Basically, this piece of advice gives you an insight into the competitive world of online bookmaking. It’s a mature, cut-throat market where – occasionally – there’s a price war going on.

Price wars inevitably benefit consumers. But the bookies are wary of being stung by shrewdies and cunning punters – so they really limit the times when they extend their rare generosity.

When they do, that’s when it’s time to steam in with your cash.

Betting tip #4: wait until Saturday morning
You may not have noticed, but there’s a short period on a Saturday morning where, across the board, bookies will lengthen their prices. Not by much – a 1/3 shot will be eased to 4/9 or something similar – but enough to make it worth waiting until Saturday morning to place your bets.

The reason is simple. There’s a whole lot of punters out there on a Saturday, and the bookies are fighting to get their business. So they bring in their margins, accepting that it’s better to win a little bit of money off a lot of people than a lot of money off a few people.

They’re especially generous on England’s Big Four and the top two clubs in Scotland and Spain. Basically, they know that a lot of accumulators are based around Arsenal, Barca, Celtic, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U, Rangers and Real Madrid. But it’s a rare week where all eight of them win.

If you’re a bookie, you can tempt the punters with a few juicy prices and you’ll probably scoop the lot.

Of course, if you follow our tips, you won’t be backing such extravagant accas. But the overall theory extends throughout the coupon. Price up a few games this Friday, and check their odds again on Saturday morning, if you don’t believe me.

This also happens in racing, where there’s a similar battle to get the punter’s cash. Although don’t expect to see it on minor sports like Rugby League where there isn’t the same pot of gold on offer for the bookies.

And as the day goes on, you’ll find the best odds disappear as the layers mount up liabilities and adjust their books to cover any potential losses.

The equivalent of this when it comes to World Cup betting will probably be Friday, 11 June – the first day of the World Cup. This tournament is expected to be the biggest betting event ever, so the scramble for your cash will be huge. Expect massive prices on South Africa v Mexico and Uruguay v France – and then again, wait until Saturday, 12 June, to bet on England v USA, which will be another betting bonanza.

Until then, if you’re betting on football, and you want to win more money, then Saturday morning is the time to do it!

This week’s tip takes last week and adds another level. Hopefully, what we’ve learned about betting on football is that no-one can be relied on. Not even the Manchester Uniteds of this world, as the Red Devils proved when they lost at home to Leeds United in the FA Cup recently.

The road to profit, we believe, therefore lies in allowing for this unreliability and factoring it into our calculations. We do this with permutations, or “perms”.

Football betting tip #2: the Trixie
Combining the perm and the short accumulator finds its sweet spot in the Trixie in my eyes. What is a Trixie? It’s effectively four bets on three selections: three doubles and one treble.

Therefore, if one of the three selection loses, one of the doubles still wins. The other two doubles and the treble lose, so the trick is to find three decent-price selections where a double pays more than 3/1, thus covering your losing bets and giving you a small profit.

Every now and again, all three will come in – guaranteeing a bumper payday.

I’ve had some big wins with Trixies in recent years, most recently on December 19th when I backed Fulham to beat Manchester United at odds of 11/2, Swindon to beat Brighton at even money and Nottingham Forest to beat Preston at 8/11.

A five-point Trixie cost 20 points and returned just over 250 points.

Note the inclusion of a short-priced Forest. A single on Forest could be had at odds of 4/5 but the other prices made it worthwhile to go with Betfred, who were best priced on Fulham and the Robins. Sometimes it’s worth including a short-priced banker as long as you don’t go daft: any shorter than 8/11 and I wouldn’t have got my money back if, say, Brighton had scrambled a draw at the County Ground.

If you’re going to include a banker, I’d almost certainly suggest a more speculative punt as one of your three selections. What I was basically banking on was Swindon and Forest winning, effectively giving me a free big-money bet on Fulham.

A word of caution here: I never bet on multiples in horse racing, and I’m not going to recommend anyone starts here. Horses have odds that justify betting in singles. And if you go bigger than a Trixie, you’re increasing your risk in my eyes. A Lucky 15 is a mugs bet on the nags, in my book, and it’s barely more sensible on the football. Anything bigger is just plain daft.

