Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew
The Road to Riches Weekend of 19th-20th October
Coming up this weekend
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Manchester United v Liverpool
- Rugby Union, the 2019 World Cup Quarter Finals
- Racing, Flat racing at Ascot, Catterick and Wolverhampton and over the jumps at Ffos Las, Market Rasen and Stratford
- NFL Week 7 of the 2019 NFL season
- Golf, The Open de France on the European Tour and on the US Tour the CJ Cup at Nine Bridges.
- Tennis, The ATP Kremlin Cup in Moscow and the Antwerp and Stockholm Opens
Free tip
Northampton Town v Salford City League Two Saturday 3pm
Salford City go into the game 14th, in a so far inconsistent first season in the Football League. Until they beat Cambridge at home 1-0 last weekend, which followed a win at Walsall the week before they hadn’t won back to back league games.
Overall they have won four and drawn five of 13 games and have conceded 20 goals, only bottom of the table Morecambe have seen more attempts at goal against them. 8 of the 20 goals conceded against them were in successive defeats 4-0 and 4-1 by Crewe and Forest Green respectively, the sides currently at the top of the division alongside Exeter.
10 of Salford’s 16 league goals have been scored away from home
Northampton under Keith Curle are 18th, having only won 4 of 13 games scoring only 14 goals in the process. They have no wins in their last four games.
Looking at prices for the match Northampton 6/5 looks very short. Salford at 5/2+ an interesting price
10 points Salford City to beat Northampton Town 13/5 Bet365 5/2 SportingBet and BetfairSportsbook
Drafty
When the NFL adopted free agency in 1994 owners were afraid of losing star players. To mitigate this risk and ensure teams retained some control over players, the league simultaneously instituted the franchise tag as well as compensatory picks. Using a formula based on salary, playing time, and post-season team honours, 32 picks in the upcoming draft, between the third and seventh rounds (and a maximum of four per team), are distributed as compensation to teams that lost more good free agents than they signed the previous offseason.
Changes in the last 10 years have further exacerbated the players’ concerns, notably in 2011 The new rookie wage scale is adopted and in 2017 the NFL begun to allow teams to trade comp picks.
The system of compensatory picks serves to squeeze the market for top free agents and make marginal players on the fringe of rosters even more disposable.
The NFL’s hard financial cap for player rosters means that the decision to re-sign a free agent doesn’t equal picking between having that player and having nothing. It means the decision between having that player and having the cap space to use on another player.
Not every free agent qualifies for the compensatory pick formula. players that qualify are good enough that they will get picked up by other teams. However, the compensatory picks doled out represent 32 opportunities that are being extended to players not already in the league.
The player who is getting squeezed is the second-tier veteran player. The teams know how cheap the draft picks are, since the advent of the rookie wage scale more than half of seventh-round draft picks have lasted on the roster through a second season.
The rookie wage scale allows teams to bring in quality players they can dramatically under-pay and compensatory picks increase the numbers of players drafted. The environment for second tier free agents is therefore harsh. Less leverage and NFL careers are shortening as a reulst as rosters get younger, outside the star players.
With the NFL trade deadline looming it is worth watching for players released by rebuilding teams. If they are picked up elsewhere one of the benefits to the team releasing them will be the possibility of extra compensatory picks next year.
Brodders Football Analysis
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Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £44,319 All bets have an ROI +3.3%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £48,319 a 1107% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 12th-13th October
Coming up this weekend
- Football, European Championship Qualifying including the Czech Republic v England on Friday night
- Rugby Union, the 2019 World Cup Pool matches conclude with five remaining matches over the weekend
- Racing, Flat racing at Newmarket, Wolverhampton and York and over the jumps at Chepstow and Hexham
- NFL Week 6 of the 2019 NFL season
- Formula One, the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka
- Golf, The Italian Open on the European Tour and on the US Tour the Houston Open.
- Tennis, The ATP Shanghai Masters
Free tip
League One football Peterborough v Lincoln (Saturday 3pm)
So far this season Peterborough have 26 goals in League one in 10 games including games where they have scored 6,4 and 3 goals twice. The most attacking side in the division they invested in the summer, signing Mo Eisa from Bristol City for a club record to add to Ivan Toney and left winger Marcus Maddison and between them these three players have 24 goals so far this season
Last weekend Peterborough drew 3-3 at Wycombe, whose manager described them as “the best side we have played by a country mile” but Peterborough are defensively vulnerable too. Manager Darren Ferguson said “It’s clear where our problems are. Conceding sloppy goals is our Achilles heel right now”
It is Lincoln’s first season back in League one and having lost the Cowleys to Huddersfield and with the appointment of Michael Appleton as their new manager returned to form last weekend beating Sunderland 2-0 after losing 3 of their previous 4 games. Lincoln have scored 17 goals this season and Tyler Walker (on loan from Forest) has six of those goals
In Peterborough’s matches this season over 3.5 goals has occurred in six of the ten games. Here that is 2/1 plus.
