Strategies

Part 1:

Strategy 1: Laying the draw in football

My personal favourite of all the listed strategies, mainly because, if you apply this tactic to the correct type of match, you are almost guaranteed to profit 100% of the time. I’ll explain what I mean by ‘the correct type of match’ later. For now, here is a summary of what the system involves.

The concept is simple - when a goal is scored in a football match, the prices of all the match outcomes (home win, away win or draw) changes. How it changes depends on many factors such as which team scores the goal and the time of the goal. In this strategy we are trying to lay the draw prior to kick-off, with the aim of backing it at a higher price, once the first goal is scored, therefore securing a tidy profit.

For example, say Liverpool are playing at home to Portsmouth. Liverpool, odds-on at 1.45 are expected to win the game and should score the first goal. In this event the price of the draw (7.20) would drift out, and you would then back the draw at the new price, giving yourself a free bet or equal profits whatever the outcome, depending on how you choose to play it.

This on its own however, is fundamentally flawed, for two main reasons. Can you think why?

If you came to the conclusion that either the underdog, so Portsmouth in the previous example, might score first or the game could finish 0-0, commend yourself. Obviously, should the unfancied side score first, the draw odds you steam, leaving you in a nasty position. Similarly, if no goal was scored, the price of the draw you continue to steam, further and further inwards, leaving you out of pocket.

The good news, however, is that both of these problems can be rectified leaving us with the perfect strategy (or at least I’ve never lost money this way after using it many times to make money). I discuss how we nullify the risk of the 0-0 and the underdog scoring in the next section. For now, I leave you asking if you can think of what the solutions are? It’s not a brain teaser, the answers are straight-forward and this is just a simple exercise to help you solve your own problems when/if you create strategies like this on your own.

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Part 2:

Strategy 1: Laying the draw in football (continued)

Do you think you have the solution to the problem we had earlier on in ‘Part 1’? Congratulations if you came up with the idea to back the 0-0 so that, if it wins, it covers the liability of your lay in the correct scores market, to eliminate the chance that the game could finish scoreless, and potentially penniless.

Equal congratulations if you were able to think of only choosing games where the two teams had a relatively equal chance of winning, to eradicate the possibility of an unfancied underdog like Sunderland scoring against one of the footballing giants like Manchester United.

Simply add these new filters to the previous version of the lay-the-draw theory discussed in ‘Part 1’ and you create a no lose situation for yourself.

Below is a real example of the type of game you should looking for and one that I put money on. It occurred during the 2006 World Cup. In a quarter-final match, an impressive looking Argentina were drawn to play host nation, Germany. Many people predicted the winners of this game would win the tournament, and the odds represented the game would be a tight affair. Germany were slightly favourites at 2.80, the draw was available at 3.15 and Argentina were also available to back at 3.15. The fact that the odds suggested the game would be close meant that there was no real underdog, meaning, regardless of which country scored the first goal, the price of the draw would still shoot up afterwards, to be backed at a higher price.

Confident I had created a no-lose situation, the draw was layed for a £465, giving a liability just under £1000 and, to cover my loss in the event of a 0-0, I backed the 0-0 at for £120 11.0, to leave me with a tidy profit, of £80, if the score finished 0-0. (£1080 from the 0-0 win after 5% comm. take away the £1000 liability lost on the draw lay).

The game promptly started and I sat back waiting for the first goal. Argentina provided it and the price of the draw shot up immediately after the brief suspension that occurs once a goal is scored. I backed the draw at 6.50 with a stake of £250, knowing I’d just secured a nice profit, for doing very little.

As it turned out, the game was a great example of why discipline is so important. I could have been greedy and waited a while trying to get a higher price for the draw. This could have been disastrous for me, because, as it turned out the Germans equalised and the match ended 1-1 (with Germany going through on penalties). Consequently, the price of the draw dropped to odds-on and, had I not stuck to the rules strictly and secured my profits immediately after the first goal, I would have been down a lot of money!

In the end, my profit/loss figures from the game were as follows…

£1375 - £1000 = £375 (or £356.25 after comm.. on net winnings)
£356.25) - £120 = £236.25

PROFIT/LOSS = + £236.25

Not bad for less than an hours work!

