Learn MaxEdge

How to read every board, card and number on the site. Start with the three things every card shares, then pick a card or a page.

Three things every card shares

The coloured word

Three words for how far our own read sits ahead of the price beside it, strongest first.

Published

  1. PRIMEThe widest gap we publish, and the only word in our headline record.
  2. EDGEA real gap, published and settled, and reported apart from PRIME.
  3. WATCHAhead of the price, and only just. Named so you can keep an eye on it.

No comment

  1. SLIGHTClose to the market. Shown on the boards, never on Value Picks.
  2. TRACEBarely apart from the market. We have no comment.
  3. NILLevel with the market, or behind it. Nothing to say.

Longest bar, widest gap. A word is about the price, never about which team wins. More on the words

Three prices, one line

The shortest price a book is offering, the longest, and the fair line, left to right in price order.

  • The shortest price any book is offering.
  • The longest, and the book showing it.
  • The market’s own price, margin taken off. A marker, not a price to take.

Example figures. More on the three prices

Five kinds of percentage

They look alike and they are not the same number. Here is how to tell them apart.

  • 7/10A hit rateHow often a thing has already happened, counted over a fixed run of recent matches.
  • 54%We make itOur model’s own estimate of how likely an outcome is, shown beside the price so you can compare the two.
  • +4.1%vs fairHow far the best price we can reach sits from the market’s own fair price, as a share of that fair price.
  • ▲ 6.2%moved, and the little lineHow far this price has travelled since we first saw it, and which way.
  • 12%lands, on an accumulatorAll the legs coming in together, which is the product of the legs and much smaller than any of them.

Example figures, drawn the way the cards draw them.

Every card, taken apart

Example · invented clubs and prices
19:45
Northfield UnitedWWDWL
Castleton AlbionLLWDL
1 2.15
X 3.60
2 3.70
PRIMENorthfield to win+6.9%
fair 2.01 · 8 books

The fixture card

Upcoming games with the best home, draw and away odds we can get, and which bookie has them. The W, D and L boxes are each team's last five results.

What each number means

  1. The three boxes are the best price we can see on each result, not an average.
  2. The highlight marks which of the three we have a read on, where we have one.
  3. The percentage on the read row is a price measured against a price, not a chance.
  4. The W/D/L boxes are that club’s own last five, ignoring the opponent.
The full explanation

The plainest card on the site and the one to learn first. Two clubs with their last five results, then the three prices: home, draw, away. The highlighted one is the best we can currently reach on that market and the name under it is the bookmaker showing it. Underneath, where we have something to say, a coloured word and a figure give our read on whichever of the three we have a view on. Below that, the market's own margin-free price and how many books we could reach.

What it can’t tell youA card with no coloured word is the ordinary case, and it means we have no comment rather than that the match is a poor one.

See it live on Fixtures

Every page, and how to use it

Value Picks

Value pick card

Every selection on the board that reaches WATCH or better, strongest first and soonest first inside that.

  1. Start at the top. The strongest word comes first, and inside each word the soonest kick-off.
  2. Read the coloured line on each card: red is shorter than the fair price, grey is fair but short of the floor, and the coloured stretch is where the word holds.
  3. Live means the price was checked recently and still clears its floor. Not re-checked means look at the bookmaker before going further.
  4. Tap the curve icon to open the price history for that selection on the match page.
Reading it
  • Ordered by the word first, then by kick-off, then by score.
  • The line at the top counts what is on the page by word.
  • A card comes off the page when its game starts, not at the next refresh.

The shortest page on the site and the one the rest of it exists to produce. Everything we price gets a rung, and the overwhelming majority of them land below WATCH, which means we have no comment. This page is the remainder. It is short most days and empty on some, and an empty one is the honest answer rather than a fault. Within each word, the game kicking off soonest comes first.

What it can’t tell youA rung is a statement about a price, so a full page is a day with wide prices rather than a day with good bets, and an empty one is not a quiet day for football.

Open Value Picks

Predictions

Prediction card

What our model makes of each market, with the best price we can reach beside it.

  1. Use the market chips along the top to switch between match odds, over and under, both teams to score and the rest.
  2. Read the big percentage and the price under it as two separate numbers: the first is ours, the second belongs to the bookmaker named.
  3. Tap a card to open the match page and see everything else we hold on that game.
Reading it
  • The percentage on each card is ours. The price next to it is not.
  • One fixture can appear several times, once per market.
  • "No price yet" means we cannot currently reach a quote, not that none exists.