And don’t expect to win every week, but a steady stream of doubles and the odd three-timer coming in should ensure a healthy overall return on your investments.

So give a Trixie a try with this weekend’s football – one of the bookmakers advertised opposite will almost certainly want to make it worth your while!

A Cunning Punt hasn’t published any football betting tips for a while – our racing tips were far more popular. But there’s still a lot of people out there who just waste money when they visit the bookies – so here’s number one in our impromptu series of football betting tips.

Football betting tip #1: make your accumulator shorter
Every week, millions of people compensate for the comparatively short odds offered by football betting by lumping a number of “bankers” together in the hope that it will win them more money.

They may as well just give their cash straight to the bookie.

Let’s consider the past weekend. Backers of short-priced favourites would have had a good day by twenty to five on Saturday, when home bankers like Aston Villa, Southampton and Stoke City had dispatched their opposition easily.

That treble would have paid around three or four to one. A nice afternoon’s work, except without the work, obviously. But how many people had tagged Liverpool or, worse, Manchester United onto their acca in a bid to boost their profits further?

Liverpool only drew despite being a best-priced 4/9 and 2/9 shots Manchester United lost at home to Leeds.

Let me say that again: 2/9 shots Manchester United lost at home to Leeds.

In other words, there’s no such thing as a banker in football betting. Everyone who bets knows the phrase “coupon buster” (if you don’t, you soon will). By betting on five, six, seven or more teams in one multiple bet you’re just increasing your chances of finding the coupon buster that will blow that potential big payout.

So don’t be greedy. However many dead certs you can see on the weekend coupon, consider taking one off – place a fourfold instead of a fivefold. Ideally, make it a treble.

Sure, you won’t win as much money. But you’ll lose less often, protecting your capital and making more frequent, steady gains. And that’s the way to start making some serious money by betting on football.

Chelsea v Manchester United kicks off at 4pm on Sunday and is live on Sky Sports 1. There’s only one thing that could make it more exciting: a bet on the match. And there’s only one thing that could top that: a free bet on the game.
So here at A Cunning Punt we recommend you head to William Hill and sign up – if you haven’t already.

Free Chelsea-Man U bets at William Hill
New customers can Get a £25 free bet. Just stake up to £25 (or currency equivalent) on any sporting event – this Saturday’s football, say – quoting free bet code F25, once your initial bet is settled, you’ll get a free bet of the same value credited to your account. So provided your first bet is settled before Sunday, you can bet up to £25 FREE on the Chelsea v Man Utd game. Read more on the William Hill website.

Existing William Hill customers can also get up to £40 in free bets on Chelsea against Man Uthanks to some whopping offers on the Breeders’ Cup. Every race from Saturday’s action at Santa Anita that you stake £10 or more on gets you a £5 free bet of some description on the Chelsea versus Man U game. take £20 or more on the 90-minute result (see here for odds) and you’ll automatically get a free £5 bet on total bookings.

Other football free bets this weekend

• Get £200 in free bets from Bet365
  The daddy of free bet offers from one of the most sophisticated online bookies, especially when it comes to betting on football. Bet up to £50 with your first bet and they’ll match it; then you’ll get another free bet of up to £50 bet after you’ve placed five further bets of at least £5 (note that your free bet will be equal to the value of your smallest bet). Another five bets gets you another free bet – you can get four free bets in total up to the £200.
  
  Ideal for:
  Anyone. Why would you not want to claim four free bets up to £200?
  
  Why choose Bet365?
  Market-leading website with the ultimate in football betting functionality – fast, secure, in-depth and exciting. Get your free bets now.
• Get a £10 free bet from Blue Square
  Open an account with BlueSquare before the Chelsea v Man U game, place a win single bet on the match (on a selection priced at odds of even money or longer) of up to £10 and you’ll automatically get a free bet token of the same value to stake on a market of your choice (providing, again, you choose a selection with odds of evens or greater).

  Ideal for:
  Placing a bet on the match result (ie Chelsea win, draw, Man United win) and getting a free bet on the correct score.