10 points Over 3.5 goals Peterborough v Lincoln at 21/10 Betfair Sportsbook, 2/1 BetVictor and RedZoneSports, 15/8 Betfred
Tank
Through five weeks of the NFL season the Miami Dolphins have lost all their games and are one of the first examples in the NFL of a “tank” in action, a tank being a team accepting it will lose many games so as to be in a position to draft a franchise quarterback next year and rebuild the franchise and trading away many of its better players for future considerations to ensure the roster is barely competitive in the short term. Tanking is a very frequent occurrence in the NBA and MLB and of course is non-existent in many sports we are familiar with that have leagues with relegation
In the NFL though Miami’s approach has raised concerns for the current roster of players in Miami who are physically paying the price and putting bad film on tape because they’re not trying to win and it potentially shortens their careers.
The owner, General Manager, and maybe the potential future coach are going to benefit from this, but not these players who will be moved on as the team rebuilds.
Owner Stephen Ross essentially has admitted to a big-picture tank job in multiple private conversations, without ever expressly calling it that. Publicly, he recently came extremely close to admitting it.
“The goal isn’t to try to patch some holes to go 9-7 and make the play offs.I want to compete for and win Super Bowls. We took an objective look at our situation at the end of last year and realised that we were a long way away from where we need to be. Our roster, salary-cap situation, everything. We’ve won 72 games in 10 years and that’s just not good enough. I take responsibility for that, and as I said back in March, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. The moves that have been made were all made in the best interest in trying to build a championship team”
The Dolphins decided instead to take one (or more) steps back in the hopes of at some point becoming a consistent winner. In trading away Laremy Tunsil and Minkah Fitzpatrick as well as other moves the Dolphins have a haul of draft picks for the next two years that includes three first round selections next year and two in 2021, and three bona fide star quarterback prospects coming out of college in Tua Tagovailoa AND Justin Herbert in 2020 and Trevor Lawrence in 2021.
The NFL knows that a real temptation to tank exists in the NFL, especially in December after teams are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention and management decides to “evaluate” young players and other backups, in the unspoken hopes of landing a higher spot in the draft orde but can’t and won’t acknowledge that tanking is even a possibility as the the integrity of games becomes undermined.
Brodders Football Analysis
Brodders subscribers enjoyed a profitable 2018, betting £10 a point on matches would have won you £4,600 and he has now four successive profitable years. Over five years Betting £10 a point you would be winning over £23,000 with a 3.03% ROI Sign up here
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £44,319 All bets have an ROI +3.3%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £48,319 a 1107% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 5th-6th October
Coming up this weekend
- Football, The Premier League fixtures include Liverpool v Leicester City
- Rugby Union, the 2019 World Cup Pool matches continue in Japan including England v Argentina on Saturday
- Racing, Flat racing at Ascot, Newmarket, Redcar and Wolverhampton and over the jumps at Fontwell and the Prix De L'Arc de Triomphe on Sunday
- NFL Week 5 of the 2019 NFL season
- Golf, The Spanish Open on the European Tour and on the US Tour the Shriners Hospital for Children event at TPC Summerlin.
- Tennis, ATP Opens in Beijing and Tokyo.
Free tip
League One Fleetwood Town v Ipswich Town (Saturday 3pm)
Ipswich Town were relegated from the Championship last season and are playing in the third flight for the first time since 1957. Ten games into the new season they look well placed to bounce back immediately, unbeaten and having won seven of those games. They have only conceded five goals too.
In the off-season Paul Lambert’s side acquired the prolific lower league goal-scorer James Norwood from Tranmere and he (and also strike parter Kayden Jackson) has five goals so far this season. It is a strong side for this level, with Alan Judge playing behind the front two and Luke Garbutt on loan from Everton at left wing back who on return from injury now has 3 goals in four starts this season
The trip to Fleetwood this weekend sees 3rd play first. Under Joey Barton last season they finished 11th and Fleetwood have won six of their ten league games this season and Irish Striker Paddy Madden has six goals.
Fleetwood are 6/4 favourites for the game and the draw is best priced 12/5. The 15/8 widely available about the division leaders though does look interesting. With a very solid back line and plenty of service to two regular goal-scorers I think they have every chance of extending their lead at the top of the table
10 points Ipswich to beat Peterborough 11/5 Bet365 and 2/1 generally
Scores on the Doors
Steve Smith of course had a sensational Ashes series with 774 runs in 4 matches at an average of 110 with three hundreds and three fifties, some 300+ runs ahead of the next highest scoring batsman on other side. His performance is even more extraordinary when we consider what a historically tough era this is for batsmen. In 2018-19 to date the average runs per wicket in Test cricket is 27, the lowest for 62 years.