Fixtures first, then the read we hold against each one. This is the board where our own numbers are the subject rather than the context. Use it when you want to know what we think and compare it with what is on offer; use Value Picks when you only want the places where the two are far apart.

What it can’t tell youWhether a disagreement is worth acting on. A deep market is hard to beat and we make no general claim to beat one; what we publish is the narrow band where the two are far enough apart to be worth naming, and all of it settles in public.

Open Predictions

Hit Rates

Hit-rate card

How often each market has landed recently, by club, with the league baseline beside it.

  1. Pick a market from the Market menu, then narrow by day, league, country, odds or rate.
  2. Change the sample window to count more or fewer recent matches in every run.
  3. Search a team to jump straight to its fixture.
  4. Read the dial against AVG beside it. A high rate in a league where that market lands most weeks is less unusual than it looks.
  5. Use the Teams and Players switch to move over to player runs.
Reading it
  • Every figure here has already happened. None of it is a forecast.
  • The run is that club’s own matches, whoever they played.
  • AVG is the same market across the whole league.

Counted history across every market we measure, filtered to the ones you care about. The homepage shows one market because a slider has one heading and can only honestly carry one; here every market has its own. The league average is the part that makes the page usable: a run of four in five is unremarkable in a league where that market lands most weeks.

What it can’t tell youLooking across enough clubs and markets will always turn up a striking run. That is a property of looking, not a property of the clubs.

Open Hit Rates

Player Props

Every player on the coming slate, ranked by how often he has hit a shots, fouls or cards line.

  1. Choose a stat, then a line: shots, shots on target, fouls committed, fouls won or cards, at 1+ or 2+.
  2. Narrow by day, league, country, position, or home and away, or search a player or a team.
  3. Change the sample window to count more or fewer of each player's recent games.
  4. Read the per 90 column to compare a regular starter with a substitute on the same footing.
Reading it
  • Every figure here has already happened. None of it is a forecast.
  • The fraction is games where he hit the line, out of games the feed recorded.
  • Greyed rows rest on under three games. A struck per 90 rests on under 180 minutes.

One stat at one line, ranked top to bottom: pick shots, shots on target, fouls committed, fouls won or cards, then 1+ or 2+. Each row is that player's own recent games, with his rate per 90 minutes beside it so a regular starter and a substitute can be compared on the same footing. A player needs half of the window recorded before he can rank at all.

What it can’t tell youA short run on one player says little on its own, and ranking hundreds of players will always put a few lucky runs near the top.

Open Player Props

Accumulators

Accumulator suggestion

Three suggested tickets a day, one per board, and a builder for your own.

  1. Each suggested ticket is named for the board that built it. Open one to see every leg and the price behind it.
  2. Read Combined as the legs multiplied together, and Chance it lands as every leg coming in.
  3. To build your own, add selections from any board to your slip and the slip does the arithmetic.
Reading it
  • The name tells you which board ranked the legs.
  • "lands" is every leg coming in, which is much smaller than any single leg.
  • A board that cannot fill a ticket shows nothing rather than a shorter one.

Each suggestion is named for the board that ranked its legs, so you can see what the ticket is actually made of rather than taking three selections on trust. Legs have to clear a floor individually and the ticket has to clear one too. You can also build your own, in which case the page does the arithmetic on it.

What it can’t tell youMultiplying selections multiplies the ways to lose. The long price is the compensation for that, not a discovery.

Open Accumulators

Fixtures

Fixture card

Every match we can reach, grouped by competition, with the best price on each result.

  1. Step between days with the arrows either side of the date.
  2. Use the chips to show every fixture, only priced ones, ones under way or later kick-offs.
  3. Tap a price tile to put that result on your slip, or Details to open the match page.
Reading it
  • Grouped by competition and country, in kick-off order inside each group.
  • A fixture with no price is shown as having none.
  • Details on each card opens the match page.

The full board, and the page to use when you have a specific game in mind rather than a question about the day. Fixtures with no price are still listed, because dropping them would make our coverage look wider than it is. Games under way move to the In-Play page, so this one holds only matches still to start.

What it can’t tell youOur coverage is not every league in the world, and this page shows what we can reach rather than what is on.

Open Fixtures

Market Pulse

Market pulse card

The last three days of price movement on every selection the books have moved.

