Pre Match football trading
In the absence of racing today I’ll be dipping into Kempton to have a look this evening, though I doubt I’ll trade it, and I’ll also be welcoming the premier league football into my arms.
Football was one of the first markets I actively traded on Betfair and I still do it today. Trading before the match starts allows me to get off to a head start on things and, if necessary, carry over the profit to play around with in-play.
I trade football pre off in a similar manner to how I trade racing and unsurprisingly it produces similar results in terms of strike rate. The main issue you have with pre-match trading is waiting to get filled. Orders can take an eternity to get matched. OK you say, well put them in earlier, but here you face another problem. The team sheet. Any change in team dynamics and the market will start moving. So trading either side of the announcement of the team sheet will produce differing trading characteristics. Of course the other problem with football is the lack of markets. It’s not like racing where another one will come along in a minute. Despite all this I still find trading before the start of a match a decent hunting ground. I’m also carefully preparing myself for the World Cup where the opportunities are likely to be favourable, as they were in 2010.
Of the markets I’ve traded recently, Match odds turnover around £1m per match on average, Over/under £150k and Correct score £125k. Bear in mind the correct score market is shared amongst a number of outcomes.
Bet Angel is well built for pre-match trading. You have Guardian, Excel and the watch lists which make it easy to skip in and out of markets quickly while keeping an eye over all of them. The watch lists also total up your position on each market for an overall total.
Last night, for demonstration purposes, I traded on a spare account with £20 stakes to show you how can make money before the match starts. You don’t need any particular football knowledge to do it, just some fundamental trading skills. You can see you will only need a few evenings to pay for your Bet Angel subscription! So with so little racing on, turning to others sports is a viable idea, even if it’s just to learn how they work.
Returns based on using a £20 trading stake
Category: Football trading strategies, Trading strategies
