Dale Tempest: Football betting tips and insight from Sky Bet's Sporting Life columnist

I’ve been in the betting game for more than 18 years, and that doesn’t include me starting off having 10p yankees as a 16-year-old football apprentice in the '80s, watching racing while cleaning players' boots, I mean in the industry working for a betting company.

I’ve had lots of advice, as I mentioned last week, but I also quickly found out who the power brokers were - the biggest, strongest, most respected alpha males in the betting jungle. To survive, you quickly need to find out who these people are.

The Racing Post was/is the voice of the industry. It’s editorial has always held sway, hence it was my job to work with their writers and get Sky Bet markets mentioned ahead of our competitors. Over the years I’ve got to know many at the paper, but especially Bruce Millington, their former editor.

Bruce is a judge: a hard-nosed punter who doesn’t suffer fools. He knows everyone, good and bad, in the betting world. I consider Bruce a good friend, and therefore I know he’d always give me an honest answer to a question.

I once asked him who the one person he'd follow blindly is. Of everyone he'd ever met, read or listened to in the industry, who is the best?

Without hesitation he said Kevin Pullein. Kevin is a football writer at the Racing Post and proper stats man. He was delving into corner and booking averages before algorithms were invented. A hard-working journalist who prides himself on his results.

For 20-plus years Kevin has made a profit on football betting with his weekly columns. I can’t tell you how difficult that is. It’s a gargantuan effort. If you’ve never read his book 'The Definitive Guide to Betting on Football', first published in 2009, then you should.

You make yourself a better gambler by listening and learning from good people. So as you can imagine I’ve followed KP for a long time. You can’t beat one of his Saturday under 10.5 corner bets from League Two.

One of my favourite columns from the great man must be several years ago now, about over/under markets. He absolutely nailed it with his advice and I’ve held it as one of my main betting rules ever since.

He said do all your research and analysis as you would always do before having a bet and if the numbers told you to back over cards, over corners etc. then go through your calculations again and even if it’s a stand-out bet when you confirmed your numbers, DON'T bet. NEVER BACK OVERS.

Fascinating and this is why.

All of us who like a bet start with a bag full of optimism. We want things to happen, we want to see goals, action and excitement. Bookmakers know that. Perhaps 75%, maybe even more, of any over/under market will be on the over line. Hence the market/bookmaker lifts the line safe in the knowledge that the vast majority of business will be on the OVER and therefore punters will be backing something not at the statistically correct price.

It makes complete sense.

I’ve followed this mantra for many years and have done well from it. I do have the odd over bet but with a significantly reduced stake.

Now a big, big warning sign is that it’s a horrible experience watching a match having had an unders bet. Try backing 0-0 or under corners and you spend 90 minutes hiding from the action, cursing every bounce that goes against you! It’s so painful, but it’s probably the right bet to have.

Betting is different things to all of us. I approach it as I did my professional sporting life, I want to be good at it and improve and the only way that can happen is hard work and trying to be disciplined. That isn’t for everyone and many people would rather throw their £10 at the fun over lines and that’s fine. If you want to be boring but perhaps back a few more winners then get with the unders.

Good luck and stay safe.

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