A number of reasons contribute to that. The Ashes series for example featured Duke balls with a pronounced seam that made batting high in the order especially fraught, evidenced by the paucity of opening partnerships throughout. Through the series five bowlers took 20 wickets plus. Batsmen’s techniques are clearly more attuned to one day formats and across many sides (Bumrah, Rabada, Amir, Cummins and Hazlewood, Broad and Archer, Boult etc just to name the obvious examples) it is a vintage era for fast bowling.
Over and above these factors though the use of analytics and data is beginning to transform strategy in the long form of the game as it did in T02 cricket. Australian head coach Justin Langer is at the forefront of this, as he was with the Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash.
In the 2015 Ashes Australia routinely picked Starc, Cummins and Pattinson, their fastest line up. In that series their line up went for almost 4 runs an over. This time round Starc did not play until the fourth test, an obvious sign of the depth of their fast bowling resources, Pattinson was rotated and Australia picked Hazlewood and Siddle more often than not, preferring to target relentless line and length against a fallible and impatient batting line up. In 2019 Australia went at under three runs an over.
Even before the advent of data, teams were videoing batsmen and bowlers were poring over the footage working out the best way to dismiss them, Data has given empirical confirmation to observations and accelerated the extent to which weaknesses are identified early. This may well be part of the larger story of average scores trending lower in Test cricket.
Brodders Football Analysis
Brodders subscribers enjoyed a profitable 2018, betting £10 a point on matches would have won you £4,600 and he has now four successive profitable years. Over five years Betting £10 a point you would be winning over £23,000 with a 3.03% ROI Sign up here
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £44,319 All bets have an ROI +3.3%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £48,319 a 1107% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 28th-29th September
Coming up this weekend
- Football, The Premier League fixtures include Manchester United v Arsenal on Monday Night Football
- Rugby Union, the 2019 World Cup Pool matches continue in Japan
- Racing, Flat racing at Chelmsford, Chester, Haydock, Newmarket and Ripon and over the jumps at Market Rasen
- NFL Week 4 of the 2019 NFL season
- Formula One, the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi
- Golf, the Alfred Dunhill Links at St Andrews and on the US Tour the Safeway Open at Silverado GC
- Tennis, ATP Opens in Chengdu and Shengzhen in China
Free tip
The Cambridgeshire by Neil Channing (Newmarket Saturday 3.40pm)
There are ten horses in the Cambridgeshire priced at less than 25/1 and those are the ones I shall focus on as what is called the favourite/longshot bias means that those longer priced runners are often way bigger on exchanges than they are with the bookies and thus they offer little value each-way. The draw here tends to tell us that the really high numbers should be ruled out and for that reason I'm going to scratch Le Don De Vie, Good Birthday, Lord North and Mordin as they are out in 33-32-29-28. That makes it a bit easier and leaves us just six to think about.
Out of Luck
Just before the new NFL season started the Colts Quarterback Andrew Luck, former number one draft pick and last year’s NFL comeback player of the year surprised the NFL by announcing his retirement during a pre-season game.
Luck’s career has been spent battling injury, most of it due to a shoulder injury sustained in 2015. After missing several games that season, the Colts revealed that Luck had sustained a shoulder subluxation, a near dislocation, in an early season game against the Tennessee Titans. Throwing, training and “routine” contact were affected by the injury, likely causing the missed games and sub-par performances of the 2015 season.
Of course the incidence of injury is high in the sport but a major contributor factor was that having drafted a franchise quarterback in the early year’s of Luck’s career the then General Manager Ryan Grigson did not construct a roster with investment in the offensive line to protect him. By the time a new regime in Indianapolis rectified this, Luck had already missed an entire season and parts of others. Last season proved to be a successful swansong. The Colts reached the play-offs and a more conservative Luck performed well in his comeback season but we are now left with a sense of what might have been for the player, franchise and NFL if he had been protected well in the early years of his career.
For a sport so often in thrall to the notion of “playing through pain” the reaction to the news was mixed. Indianapolis fans booed him in the stadium on the announcement. Players and former players leapt to his defence.
N.F.L. veterans who cope with a lifetime of pain, from arthritis and failing knees to headaches and memory loss, have to minimise, trivialise or write it off as an inevitable burden to bear, a mentality fortifying masculine norms. They did what they “had” to do. Against this backdrop with a career’s worth of rib cartilage shorn, a kidney lacerated, a concussion and his most recent lower-leg injury Luck’s choice somehow shocked the nation.
