Boost your returns with Win to Nil bets

Picking a winner can sometimes be very easy – so easy in fact, that the odds available barely make it worthwhile. These types of bets are usually referred to as “bankers” and are often used to top up accumulators or combine with other bets to boost potential winnings. If you do spot a game that is a banker you can boost the odds by changing the type of bet that you place, and this is where the Win to Nil bet comes into play.

What is a Win to Nil bet?

Okay, so it is probably quite obvious but a Win to Nil bet means that you are backing a team to win without conceding a goal in the match. As you do research and analyse statistics you will immediately notice simple trends such as goals scored, goal conceded and clean sheets. You may spot a team that regularly wins at home but as a result the bookmakers’ odds are very poor. If that team also has a good clean sheet record, you may get a much better price by backing them to win to nil.

Example:

Let’s take a look at Chelsea’s Premier League home games from 1 January 2014 to 13 December 2014:

Games played: 17

Games won: 14

Games won to nil: 11

Now let’s look at the best odds available for their very next home match:

Odds to win: 7/20

Odds to win to nil: 6/5

As you can see the difference in games won and games won to nil is fairly small but the price offered by the betting company for the Win to Nil bet looks significantly better. So now we have to ask the next important question.

Will I get better value?

To determine if the Win to Nil bet is better value we have to compare the percentage chances of each occurrence with the percentage chance reflected in the odds. Okay, so let’s start with the home win.

Example

We are using a decent sample size of 17 Premier League home matches of which Chelsea managed to win 14. That gives us a home win percentage of:

14 / 17 x 100 = 82.3%

In the next game, the home win is available at 7/20. We will now use a simple formula to covert the odds to a percentage.

Denominator / (Denominator + Numerator) x 100

This produces the following result:

20 / (7 + 20) x 100 = 74.07%

As the bookmakers’ odds result in a lower percentage, this actually tilts the odds in our favour and makes this a fairly good value bet.

So what about the Win to Nil bet?

Example

Out of the 17 Premier League home matches that Chelsea played in the 2014 calendar year up until 13 December, they won 11 games to nil. This gives us a percentage of:

11 / 17 x 100 = 64.7%

In their next match, the Win to Nil bet is available at 6/5 which translates to the following percentage:

5 / (6 + 5) x 100 = 45.45%

In this case, the betting company has set a price that gives us a generous tilt in our favour of nearly 20%.

Conclusion

Many punters often overlook the simple and obvious bets due to lack of value but as we have shown here, all bets should be considered. By taking a simple “Home Banker” bet and adding an extra element, we not only get better odds but we can also increase the overall value of the bet, giving us more of that all important “edge”.