Category: Football trading strategies
Has the FA Cup lost its appeal?
Took some time out last Saturday to trade the FA CUP final pre-off. I was expecting a vibrant, lively market but ended up with the opposite and traded out for a small loss. The racing was yielding much more.
I was surprised at how little matched bet turnover there was. At the start of the FA CUP final there was matched bet volume of £3,533,632. On Tuesday night the same teams met again in the premier league and the matched …
Play off promotion clues
Take a deep breath, its play off time. I personally think play offs are a bit unfair. You play well all season only to suffer some injuries which mean you are not automatically promoted, then lose in a knock out competition. I would feel gutted at this.
One thing you may have noticed about the play off is that teams that finish in the top position in the league, in respect to the play off teams, don’t necessarily get promoted. …
Chelsea vs Newcastle stats
Here are some stats I have gathered for this evenings game: –
Chelsea have scored an average of 2.29 goals per home game and have failed to score on 6% of occasions. Chelsea have conceded an average of 1.24 goals per game and have kept a clean sheet on 29% of occasions. On average they score a total of +1.06 more goals than their opponents at home and each match has contained an average of 3.53 goals. When playing at …
Vital stats for the Manchester derby
Top Level
Man City are currently ranked 1st for their league form at home this season. They have won 94% of home games this season, drew 6% and lost no games. They are currently unbeaten at home. Man Utd are currently ranked 2nd for their league form away this season. They have won 78% of away games, drew 11% and lost 11% of games.
Number of goals scored
Man City have scored an average of 3.00 goals per home game …
More next manager markets, please
Not so long ago we bagged a really nice profit on the next Wolves manager market. For some time it looked like the world and his dog wanted Harry Redknapp to get the England job and it seemed a sensible appointment. You could have ad ‘arry to lay to 1.27 at best. But the FA, as they have proven on many occasions, are not the general population. They are a largely politcial entity.
Probably the broadest hint that Hodgson was …
End of season Italian football
As I have pointed out before, end of season Italian football can throw up some strange situations and odds. Today we have Atalanta vs Fiorentina where the draw was matched around 2.36-2.40 before the off. Currently it is 1-0 at half time, equaliser anybody? TBH though it doesn’t look like this match is headed for a draw at the moment.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but if feels like there are less of these matches this year than last, unless …
Last day nerves, apathy & the weather
When we approach the end of season crunch games, when relegation or promotion can be decided on the last game, look out for shocks. Also, in the mid division stuff, where there is little to play for; also look to the outsider. It’s at moments like these that you can find value in the markets. Normal statistical analysis becomes much less reliable at these points.
Look for early signs that a team that ‘has’ to do something is showing nerves. …
Gary Neville’s orgasm
There you go, I told you the draw was value!
In case you’re not sure what the title is all about listen in here: –
But seriously I think Gary Neville can be forgiven for making hilarious noises, as I was too! There were many points in the match last night where it was very easy to shout at the television for one reason or another. I had several complaints from the household about the noise I was making, …
Barcelona vs Chelsea – The stats
OK, Barca are 1.28 to beat Chelsea. Barca are 1.49 to qualify.
Here is something for you to experiment with. Try looking at related markets using Bet Angel and linking it to a spreadsheet. By doing this you can easily set up a spreadsheet to work out all the derivatives this evening. For example, Chelsea would qualify it was 0-0 or say certain combinations of the correct score market came in, say they scored an away goal. Add up …
Lay the draw – Revisited
Whenever you look at all strategies, no matter how complex, there is always some simple underlying key metric that is essential to whether a strategy works or not. This is also true in the case of ‘lay the draw’.
I’ve recently been looking again at value backing. There is a little more depth behind what I am doing, but one of the key issues you face if you pursue a value strategy is deviation from mean. You may be able …
Champions league quarter finals
Looking forward to tonights match between Chelsea and Benfica. It has a nice feel to it. I had a good result on the Barca match last night, so hoping for a good evening.
Benfica must score to have any hope of going through, Chelsea are much improved since the sacking of AVB and the players must be feeling the pull of a final; but they still lack some consistency.
Comments on the forum made me look again at this match. …
Trading football at random
If you trade something at random you will break even less commission? Is this statement true or false? If a football team is priced at 2.00 it has a 50% chance of winning a match, therefore you can’t exceed that, can you?
One curious thing you find if you start dabbling around at random in the markets, is the fact there are many situations in many markets when it’s possible to make money even if you don’t do anything clever. …
3-7
Not very often you see a scoreline like that in a football match.
I’ve been fortunate to be psyhically present to watch top level matches that ended 8-2, 6-2 and 5-5; but 3-7 is a really odd one. So odd I couldn’t really price it if you asked. I’d happily lay at 1000! Total goals are easier to price and I would have offered about 2000 for ten goals last night. Stats aside, there is a nice write up of …
Happy St Patrick’s day
Best wishes to our Irish customers. Whatever you are doing today have a good one.
After the frenzy of Cheltenham we return to earth with a bump today. Lots of racing, but little of note. Use today to adjust yourself back to the melee of lower quality racing. On the football however we have the FA Cup quarter finals, so that looks interesting and will throw up some opportunities. I may dip in out and of those markets.
For main …
Europa league matches
Both Manchester teams being in the Europa league has injected a bit of life into the Carling Cup of Europe it seems.
I quite like the look of this evenings matches. The market is forecasting around 21-22 goals this evening. SP Lisbon vs Man City is the pick of the bunch from the 18:00 kick offs. So I am secretly hoping that City score first but struggle to break down their opponents from there on in. Despite my wish, I’ll …
Which match?
