When you’re looking at betting on a football competition, there is a real chance that you’ll be placing a wager on something that has an obvious likely winner. For years, for example, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City dominated the Premier League, winning title after title even in spite of the fact that the club was facing 115 charges of Financial Fair Play breaches.
A bet on them to win the league therefore had extremely low odds, whilst a bet on another team to win it was as good as pointless. One of the ways that bookmakers get around that sort of thing is by offering a ‘Winner Without’ market, in which the favourite is removed from the equation.
What You’re Betting On
If you opt to place a bet on the Winner Without market, it is essentially an admission that there is an outright favourite to win the league, cup or or competition that you are betting on. When that is the case, bookmakers know that people will be reluctant to place a bet on the favourite because the odds will be quite low, whilst a bet on one of the other teams taking part in the competition is seen as pointless because the favourite is considered to be a sure-thing to win it. The way that bookmakers look to entice people into still betting on the competition in question by offer a Winner Without option, which is exactly what it seems.
What it does is remove the favourite and imagine a world in which they don’t exist. It will then pay out on one of the other teams ‘winning’ the competition that you’re betting on. In essence, it is basically saying ‘which team finishes second?’ If your chosen team comes second or wins the tournament themselves then you will win your bet, whilst if they finish third or worse then your bet will be a losing one and you’ll miss out on getting any winnings. There are loads of things to consider before placing such a bet, including how many teams stand a chance of at least finishing second, therefore making your bet more precarious.
Is It a Value Bet?
The main question that you’ll want to ask yourself when it comes to the Winner Without market is whether it is a bet with any value to it. The main way to look at that is to compare the odds of the teams involved with the same odds on the Winner market. Take the 2023-2024 season, for example. With six games to go, Manchester City stood at the top of the Premier League table with 73 points, two points clear of both Arsenal and Liverpool. They were considered to be the favourites to win it, so bookmakers offered a Win Without Man City market. Here is a look at the odds to win outright compared to that market:
| Team | Winner Odds | Win Without City Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Manchester City | 2/5 | N/A |
| Arsenal | 4/1 | 4/7 |
| Liverpool | 6/1 | 10/11 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 1,000/1 | 450/1 |
| Aston Villa | 1,000/1 | 500/1 |
There is obviously a huge drop off in terms of the odds on offer when you look at the Winner Without market. For Arsenal and Liverpool the shift is pretty bit, but that was mainly because one of them was always likely to finish second. With Spurs sitting 13 points off the top and 11 off second place and Villa being ten points from first and eight from second having played a game more than the others, the two teams were almost as likely to win the tournament as to finish second. Would a bet on the Win Without market really be all that worth it? Obviously that’s always a matter of personal opinion, but it certainly doesn’t look like it.
What to Think About
If you’re thinking of placing a bet on the Winner Without market then the most important thing that you can do is to have a look at the matches that have already been played in the competition that you’re betting on as well as the matches still to go. You can have a look at how the various teams tend to be playing and then make a decision on the likelihood of the teams in question managing to finish second. That is if you’re betting towards the end of the campaign as in the above case of the Premier League, whereas if you’re betting before the competition has even begun then you can look at past performances amongst other factors.