Why Season Long EPL Bets are a Bad Idea

Is Tying Up Your Cash in a Season-Long Bet Good Value?

Season Long EPL / English Premiership bets have been all the talk in recent years, especially when Leicester City upset the odds in such spectacular fashion when they landed the title at 5000/1 in 2015/16.

The lucky bettors must have been in dreamland. But are season long bets such as these really a good thing? I’m not so sure and will explain why in detail below. While this page focuses on the EPL, the same logic and reasoning applies to all the Major Leagues at home.

Season Long EPL Bets: The Big Question of Tying Up Your Cash

While there are multiple factors to consider in any season-long bet, the key question is whether it is really a good idea to tie up your cash for such a long time.

Let’s face it, that wager will not settle for 6 or more months, and the sportsbook will be happy to keep hold of your money all season long.

Value betting also comes into play. These are often poor value compared to other bets. Moving on, I’ve covered the many unknowns you may encounter in these season long bets. At the end of this page you’ll find some solid and potentially profitable alternatives to these (relatively) poor Premiership season bets.

Why Season Long Premiership Bets are a Bad Idea: Opportunity Cost

When you place a season long bet consider how long your money is tied up for. You might place the bet in early August. And if you do manage to win, you won’t see any return till the start of May. That’s a whole 9 months after you placed the bet.

From the sportsbook’s point of view, this is fantastic. They’ll have your money for all that time and be able to invest it as they see fit. From your point of view, it’s simply gone.

That money might have been used for other betting opportunities, might have grown in a savings account or might have been needed elsewhere (to take advantage of many great value betting opportunities along the way).

Why Season Long EPL Bets are a Bad Idea: Value / Odds

In any betting market there is a built-in margin. For an average Premiership game, you might find a book offering a margin of between 104% and 107%. This means that they’ll expect to make a profit of between 4% and 7% on the given game. However, when you look at the season long markets, a different picture emerges.

A quick look at two renowned sportsbooks show one season long market with a 110% book and the other with a 113% book, meaning that the profit margin for the sportsbooks is double on these season-long markets.

So not only do they have your cash for a long time, they are keeping it on a market where the odds are much more in their favor. A great win-win situation for the sportsbook and a lose-lose situation for those placing the bet.

Why Season Long Premiership Bets are a Bad Idea: EPL Unpredictability

Unless you have a crystal ball, predicting the future is not an easy thing to do, especially the long-term future.

Do you really have any idea what the season might look like 4, 5, 6 or 7 months in? There are just so many intangibles that you just can’t predict.

The biggest one of these is player injuries. You’ve placed that season long bet and three games in, the star striker breaks his leg and suddenly your bet looks anything but a good thing.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, a particular team might be very lucky with injuries and be able to use the same starting line-up repeatedly, this settled team performing much better than expected.

Transfers are also a big consideration. The summer transfer window doesn’t close till the season is a handful of games old and you’ve also got the winter transfer window to contend with. If you place the season long bet before the first game, you’re gambling on these windows. Do you really know how much teams will have to spend when foreign investors are coming into the Premier League with such regularity?

The Revolving-Door of Managers and Owners

How about the managerial revolving door? You might look at the top teams and think the managerial set up is well established and will remain so.

History shows us this is a dangerous assumption. In August 2015 you wouldn’t have dreamed that Jose Mourinho, the manager of champions of Chelsea would be gone long before Christmas of the same year.

You might have a team tagged as certainties for relegation too. A good example might be Sunderland in 2015/16 under Dick Advocaat. After all, Sunderland had only just avoided relegation the previous year. Having backed the team for relegation you would have been confident when they had gained just 2 points from the first 7 games and were rooted to the bottom of the table. However, when the club appointed Sam Allardyce in October, you might have been concerned and rightly so, as he turned the club around and they avoided relegation with a game to spare.

Each of these factors listed above are real intangibles and make these long-term bets anything but predictable. Why not take this uncertainty out and stick to shorter term bets, where these intangibles are not so clear cut.

Alternatives to Season-Long Premiership Bets

What if the correct betting strategy if you believe an individual team will have a better than expected season? Why not get involved in a game-by-game basis?

If you wanted to back a team to win the league in a season long bet and they did go on to win the league, you’ll still make your money betting on a game-by-game basis. After all teams that win the league will need to win at least 25 of their 38 games. Then, if one of the risk factors covered above happens, then you can easily get out or adjust your betting strategy.

Betting this way, instead of your money being tied up by the sportsbook, it will be yours and if the season is successful, you’ll find the sportsbook’s money is in your account throughout the 9 months of the season.

Applying the Season-Long Logic to Other Sports

All the Major sports offer season long bets. Examples include conference winners, who will make the playoffs and even player-specific props which last all season.

And the same logic applies too.

Add to this the psychological component. A team might lose their first 3 games, and the subtle lack of belief can affect the next fixtures. This works the opposite way too. A good early run can snowball into an outlier season for a team you did not expect to perform well.