NOTE:

With regards to where the figures from the calculations come from.

£1375 comes from winning the £250 back at odds of 6.5
£1000 comes from the liability of the £465 stake used to lay the draw
£120 comes from the stake used to back the 0-0
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Part 3:

Strategy 2: The power of knowledge

If you want to trade on the exchanges in the football markets then knowledge can go an awful long way just like it can with any market. But the best knowledge of all is knowledge that few others possess. Knowing that a certain key team member is unfit to play for instance would fall into the category of valuable information or perhaps the tactics or formation that a team may be using for a particular match could prove more than useful to the punter.

For example, lets say that AC Milan are due to play Sparta Prague in their final Champions League group match in Prague. The Italian outfit have won all their five previous matches and proudly sit at the top of the table with fifteen points and having secured qualification through to the knockout stages as guaranteed group winners.

What will be Milan’s outlook in this final game, do they need to risk injuries and possible suspensions in what is essentially a meaningless match to them. But a win for Prague would give them the third spot in the group and a UEFA cup place so they definitely have something to play for. Will the Italians be looking to end with a flourish and look to make it six out of six but they do have an important Serie A match coming up this weekend against their city rivals Inter.

Will they rest players and play a second eleven? Questions, questions and more questions and wouldn’t it be great to know the answers to these ahead of everyone else. But short of actually being on the inside and having connections with the Italian side then there is no way that we can possibly get to know such things.... or is there?

Well that is not entirely true, exchanges like Betfair for instance have football markets now on teams and competitions all over the world. They regularly have markets on US football for instance although the liquidity is obviously not very great in those areas. This is where knowledge of certain team affairs and tactics can pay dividends if you take the time to look. Take a match like Columbus vs New England for instance in the US league, this is precisely where knowledge of team affairs can give you an edge.

Around seventy five per cent of Betfair customers are British based on the latest figures that are available. This means that it may be perfectly possible to get an edge in a certain market where the event is being played abroad and is not receiving a great deal of attention over here in our press. Football is a global game and it is for this reason that the football World Cup is the greatest single sporting event on the planet.

But we tend to be a very insular lot in the British Isles and we don’t show an awful lot of interest in football matches in other countries unless they happen to be in the major European competitions or the major European leagues like Serie A or La Liga for example. Our premier league is watched by millions or people worldwide and is actually more popular in certain countries than their own respective leagues.

That cannot be said in reverse and is a major factor as to why we overate our own league. Football matches on the other side of the world or just a few hundred miles away for that matter would have very little interest over here and it is in this area where the alert punter can uncover tremendous value. There are many football related websites out there with all the latest information on nearly all of these “obscure” matches.

Taking the time and the effort to find that Columbus have had a virus hit the team in the past twenty four hours and that their equally matched opponents should now be very clear favourites is something that can be achieved just by looking in the right places.

The point to all this is that if you were attempting to use this information to place bets with American betting firms then you would be wasting your time. They would have access to this data long before you and the prices would have been adjusted to compensate for the loss of many of the regular players to the Columbus side.

But betting firms around the globe and the betting exchanges may not be so quick to receive this information and they may not even be bothered with it at all if their is little interest in this market. In this situation, what you are actually trying to do is to take advantage of the unprepared punter. The type who doesn’t bother doing their homework and bothers even less about obtaining up to date information on the event in question.

Bookmakers in England and the betting exchanges can sometimes be slow to adjust the prices for events that have little interest abroad. Bookies tend to protect themselves from savvy clued up punters who specialise in obscure markets by limiting the size of the action that they are willing to take and then adjusting the prices when they receive any sign of interest.

Punters on the exchanges however have no such safety net. They don’t have a clue about value or have any idea what a price should be and it is these people that can be targeted on sites like Betfair. The bookies themselves were even vulnerable to up to date team information affecting football matches with regards to fixed odds football coupons. The odds for these matches were priced up several days in advance and the coupons were printed at the beginning of the week and not altered.

Just another example of the up to date clued up punter being able to get an edge by obtaining information from whatever source and using it to their advantage. Do this and you will make money on the exchanges by taking advantage of those who don’t.

Ref.:
Profitable Trading Strategies, 2006, available at www.laytheodds.com