  1. Order the board with the sort control: value first, strongest, biggest move, drifting, shortening or kick-off.
  2. Use the market chips to narrow to one market.
  3. Read the arrow and its figure as the price movement, and the coloured word as our read on the price now. They are two different claims.
Reading it
  • The curve is every logged change over three days.
  • A longer price drifting and a shorter price steaming are the same fact in two directions.
  • The coloured word is our read on the price now, not on the movement.

A log rather than a poll: we record a price when it changes, so the curves here are real histories rather than samples. The page answers one question, which is where the money has been going. It is the most interesting board to watch and the easiest one to over-read, because a price moving tells you something happened without telling you what.

What it can’t tell youFollowing money is not an edge. By the time a move is visible it is in the price, which is what a price moving means.

Open Market Pulse

Edge Table

Teams the bookies keep getting wrong, judged on the odds their games closed at.

  1. Sort by biggest gap, most convincing or most games.
  2. Compare Expected with How often they actually won. The gap between the two is what the table ranks.
  3. Read Too early as exactly that: not enough settled matches to say anything yet.
Reading it
  • Built from closing prices on settled matches.
  • Position here is not position in the real table.

A league table built from settled closing prices instead of results. A club that keeps winning as the favourite sits differently here than one that keeps winning as the underdog, because the table is measuring how the club did against what was expected of it rather than how many points it took. Built from settled prices only, so it is history throughout.

What it can’t tell youA season is a few dozen matches, which is not enough to separate a club that beats expectations from a club that has been lucky.

Open Edge Table

In-Play

In-play card

Every match under way, with its score, clock, stats and flags, and no prices.

  1. Each card is a match under way: the score, the minute, the stats and any flags.
  2. An outlined card has a flag on it, and a red outline means a red card.
  3. Tap a card to open the match page for the fuller live picture.
Reading it
  • No prices anywhere on this page, by design.
  • Flags are descriptions of events, not calls.
  • An empty page means nothing is under way, which is true for about half of all hours.

Live football without live odds. We can source the match state reliably and we cannot source live prices reliably, so this page shows the first and leaves the second to your bookmaker's own screen. The flags describe things that have happened, such as a favourite going behind early.

What it can’t tell youLive data arrives late and gets corrected. Nothing here is fast enough to act on against a bookmaker who has the same feed sooner.

Open In-Play

Results

Every finished match: the score, who scored, the full-time numbers, and how our reads landed.

  1. Step back through earlier days with the arrows beside the date.
  2. Filter by competition or search for a team.
  3. Read the tally at the top for how every read we published landed that day, word by word.
Reading it
  • The tally counts every rung, not just the ones we back.
  • A read is shown at the first price we published it at.
  • A void is a void, never a loss.

The other half of every pick we publish. Each finished match shows its final score and scorers, the full-time statistics, and every read we published before kickoff with whether it won or lost, rung by rung. It is open to everyone, because a settled result is a record, not an offer.

What it can’t tell youOne day is a handful of results. Judge the method on the long record in Performance, not on a single afternoon.

Open Results

Competitions

Which leagues and cups we cover, and what we currently hold for each.

  1. Find your league under its country, then open it for its fixtures.
  2. A league listed with nothing on today is covered, just quiet.
Reading it

The honest answer to "do you do my league". It lists what we cover and what we are currently holding for each, so you can tell a competition we do not cover from one we cover but have no prices on today.

What it can’t tell youCoverage changes as the feed changes. This page reads it live rather than listing what we intended to cover.

Open Competitions

Tracker

Every selection you record, settled against the real result and priced against what you took.

  1. Add a selection from any board to your slip, then record it at the price you actually took.
  2. Running holds what is still to play and Settled holds what has finished.
  3. Strike rate, staked and return on stake are worked out from your own settled selections alone.
Reading it
  • The price you took is stored as you took it and never adjusted.
  • Settled against the real result once the game finishes.
  • A selection with no current price says so rather than showing a zero.

Your own ledger. Record a selection at the price you took and the page settles it against the real result and shows it against where the price finished. It is the only part of the site that is about you rather than about the market, and it is the part that tells you whether any of this is working for you specifically.

What it can’t tell youYour own record is a small sample for a long time. A good month is not evidence and a bad one is not proof either.

Open Tracker

The Record

Every selection we have published, settled, with nothing removed after the fact.

  1. Use the band switch to move between PRIME and EDGE.
  2. Every settled selection is listed with the price it was published at and its result.
  3. Read the sample size beside every figure before the figure itself.
Reading it
  • The headline covers PRIME alone. EDGE is reported separately.
  • Settled at the price published, against the real result.
  • Nothing is removed from it after the fact.

