How to use Soccer Spreads

The Soccer Spreads spreadsheet will provide you with a great number of football spread ratings each weekend. Most of these spreads will closely match those offered by the spread betting companies but some will vary significantly from those offered by the spread firms. To identify any potential spread bets please follow these instructions carefully.

In order to use the ratings you will need Microsoft Excel or a compatible spreadsheet application. If you do not have Microsoft Excel (shipped with Microsoft Office) you can download the OpenOffice.org software free of charge.

You should save the spreadsheet to your hard disc then make a backup of the spreadsheet (i.e. copy it to a backup file with a different name) just in case you make a mistake and corrupt it.

When you open the spreadsheet the first thing you must do is to set the three figures at the top of the sheet in the mauve cells G2, K2 and O2. This will need to be done on both sheets for the Premiership and Championship (you can switch between the two sheets by clicking on the appropriate tab at the bottom of the sheet).

The "Base Stake" in cell G2 determines the size of your unit stake and should be set to around 1% to 2% of your total betting bank. Another way to determine this figure is to set it to 10% of what you could afford to lose if you had a very bad week (i.e. the sort of week which hopefully will only occur about once every year). You should experiment and adjust this figure until you get the unit stakes that you are comfortable with (these are displayed after the last match details at the bottom of the spreadsheet).

The "Divisor" in cell K2 is set to a default of 4. This figure tends to produce around ten potential spread bets per weekend during most of the football season. If you feel you would like to have more potential bets then increase the Divisor figure to 5 (or even 6). If you want to restrict yourself to the very best spread betting opportunities then reduce the Divisor figure to 3 (or even 2).

The maximum stake for a particular bet can be limited by setting the "Max Multiple" figure in cell O2. This is set to a default of 2 which gives a maximum stake of twice the unit stake. If you want to increase this then set the Max Multiple figure to 3 (or more). If you do not want to be limited to a maximum stake then set this figure to 99. If you always want to use the unit stake (i.e. level stakes) then set this figure to 1.

All you need to do now is enter the best (lowest) �Buy� spread for each match and market in the cells highlighted in dark pink. You also need to enter the best (highest) �Sell� spread for each match and market in the cells highlighted in light blue. Note that as the default the spreads in these cells are set to the Soccer Spreads rating for that particular market.

The "Value" cells will now indicate the value of each particular bet. In order for a bet to be considered its value must be at least 1. Any value cell with a value of 1 or more will be highlighted in yellow (along with the stake cell) and any value cell with a value of 1.5 or more will be highlighted in amber (again along with the stake cell). The "Stake" cells will indicate the calculated stake (limited to the maximum stake if you have entered a limit greater than 1 in the "Max Multiple" cell). Note that the stake cells will only display a stake if the associated value cell has a value of 1 or more.

Once you have entered all the "best" spreads available from the spread betting firms the potential bets will all be highlighted in either yellow or amber.

When the spreadsheet indicates several potential bets for a particular match you will need to determine which bet or bets should be placed. As a general rule you should try to maximise your potential profit on any particular game. However you should not place multiple bets on the same game if the bets are related. Whether particular bets are related can be open to interpretation so we would recommend that you use the following guidelines:

Goals, Bookings and Corners are not related to each other.
            Goals, Goal Times and Leading Minutes are related to each other.
            Full Performance indexes are related to everything.
            Mini Performance indexes are related to everything apart from corners.
            Match Performance index is related to everything.
            All Goal bets are related to each other.
            All corner bets are related to each other.
            All bookings bets are related to each other.

Please remember that the Soccer Spreads ratings are raw figures based on previous results and medium term trends. They do not take into account other influencing factors such as a change of manager or a key striker being injured or suspended. The ratings should always be used within the context of other influences on a particular match. Consideration should be given to the current team strength, team motivation, whether the team has had a hard match in Europe recently and so on. For instance it is evident that the form of a team improves (sometimes only temporarily) when a new manager is appointed.

Be very careful about using the ratings for a team that has been recently promoted to the Championship. As the Soccer Spreads system only captures data for the Premiership and Championship matches there is no data available for the previous form of a team recently promoted to the Championship. In order to arrive at a rating for such teams we use the average figures for recently promoted teams from previous seasons. If a newly promoted team is stronger than average (e.g. Fulham in the 99/00 season) their ratings will not be as high as they should be for the first few months of the season.

The recommendation is to avoid betting on any match involving teams that are newly promoted to the Championship until the end of October. This principle does not apply as much to teams that have been promoted to the Premiership or relegated to the Championship as we have the relevant data for the previous season (we adjust the data accordingly depending on whether the team has been promoted or relegated). Even so we would still recommend that you avoid betting on matches involving newly promoted or relegated teams until they have played at least 4 matches.

As there is a lot of transfer activity during the summer months (and the January window) with key players being bought and sold we would also recommend that you let the form settle down a bit before placing any bets in a new season. A good rule of thumb is not to bet until the teams have each played approximately 8 matches or to at least reduce your unit stakes.

Do not expect to win every spread bet you put on. You will have losing bets as well as winning bets and by the law of averages you will encounter a losing streak now and again. Football matches by their very nature can be very unpredictable so don't get too upset if a particular result doesn't turn out as you expected. Your objective should be to show a long term profit over a number of weeks or months by the judicious use of the Soccer Spreads ratings and your own judgment.