WE'RE getting inside the minds of some of the betting industry's smartest minds by asking the experts to reveal their favourite resources, valuable insight and biggest wins in the game, with card-betting extraordinaire STG Bet (@DasSTG) from Daspunter next in the hot-seat.
When did you first start betting? Can you remember your first bet?
I first started betting when I was around 16/17. My friends and I would go round to our local bookies and blindly pick out a BTTS accumulator, seeking that winning feeling.
As time wore on I started to discover just how much strategy could go into betting and began obsessing how to become better at it.
What sports or leagues do you focus and bet on?
I now predominantly focus on the cards/bookings market in football, across every league in the world that it is offered. I often find that the more obscure the league, the better the value.
I would've described the cards market as fairly niche a few years ago which meant that I found value in the market a lot easier, but as of recently I feel it has become a lot more mainstream across betting platforms and social media which means value is increasingly hard to find. Though my love of it means I won't be deterred from it anytime soon…
What sites or sources do you use to follow them?
I would use a number of sites that I would consider essential for any card bettor – adamchoi.co.uk, thestatsdontlie.com, footystats.org and footcharts.co.uk all would contain team card data for basically every major league in the world.
Worldfootball.net would be the main site i'd use to find historical referee data.
Flashscore, WhoScored and SofaScore are three apps I use for team line ups and player stat analysis.
What are your favourite websites for research?
The single most important stat or factor when it comes to card betting, in my opinion, is the referee. Your card bet solely relies on their interpretation of the laws of the game and its vital you know everything you can about them prior to kick off.
I could probably write a book on my disagreements with referees and anyone who knows me will testify to that, I just feel that more often than not, they look for an excuse not to show a card rather than applying the letter of the law.
Thus it is paramount that before you place a card bet, you’re doing so in a game where the referee has historical trends of showing cards.
What stats you do consider the most important?
I thought about this one and in terms of card betting I don’t really feel that any particular stats or trends are worthy of ignorance. If we were to venture away from cards, I would probably say otherwise but there isn’t any data that I would be totally dismissive of.
People are often quick to dismiss head-to-head meetings as a factor when it comes to the 1×2 or goals markets, but I’ve often found it to be useful when analysing team or player cards. My advice would just be to take everything into account when placing a bet.
Are there any stats or trends you feel are irrelevant?
I thought about this one and in terms of card betting I don’t really feel that any particular stats or trends are worthy of ignorance. If we were to venture away from cards, I would probably say otherwise but there isn’t any data that I would be totally dismissive of.
People are often quick to dismiss head-to-head meetings as a factor when it comes to the 1×2 or goals markets, but I’ve often found it to be useful when analysing team or player cards. My advice would just be to take eve
What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learnt betting?
When it comes to the betting community on social media, draw your own conclusions, do your own investigating and don’t take people’s word head on.
There is often a false narrative created that winning and making money via betting is simple and straight forward – if anyone says that they are simply not telling the truth.
Why is value important in betting?
The single most important factor in all betting is price.
A good example of explaining this would be: throughout every bet I’ve placed, I have lost more bets than I have won – if I was to tell this to someone who wasn’t familiar with betting and ask them if they think I was up or down money, they’d probably say down. Yet this isn’t the reality – since I started tracking my bets publicly a number of years ago, I am +490u to mostly level 1 unit stakes.
This is purely because the price of my winning bets have shown to be of value and therefore profitable long term.
Have you any advice for punters looking to try and find an edge?
Do your research, lots of it. If you think you have found a potential edge, study it until you know everything around it completely.
Think outside the box when trying to develop it, avoid saturated markets, experiment different approaches.
What’s your biggest win (either odds or cash winnings) and how do you spend it?
When the in play player card markets were introduced a couple of years ago, I must say I had some fun. I got Kepa Arrizabalaga to be booked at 66/1 for time wasting when Chelsea led Brighton 2-1. That wasn’t the only time they got caught out but it was certainly the most memorable.
Sadly they have largely copped on now and as soon as a team goes 1-0 up these days the keeper is usually a shoddy price, but I’m always looking.
Those winnings went towards a house deposit, though a few years ago in my student days it would have been spent a lot differently.
Do you review your bets and track your winners/losers?
I have a spreadsheet that I use to track every bet I’ve placed. If you’re looking to become a serious bettor, keeping a record of your placed bets is a fairly essential practice. It should be used a tool to review your own progress and a way to identify how you can improve.
I am a contributor of a paid betting service so it is also important for me to show my results as a matter of transparency.
How do you cope with losing bets?
Personally, I have a long term staking plan implemented for my bets so I don’t get disheartened too much if a bet loses.
A large proportion of my bets would be greater than 2.00/Evens, so some losing streaks can occur when betting at higher odds – it takes a certain amount of discipline to grind through these patches.
That is not to say I don’t absolutely hate losing, over time I have just become better and more mature at coping with it, through this I have also learnt to truly appreciate the winning aspect more.
What’s the best thing about betting?
For me, when you spend long hours poring over every detail and ounce of research, for your bet to then win, it is a great feeling of satisfaction. I have been a lover of the game (football) for as a long as I remember so I genuinely enjoy getting to spend so much time obsessing over it.
When I first arrived on Twitter, I had no idea that there was even such a place as a “Twitter Tipster.” I thought to myself that it was something I wanted to get into as a way of testing myself and helping others make money alongside me, I couldn’t have dreamed of where I am now.
I’m proud to be a part of Daspunter and the betting community overall, which I believe is in a much better place than it was in previous years.
I also feel that there is a stigma attached to betting from the outside looking in, that it is a vice for mugs, degenerates and addicts. I want to be part of a culture that can remove this notion from people’s mindsets, to show that it can be a way for people to showcase their intelligence and hard work, by making money long term via sensible staking plans.