Our published record. The headline figure covers PRIME only, which is the top rung; EDGE is also published and settled and is reported on its own tab rather than folded in, because merging two bands into one number makes both of them harder to read. Nothing is taken out of this page once it is in, including the losers.

What it can’t tell youPast results are not what to expect. A record is only as useful as its sample is large, and ours covers a specific band at specific prices rather than betting in general.

Open The Record

Match details

Everything we hold on one match, split into tabs, opened from any card on any board.

  1. Swipe or tap along the tab row to move between sections.
  2. Tap a price to put that selection on your slip.
  3. Open Prices to see whether a quote has been lengthening or shortening, and by how much.
Reading it
  • Summary is the quick read: the lead selection, its price and our view on it.
  • Prices shows how each quote has moved over time and where a selection was flagged.
  • Model and Market puts our chance on the match result beside the market’s own.

Open any fixture to reach it. The tabs run from the summary through hit rates, player stats, the league table, form, head to head, every priced selection, every bookmaker's price, our model beside the market, and the lineups once they are announced. A finished match adds a full-time tab, and a match under way adds an in-play tab.

What it can’t tell youLineups arrive about an hour before kick-off at best, and some lower leagues never publish one at all.

Open any fixture

Every word on the site

PRIME, EDGE and WATCHThree words for how far our own read sits ahead of the price beside it, strongest first.

Every selection we price gets a word. It describes the gap between the price a bookmaker is showing and the market's own price with the margin taken off, weighed against what our model makes of the same outcome. PRIME is the widest gap we publish, EDGE is the next, WATCH is a gap we think is worth naming but not much more than that. The word is about the price, not about the team. A PRIME on a side you expect to lose is still a PRIME, because it is a statement about what is being offered rather than a forecast of the result.

  • PRIME: the widest gap we publish, and the only one in our headline record.
  • EDGE: a real gap, published and settled, reported separately from PRIME.
  • WATCH: named because it is ahead of the price, and only just.
  • A number beside the word is the score the word was cut from, out of 100.

What it can’t tell youA rung says nothing about how likely the outcome is. A long price with a wide gap is still a long price, and most long prices lose.

SLIGHT, TRACE and NILThe bottom three rungs are the ladder saying the price is not worth naming.

Below WATCH the ladder has three more words, and all three mean the same practical thing: we have looked at this price and we are not telling you anything about it. They exist so the board can show you every price we can reach rather than only the handful we have something to say about. Value Picks leaves them out entirely, which is why that page is short on most days and empty on some.

What it can’t tell youThese are not a judgement that the selection will lose. They mean the price is close enough to the market that we have no comment.

The score out of 100The number tucked beside a rung word is what the word was cut from.

A word has six possible values and a score has a hundred, so on a board where many rows carry the same word the score is the only thing that tells two of them apart. It combines the gap against the price with how much we trust our own read on that market. It is drawn only where there is a population behind it, because a bare number out of 100 with nothing to compare it to is not a readable figure.

What it can’t tell youIt is a ranking device, not a probability. A 60 is not twice as good as a 30, and neither is a forecast.

sharp, fair and wideHow the best price we can see compares with the fair line drawn under it on the card.

Bookmakers build a margin into every price. Take the sharpest bookmaker's price on a selection and strip its margin out, and you get a fair line for the same outcome, which is the tick drawn on the card under the prices. A best price described as sharp sits close under that line. Fair sits a little under. Wide sits further under still. The word describes the quote, not the outcome, and it is the market's judgement rather than ours.

  • sharp: close under the fair line on the same selection.
  • fair: a little under it.
  • wide: further under it.
  • Longer than the fair line: said on a card only when it is true of that card, and then no word is drawn.

What it can’t tell youMost best prices sit under the fair line, not over it. Where one sits over, that is a statement about a quote at that moment, not a claim that it will still be there or that the bet will win.

worst, best and fairThe shortest price a book is offering, the longest, and the fair line, left to right in price order.

The same selection is priced differently at every bookmaker, and the gap between the shortest and the longest is the part of a bet a reader controls just by choosing where to place it. The card draws the worst price in red, the best in green with the bookmaker beside it, and the fair line as a tick. Green means the best price available, nothing more. The fair line is not a price any book offers, so it is a marker rather than a third number to take, and it sits wherever it falls: usually beyond the best price, sometimes between the two.

