Every year we have AFL & NRL Premiership outright markets shoved in our face, especially as we head in to the finals series.

There are a number of reasons why we don’t think you should be on Premiership outright markets in the lead up to finals and the first one seems pretty obvious – The odds are horrible.

Late in the season Hawthorn were as short as $2.1 to win the 2015 AFL Premiership and that was before the top 4 was even confirmed. After losing their first final they have drifted to third favourite to win the Premiership.

The main reason as to why you should never bet on outright premiership markets is simple – there are better ways to do it and increase your profits.

Let’s say you wanted to be on Fremantle leading in to this finals series and you wanted to outlay $50.

Heading in to the finals you could get $4 odds on the Dockers to win the flag. Put $50 on them and you’re set to win $200 should they get up.

Now the Dockers opened up $1.40 favourites against Sydney in their opening final match. Put that $50 and turn it into $70.

Let’s for example say Hawthorn beat Adelaide this week and have to travel to Perth to play in a preliminary final against Fremantle. We think the odds available would be around the $1.70 – $1.80 mark. Put $70 on them at $1.70 and your return, should they win, will be $119.

Let’s do the same thing again and assume that Fremantle will need to face West Coast in the Grand Final (they’re currently $1.32 favourites to do so). We predict at worst the Dockers will be $2.40 outsiders in the match.

Put $119 on them at $2.40 and you’re looking at a return of $285.60 – much better than the $200 you’re looking at at the beginning of the finals series.