Brodders Football Analysis
Brodders subscribers enjoyed a profitable 2018, betting £10 a point on matches would have won you £4,600 and he has now four successive profitable years. Over five years Betting £10 a point you would be winning over £23,000 with a 3.03% ROI Sign up here
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £44,319 All bets have an ROI +3.3%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £48,319 a 1107% increase
The Road to Riches Weekend of 21st-22nd September
Coming up this weekend
- Football, The Premier League fixtures include Chelsea v Liverpool
- Rugby Union, the start of the 2019 World Cup in Japan
- Racing, Flat racing at Ayr, Catterick, Chelmsford City, Newbury, Newmarket and Wolverhampton.
- NFL Week 3 of the 2019 NFL season
- Cricket, Vitality T20 Blast finals day at Edgbaston.
- Formula One, the Singapore Grand Prix
- Golf, the BMW PGA at Wentworth and on the US Tour the Sanderson Farms Championship
- Tennis, ATP Opens in Moselle and St Petersburg
Rugby World Cup - (20th Sep - 2nd Nov 2019)
The RWC 2019 is underway. In 2015 the package won 112.4 points with a +ROI of 28.3%. The full package, ante post and match write ups with details of all our bets is £50 and you can sign up here
Free tip
T20 Blast finals day, Edgbaston, Saturday
The semi-finals are as follows
11am Notts v Worcs
2.30pm Essex V Derbyshire
Worcs are defending Champions and qualified for the quarter finals from 4th place in the North Group then beat Sussex away thanks to 120* from Moeen Ali chasing a big target at Hove. A strong side, they were drawn into what looks to be the far tougher semi-final against a high powered Notts team who finished second in the North group. Notts traditionally are a very strong batting side and have a potentially match winning bowler in Harry Gurney who has 18 wickets in the competition so far.
It’s a bit of a shame this is the first semi-final, early morning conditions in late September might mean there is a big toss advantage and the contest might not be the pure big hitting contest it might be later in the day.
Essex are the only South Group representative on finals day, having finished 4th in the South Group then upsetting Lancashire in the semi-finals, helped by the match being played at a neutral venue due to the Old Trafford test match. They, an experienced side containing the likes of Bopara, Ten Doeschate, Zampa and Harmer and have the kinder semi-final draw, as Derbyshire are a small county at finals day for the first time and crept through a tight low scoring quarter-final at Bristol, where the group finishing positions meant both sides had avoided the big guns in the knockout stages. Debyshire’s strength is in Opening batting where Godleman and Madsen both have over 400 runs in the competition.
Odds for finals day are as follows:
Notts 2/1
Worcs 5/2
Essex 3/1
Derbyshire 4/1
Essex will be underdogs should they reach the final but I would expect them to beat Derbyshire to get there and would have them shorter than 3-1 to win it outright
10 points Essex to win the T20 Blast Bet365, Ladbrokes/Coral, BetVictor
Complex
Cricket is implementing a new World Test Championship to give context to its worldwide Test Series. It comes a decade after the idea was first approved by the ICC and after two failed attempts to launch it in 2013 and 2017. The recent Ashes series was the first series in a two-year tournament that will end with a Lord’s final between the top two Test sides in the world to find a Test format champion.
There are many reasons it is hard to get excited about the World Test Championship. It has a complicated mathematical structure for gaining points and no one is convinced that the eventual winner will be the best Test side in the world because the system is such that not everyone plays each other on an equal footing. It features nine of the twelve Test playing nations each of whom will play a Test series against six of the other eight teams. Each series consists of between two and five matches, so although all teams will play six series (three at home and three away), they will not play the same number of Tests. Each team will be able to score a maximum of 120 points from each series and the two teams with the most points at the end of the league stage will contest the final. Crystal Clear.
Set against that Test cricket is being overtaken by a glut of one-day and T20 tournaments for commercial reasons and the longer form of the game is under constant attack from money-hungry boards who are the very people who administer it.
It used to be that Test series were their own narrative whether that be the Ashes, Caribbean Tours or India v Pakistan with no mega-tournament that decides, once every four years, who is king of the world. The story of international cricket was always more linear and long form with history contributing to the anticipation of forthcoming series.
As it is, India now dominates the global game both financially and across formats. A tournament that might elevate each competing nation to equal status can be only a good thing. If the World Test Championship can help sustain five day cricket in the calendarand give it a different meaning in the modern world there’s a reason to get behind it, if you can understand it!
Brodders Football Analysis
Brodders subscribers enjoyed a profitable 2018, betting £10 a point on matches would have won you £4,600 and he has now four successive profitable years. Over five years Betting £10 a point you would be winning over £23,000 with a 3.03% ROI Sign up here
Bookmaker reviews and advice
Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.
Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £44,319 All bets have an ROI +3.3%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £48,319 a 1107% increase
