Which Form Period is Best?

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One of the questions we get regularly asked is “What’s the best form period to use when looking for bet selections on the Betting Engine as well as the other Bet tools?”

Now, the easy answer would be for us to say, whichever one you prefer.. and to a certain extent that’s true, but let’s look at the pros and cons for each to help you make up your own mind.

Form 5

This tends to be most people’s default form when looking at history for two teams in the fixture you are interested in, and is certainly one we look at most ourselves. As all the stats we supply are only either Home or away only, a form period of 5 games tends to cover about 2 months of the season in general. This gives a good indication of recent form without going too far back and the stats becoming a little irrelevant (most teams form tends to peak and trough during the course of a season).

As we work on a general basis of the stats needing to be around the 80% threshold to trigger being selected on the Betting Engine, this means that on Form 5 you are only allowed one rogue game where that stats don’t meet the criteria. There are always going to be games like this, so having this built in, allows a small margin of leniency (if there’s too much leniency with the stats you might get too many sections to pick from, whereas if too strict, and you could end up with little or none making the grade).

As mentioned before, this tends to be our “go to” form when using the Betting Engine, Pro Bet Builder and Easy Acca Builder.

Form 3

The main disadvantage to using this length of form is that you are looking at a much smaller sample of stats to work with, last 3 games as opposed to last 5. This can be a disadvantage in many ways as its more difficult to spot patterns in team’s stats with less data.

Times when a shorter form period may be more helpful could be start of season when there is less data anyway, or when a team has undergone a big change, new manager etc. When say the last 3 games are more relevant to how a team is play than say the last 5 (a new Manager may have come in 3 games ago and changed the playing style/mentality of the team).

In addition to this the stats on Form 3 need to be stricter, as the Betting Engine works on a basic principal of 80% (although this is a simplistic way to look at it), this is impossible to achieve with only 3 games… Stats can only be 0%, 33%, 67% or 100%. This means if you were looking at Over 2.5 goals using Form 3 and it shows up as a pick on the Betting Engine, it can only mean that Over 2.5 Goals has happened in 100% of the last 3 games.

Hopefully you’re not as confused as before, but the key thing with this is to find out what works for you.

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