Beat the Bookies: Week 9

By: Rob Sedgwick
Date: 30/09/2008

NEITHER Bradford nor Rotherham managed to win last week in the two Fixed Odds Bets. However Accrington's 3-1 defeat at home to Rochdale ensured a healthy profit in the weekend's Spread Bet.

This weekend the fixture list seems to have thrown up a lot of likely looking home wins in League Two. However, it's not actually very likely: if you bet on every match in League Two ending in a victory for the home side you can get odds of around 5,000-1.

Rotherham v Grimsby. On paper this looks a certain home win. However the first game under a new manager is likely to give Town and their fans at least some sort of a boost and possibly a point or two. All the same 7/2 for an away win looks distinctly ungenerous, and Rotherham look by far the better value at 4/6.

Darlington v Shrewsbury. The Shrews and Darlington both have strong home records and are not so good on their travels. However Shrewsbury are rapidly emerging as a strong candidate for automatic promotion, and are capable of winning any game. At the time of writing Sky Bet are offering 2/1 for an away win, when the other bookies are substantially lower than that, and the chance to back Shrewsbury at such a competitive price is too tempting.

Brentford v Macclesfield. Macclesfield's three match winning streak came to an end when they were trounced by Exeter at home this weekend. Brentford have not lost at home, and have had a great start to the season, currently lying fourth. They should see off the challenge of the Silkmen on Saturday, and can be backed at 8/11.

Chester v Lincoln. Chester looked relegation certainties in August but League Two is not the Premiership and most teams have both good patches and terribles ones during the course of the season. Chester and now on a good patch, and Lincoln on a terrible one. There doesn't look any reason why this should change and if it doesn't then Chester should clean up at 11/10

This season we will be trying out three different betting strategies:

• Fixed Odds - as per last year
• Spread Betting on the Mini Performance Index with IG Index (25 points for a win, 10 for a draw, 10 for a goal)
• The Monkey (betting on Town to win each game 3-1, i.e. the complete absence of any betting strategy).

Recommended Fixed Odds Bets

• 1. Shrewsbury beat Darlington (2/1, Sky Bet)
• 2. Brentford beat Macclesfield (8/11, bet365))

Recommended Spread Bet

• Prices not yet available at www.igsport.com