Michael Owen is the most profitable football pundit to follow for Premier League predictions, according to new research by friend-to-friend football betting app, Wager.
Wager’s stattos have crunched the numbers from this season to date – as the much maligned former England striker has topped the tipster charts with almost 60% of his predictions proving correct so far.
Any punters looking to make easy money, however, would have targeted Robbie Savage and could have cashed in by betting against his predictions with a less than impressive 47% win rate.
Looking at the results from the most well-known pundits who give tips on a weekly basis, Owen has seen off other so-called experts such as swashbuckling Savage, outspoken Stan Collymore and former Arsenal player Charlie Nicholas.
Veteran Mark Lawrenson – who has been predicting the results each week for the BBC for years – landed himself in second place showing the unassuming type have come up trumps on the big blabbers.
Research from Wager shows from over 70 matches in the 2019/20 season to date, Owen was able to successfully tip 41 correct results with Lawro just behind on 38.
Next were Collymore and Savage who only managed 32 and 33 respectively, putting themselves both in the red.
From a £10 bet on each of the 70 matches, Owen would have landed you a profit of £243 (35% profit) compared to Savage, who would have left you £67 down (-10% profit).
Perhaps surprisingly, the former Newcastle United man also had the highest average odds at 13/10, with Savage the shortest at 9/10.
Owen also impressively managed to correctly predict every selection in one week, of which a £1 accumulator would have seen whopping returns of £1,595.
On the other hand, some pundits haven’t been afraid to stick their neck out.
Welshman Savage was the only one of the ex-pros to profit off Brighton’s home win against Tottenham earlier this month with odds at 5/1 as well as Leicester’s victory against Pochettino’s side (7/4).
And despite the former Leicester man getting one more tip right than both Nicholas and Collymore, he is the least profitable of the group.
Elliott Robinson, Wager co-founder, said: “He may be branded as boring, but our research reveals Michael Owen’s tipping has set the world alight this season, suggesting it’s the quiet ones to keep an eye out for when making profitable predictions about the beautiful game.
“However, the same can’t be said of many of the bigger characters in football punditry. Our advice would be to challenge the ‘Robbie Savage’ of your friendship group, rather than follow their predictions – with their inability to consistently make winning calls leaving them in the Wager relegation zone.”