  Why choose Blue Square?
  It’s not the best introductory offer in the world but these guys know their football and consistently offer good odds on a wide range of markets from Chelsea v Man U down to the Conference leagues – which they sponsor. Get your free £10 bet now.

• Claim your £10 free bet when you try Betfair
  Open an account using a promotion code which you can find here. Place a bet of up to £25. If your first bet loses you’ll claim your cash in up to 48 hours.

  Ideal for:
  Laying a team not to win – for example, if you don’t think Man U will beat Chelsea or vice versa you can lay them on the exchanges. If they draw or lose your bet wins. And if they do win, you’ve got this £25 free bet to cover you!

  Why choose Betfair?
  Betfair has revolutionised sports betting and it’s always worth having an account handy when you want to hedge a position you’ve taken with a traditional layer (known as ‘laying off’) or just lay a selection not to win. Sign up for your free bet now.

Make sure you check the T&Cs on all these offers before signing up – some may not refund free bet stakes on winning bets, so make sure you’re aware what returns you’ll get.

They’ve taken leave of their senses and should be punished for this foolishness. Odds of up to 7/5 can and should be snapped up about United winning the game.

In fairness, the bookies are only reacting to the popular misconceptions that a) Ferguson will rest players ahead of next Wednesday’s Champions League final, and b) a team with everything to play for will beat one with nothing at stake.

Both beliefs have no basis in fact but make for good newspaper stories like this one in today’s Currant.
Let’s take each misconception in turn:

• Fergie will rest his ‘big stars’: and play who, exactly? He’ll have to go a long way down the squad list to find poor players. His ‘reserve’ side could feasibly include the de Silva twins, Dimitar Berbatov, Carlos Tevez, Park Ji Sung, Darren Fletcher, Anderson, Nani, Paul Scholes and 2009 Player of the Year Ryan Giggs. Sorry, Sun reporters, but no sane judge in the land would call that kind of team ‘weakened’ and no-one believes your story.
• Let’s put that argument a different way: Fergie will play the ‘kids’ like he did on the day Everton knocked United out of the FA Cup with the same result. That argument assumes that Hull City are as good as Everton. Which, as a brief look at the league table tells us, simply isn’t true.
• But the players will be saving themselves for Rome…. Which players? Rooney, Ronaldo, van der Sar, Vidic and Carrick aside, nobody is guaranteed a game next Wednesday. Rio Ferdinand probably is, but only if he can prove his fitness – which he’ll need to do by putting in a decent stint against Hull. Everyone else (bar the suspended Fletcher) will be desperate to show they should be in Fergie’s team against Barcelona. So they’ll hardly be taking it easy.
• What if they know they won’t be playing in the UCL final? Well you can’t have it both ways. Either the team won’t care about this game because they’ve got one eye on the Barça game or they’ve no chance of playing – in which case they’ve got plenty to play for on Sunday: a place in Fergie’s plans for next season or, if their future lies elsewhere, a shop-window performance for the benefit of others. To a professional footballer, there’s no such thing as a game where they’ve no interest.

Put it this way: if this game took place in the middle of the season, with the teams in the same places, would United be odds against? No. They’d be 1/3 or shorter; un-backable, in fact. And you wouldn’t blame the bookies for protecting themselves.

However, the bookies think that we’re going to think that Hull can somehow do something they haven’t done for half a season and raise their game – against the League Champions, no less. Which brings us to probably the strongest argument for backing Man U:

• Hull City are rubbish. Especially at home where, even when they were flying high in the table, they managed to ship five goals against Wigan.

Yes, the likes of Craig Fagan and Andy Dawson might run about a bit more because of the severity of the situation. But being in their position won’t help them any more than it helped Sunderland on Monday night, or Middlesbrough against Aston Villa (a team with ‘nothing to play for’) and Newcastle at home to Fulham on Saturday.

It’s a foolish idea. Let’s ignore the hype and sentiment, follow the facts, and win some money.

Selection

• 5 points Man U (7/5, Victor Chandler) to beat Hull City