What it can’t tell youThe best price is the best we could read at the time, at the books we track. It can move, and a book can limit the stake it accepts.

moved, and the little lineHow far this price has travelled since we first saw it, and which way.

We log a price every time it changes rather than on a timer, so the curve on a card is the real history of that quote over the last three days. A positive figure means the price has got longer since the first snapshot, a negative one means it has shortened. Unmoved means exactly that. Where there is no earlier price to compare with, the card says it has no history rather than drawing a zero.

What it can’t tell youMovement is a record of what the books have done. It is not a prediction of what they will do next, and a price that has moved our way can move back.

pricedA fixture is priced when we can currently reach a live quote on it from at least one book.

The count beside Next 24 Hours is how many of those fixtures we are holding a current price for. A fixture with no price is still shown, because hiding it would make our coverage look better than it is. Prices also go stale: a quote we read eight days ago is not a price on tonight's game, so the boards apply an age limit that tightens as kick-off approaches and drop anything past it.

What it can’t tell youPriced means we can see a quote, not that the quote is good or that we have anything to say about it.

the books countHow many bookmakers we could reach a price from on that selection.

Every price on this site belongs to the bookmaker named beside it. We do not set prices and we do not offer one of our own. The count tells you how thin or deep the market is: one book quoting a selection is a different thing from eleven quoting it, and a gap against a single quote is much more likely to be a stale price than a real difference of opinion.

What it can’t tell youA deep market is not a better bet. It means the price is more likely to be real, which is a statement about the number rather than the outcome.

The W, D and L boxesThat club’s own last five results in the competitions we track, oldest on the left, whoever they played.

They are results and nothing more: won, drew, lost, in order, for that club alone. They deliberately ignore the opponent, because a run against the bottom of the table and a run against the top look identical here and the box would be lying if it implied otherwise. Head to head between these two clubs is a separate thing and lives on the match page.

What it can’t tell youFive results is a tiny sample and takes no account of who they were against. It is context, not evidence.

A hit rateHow often a thing has already happened, counted over a fixed run of recent matches.

This is history, counted. If a market is shown at a hit rate over the last ten, it means that in those ten matches the thing happened that many times. The rate belongs to the clubs and the market, not to us, and we are not forecasting anything by showing it. The league average beside it is there so you can tell a genuinely unusual run from a run that looks unusual only because you have not seen the baseline.

What it can’t tell youA past frequency is not a probability. Ten matches is a short run, and a run ending is the ordinary outcome rather than a surprise.

We make itOur model’s own estimate of how likely an outcome is, shown beside the price so you can compare the two.

This is the only number on the site that is ours. Everything else is a price somebody else is offering or a result that has already happened. It is a second opinion placed next to the market's, and the honest way to use it is as a disagreement to look into rather than an instruction. Where the model has no read on a market, the card says so instead of printing a number.

What it can’t tell youIt is an estimate from a model that is wrong often. When it disagrees with the market, the market is more often right than we are.

vs fairHow far the best price we can reach sits from the market’s own fair price, as a share of that fair price.

Take the market's price on a selection, strip the bookmaker's margin out of it, and you have the fair price. The figure marked vs fair compares the best price any of our books is showing with that fair price. A plus sign means the best price is longer than fair on that card at that moment; a minus sign means it is shorter, which is the ordinary case. It is a price measured against a price, which is why it is never a chance of anything happening.

  • A plus sign: the best price is longer than fair, said only when it is true of that card.
  • A minus sign: the best price is shorter than fair, which is where most prices sit.
  • It moves every time the price moves, so a figure is a reading at the time it was checked.

What it can’t tell youIt is not a return and not a chance of winning. A longer price than fair on a selection that loses still loses the stake.

lands, on an accumulatorAll the legs coming in together, which is the product of the legs and much smaller than any of them.

Multiply the chance of each leg and you get the chance of the ticket. Three legs we each make better than even money still come to well under half, which is the arithmetic of accumulators and the reason the figure is printed rather than left for you to work out. If any leg has no read behind it, no figure is shown at all, because a product missing a term is not a smaller product.

What it can’t tell youThe figure assumes the legs are independent, and football results are not. Two games in the same competition on the same afternoon are not unrelated events.

Every club, price and figure in the examples on this page is invented, and none of it is a live price. Tracking only. MaxEdge records selections and settles them against real results; it never places bets. 18+ · Not financial advice · GamCare 0808 8020 133

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