during in-running play when the levels shift.

Available Strategies for the punter:

1. Let's look at the most basic approach to this market: One could easily collect corner statistics for the home and away team and find the average of the last few games. Armed with this information, a punter could then place a pre-match bet on over/under/exactly the offered number of corners.

Is it really that simple?
From my personal experience... not really. It's difficult to sustain profit using this method as you're fighting the 12% overrounds using just raw stats.

What really contributes to corners?
In my opinion, there are 3 major factors:
a. Shots deflected out to a corner
b. Defence lacking in composure and are willing to concede a corner when clearing a ball
c. team formation/style of play, particularly teams who use wide players (wingers) or counter-attack tend to get corners.

(to be continued).....

[aye66]

Let's take a look at these 3 levels in greater detail and some suggestions to estimate their impact:

shots deflected out to a corner:
well... this reflects the number of corners gained due to a team's attacking place. Basically the more shots attempted, the more corners expected to be gained. One can indirectly infer the impact from this factro from the ratio of number of shots attempted in a match (on target and off target) to the number of corners gained.

defence lacking in composure:
You can gauge this from computing the number of shots that the opponent has to the number of corners conceded. This ratio could be used in predicting the number of corners conceded.

team formation/style of play:
this is slightly relevant to the "shots deflected out to a corner" factor. Imagine a shots attempted = 4 but corners gained = 8. This would imply that the team formation/style of play generates more corners than "shots deflected out to a corner" factor.

Using all 3 factors, one could probably generate an approximate number of corners expected in a single match (possibly through the indirect means of predicting the number of shots attempted... therefore missing strikers might play a part in this estimate). Punters can then use this estimate to determine if there is value in the pre-match odds for corners (and therefore determine the suitability of placing a bet before the match starts).

(next section... dealing with in-running fluctuations... to be continued...)

[Vrindavan]

>> real professional and that only with some unknown system


unbelievable

[Inatimate1]

to be honest corners are hard to predict in a game, following on from what Aye said back in August , style of play is indeed important, i mean, take a couple of tonights matches...

Palace v Birmingham

Both teams will probably be happy with the draw here, and I can't see too many corners, especially looking at their league positions, with Birmingham having the strongest away record I can't see too much pressure from the home side and this looks good for the under 11 corners @ 1.80 bet

Whereas if you look at a game like...

Northampton v Gillingham..

The home side are in a bit of bother near the foot of the table and will have to push for a win, no doubt if they took the lead, judging by their league position they could be suspect to letting the old "foot of the gas", and this could let Gillingham mount some pressure, I look at this game and I can see around 15 corners coming out of it, with around 10 of those in the 2nd half, Over 11 Corners @ 2.20

Thats how I judge corners to be honest, as in whether or not the match will be an agressive approach or a more laid back approach, bearing in mind that one corner could lead to three with deflections, so the person taking the corner also plays a part in the number of corners
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