I’m looking at three different matches this evening.
First you have Barcelona vs Leverkusen, Barca 1.17 to win and 3-1 up from the away leg, a formality. But there is little incentive for Barcelona to go for and nothing for Leverkusen to lose so an interesting set up. Barca should win easily, but the lack of incentive gives an opportunity for a slip up.
Spurs vs Stevenage is a different kettle of fish (love that phrase). Spurs have a great …
The 49 bets
Here is something interesting. Well I thought it was interesting anyhow, so I thought I would share it.
On Saturday I was working a position into the Liverpool vs Arsenal match. I’ve often maintained there can’t be many big gamblers / traders out there as I rarely see big amounts in the market. OK there are reasons why I may not be able to see them, but even then, I rarely see anything that looks like a bigger player.
In …
Tonights football opportunties
I like the look of the champions league tonight, but I can’t trade it as I’ll be out watching the football instead. I’ve been doing a lot more of that this year and really enjoyed it. What’s life if you can’t enjoy the fruits of your labour?
The Arsenal vs AC Milan really catches my eye because both teams have little to lose. Arsenal wont gain any credibility by defending and will have to have a go. With Van …
Is trading football the new racing?
Horse racing markets are popular with traders because of the large amounts of volatility, but trading football on betting exchanges hasn’t traditionally been seen as a place to get large risk free swings in odds. Things appear to be changing however.
I have recently been conducting some re-reseach on pre-off movements on football. I do this sort of thing on all sports, revisiting previous research. But on conducting the research this time around I noticed a change. The football pre-off …
International football friendlies
I wont be actively trading the international friendlies this evening. There are many things I can predict about how a football match will pan out but doing this on friendlies is much harder and a bit more random. Basically I don’t know if I have an edge.
I also have this issue that I don’t have enough data to these types of matches to make a confident judgement. So I will pass on the opportunity to do so.
This is …
Carling cup final – Please read the rules!
Whenever the Carling Cup final comes around I am always reminded of the importance of reading the rules in a market. Certain positive positions, things that seem too good to be true can suddenly be exposed as your worst nightmare! But as always with betting exchanges there are two sides to the coin, you can profit from understanding the rules better than others.
Before we get to the main point, I can give you a more recent example; the next …
Creative football trading
The great thing about football markets is that they are very predictable, in an unpredictable way!
Goals are few and far between and occur randomly but with bias throughout the match. But because there are so few goals on average, that makes it easy to figure out what you should do when one goes in. There are only a small number of combinations to work with.
Lots of people focus on just one match, research it to death and try …
Back to the desk
Back behind my trading desk today after a few days trying to recover from this illness. Still nowhere near 100% but I just hate doing nothing. I’d rather be distracted by something other than the sight of a sick bowl! I actually find trading quite fun, so I can still do it and mess around with the numbers, even when I’m not on form. It’s definitely the challenge I enjoy more than the result, though that helps!
The Wolves next …
Profiting from next manager markets
Just a couple of weeks ago had a change in the England manager job with Capello walking out. A week later and we had another ‘next manager’ market to deal when Wolves sacked Mick McCarthy. Then Lee Clark is sacked from Huddersfield, Warnock joins Leeds. It sometimes feels like the managerial merry go round will never stop. I’ve actually studied what effect sacking a manager has, but that’s for another post. I think I may have written about it already …
Performance anxiety – Why players lose form
Lovely piece on psychology in the weekend FT. It examines why players of a sport often inexplicably lose their form. I’ve been studying this specifically in a few sports to come up with predictors of decline. My research was sparked by the collapse in form David Duval after he won the British Open golf and I started to dig around deeper and deeper for events that can lead to a decline. I’ve found it useful in Golf and Tennis which …
FA Cup Fifth round
Rather predictably we reach the fifth round of the FA Cup today with 99% of the market made up from Premiership teams. In round three that figure was 94.7% and round four 96.10%. What’s the betting we reach the final with 100%?
The fifth round is more likely to make that happen as there is only one clash this weekend where two premiership teams meet up. I think this looks the most interesting, Sunderland vs Arsenal, as it has the …
Champions league is back
Yippee! Tonight we have the first leg of the knockout phase of the champions league. I am positively moist with excitement! What a horrible clash though, with valentines day! I fear that valentines day will win tonight but the football will win tomorrow.
I’ve been doing a lot of work on pre-off activity on the football recently, I thought I would take a fresh look at things. It’s surprisingly how you uncover new things when you return with fresh eyes. …
Administrators appointed at Portsmouth and Rangers
The state of football’s finances and excesses was put into the light again today when another two clubs applied for administration orders.
While it’s a difficult time for both clubs, administration is generally done as a last resort and gives the clubs a chance put their affairs into order.
For punters it can be an opportunity. Search for Porstmouth on the blog to see the fun and games I have had in the past with relegation and promotion markets when …
On average.. The essense of value
Let’s start by proposing something simple. If you back or lay something it’s impossible to be right 100% of the time. I think most people will realise that it’s impossible to win every bet you ever placed. Therefore you have to accept that you will place losing bets. If you place losing bets you need your winning bets to cover your losses, that’s the only way to make money in the long term.
To get your an overall profit you …
FA Cup – Round four winners
Rather than a prediction this is a glance back. A look if the ‘romance’ of the FA Cup is still alive.
At the start of the third round, premier league teams made up 93.69% of the market. They now make up 80% of the market, the romance of an outsider winning the cup is still alive it would seem.
However, top flight four teams met each other in round three so we will have to delete these for the purposes …
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