Welcome back to MFT’s 10-1,000 betting challenge, where we aim for a 100x return on the original investment via a small stake betting strategy, prioritising low risk and low odds en route to a long-term target.
While this column is dedicated to high-probability tips, there is no guarantee of profit. If playing along, you should consider your own budget and confidence in the tip provided, and make your own decision whether to follow, cash out or continue at every stage. 18+, please gamble responsibly.
We will use a unit system for our stakes, allowing readers to set their own unit value that suits their own budget. For the sake of simplicity, for us, 1 unit = £1.
We will continue to transparently track our progress as far as we go on the path to 1,000, but will refresh our main tracking stake back to the starting point every time we surpass 100 units – a 10x ROI.
For the sake of consistency, all tips are placed using odds from bet365. It worth pointing out that with Bet365 we can paid out if our selection goes into a lead by two or more goals.
Chelsea and Brighton shared seven goals and we only needed two for Bet 18 to win. Our full total now stands at 500.67. As per our own rules we reset the betting balance back to 100 units on Bet17.
Bet 19 – Aston Villa vs Arsenal – Monday 31st August at 8pm
Arsenal head to Villa Park on the back of a statement opening weekend, and both the underlying data and Villa's own summer troubles point toward a comfortable night for the champions.
Arsenal failed to score away from home in just two of their nineteen away games last season, the best rate anywhere in the league, and backed that up in game one of this campaign too, beating Coventry 3-0 with an xG figure of 1.80 to Coventry's 0.20, a performance built on control rather than luck.
Villa by contrast, is a squad in genuine turmoil. Ollie Watkins has now left the club, and goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez has departed for Chelsea, on top of the earlier exits of Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Ezri Konsa, players Unai Emery himself called core to last season's Europa League winning squad.
That's six senior players gone in one summer, and the new arrivals brought in to replace them have had limited time to train with the squad or gel together as a unit. The result was visible immediately, a 4-0 opening day defeat to Brighton with an xGA figure of 3.70 conceded, and a red card for Joao Gomes before half time on top of it.
The corners angle is the strongest leg of this bet, backed by a full season of evidence rather than a single data point. Villa conceded an average of 4.95 corners at home last season and gave up two or more in every single home game they played, without a single exception. Arsenal won an average of 5.42 corners on the road last season, taking at least three in eighteen of their nineteen away games and two or more in all nineteen without exception.
That pattern already repeated itself on opening weekend too, Villa losing the corner count 5-2 against Brighton, Arsenal winning 8-2 against Coventry.
Put together, the bet is Arsenal to score, avoid defeat, and win the corner count, a combination built on two full seasons of near total consistency on both sides of this fixture, reinforced rather than contradicted by what both teams produced in their opening games.
- Bet: Arsenal to score, Arsenal to win or draw, Arsenal over 1.5 corners
- Odds: 2/9
- 146.66 units returns 179.25
The Betting Desk is run by Neil Potter. Neil built and refined all of the site’s data models, helping it grow into a trusted source of analysis across the Premier League, EFL and major tournaments. His models track key metrics, long term trends and areas where market prices move away from underlying performance.
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