Australian Football Pools - How to Pick Away Wins

Many people do not realise that the Australian Football results are quite different to UK and European results. There are subtle patterns which can only be identified by digging deeply into the results and performance statistics. The smart punter can use this information to help pick the most likely away bets.

Strange Patterns

Now, analysis shows that there are a number of strange patterns of results. Teams which lose at home are then much more likely to win away on their next match than would be the case in Europe. This ‘bounceback’ effect is quite noticeable.

Win/Draw/Lose Runs

Runs of wins, draws and losses tend to be longer than in the UK. As I write this article, the following form is evident:

There are several other examples on this coupon. The reasons for this are mainly due to the fact that the range of performance difference within a given league is massive. Playing standards of the leading teams in a league are way beyond those of the lower teams. In a given match, you might see a team of performance rating 200 playing a team rated at 7. This is clearly going to be one sided.

How Does this Help Us with Away Bets?

We check the form ratings of the teams and can immediately identify a couple of dozen matches as going to be one sided, and maybe a dozen of these which are likely to be Aways. We check these for 'Home Loss in last match/Away match next' – these are a good indicator of Aways.

We then look more closely at the remaining matches and identify further ‘Home Loss last match/Away match next’ teams, and if the opposition is not far ahead in terms of performance rating (in which case they would be in our previous list above), then mark these as likely Aways. These are lower probability Aways.

The Bookies Know This

Obviously, the bookies are aware of these quirks and that is why the pools companies look for more Aways on Australian coupons. In the UK coupons, the pools companies offer a ‘4 Aways’ pool, but for Australian football they have been looking for more Away matches.

How Do We Cover This?

One way is to take the fixed odds betting and place say an ‘Any six aways from 10’ bet with a bookie. This is in fact 210 separate bets – and not all bookies will do this. Taking say 7 from 10 reduces this to 120 bets, or 8 from 10 gives 45 bets. Also, the minimum stake a bookie will take is obviously a big factor in the overall cost.

Finally

To make all this work, you have to have access to a solid performance rating system so that you can reliably narrow down your list of likely Away win matches, just as the Wizard system offers.

© 2010 Phil Marks