The Footy Trader

Not much work done lately with all the days being taken up with the festivities. If I wasn’t cooking and preparing things I was sitting and eating and using the time to be sociable. Well if you can’t be sociable at this time of the year then you might as well go home and stay there.

I looked at the possibility of doing something with the boxing day games but was out for all but the last premiership game of the day. At least someone was doing something though because I saw a sale of the BetIE software and also of BetAngel. I still need to sort something out so that I can use the software again due to Parallels quitting on me. Why oh why can’t we have more software that will work native on the Mac. I really do miss BinarySoft BDI. Now that was a good bit of software, if a little differnet in its approach. You may have seen that I tried out some java based software to use with Betdaq but that kept crashing so was useless. You have got to have reliability when you are working with cash.

The offer of 2% commission at Betdaq will end soon but I think staying with Betdaq is still a good idea, despite lower liquidity in many of the markets.

I do wish I could do more matched betting. It really is a case of good maths and no risk. If you are keen to try out some betting strategies like the one I have been trialing lately with the “Lay the Loser” then it is a brilliant idea to build up a bank to work with and take out your original seed money to get your hands on the free money, and then just work with someone elses money. OK I know that you can use BetIE and make good use of the learning mode, which is what I do but then the next stage on is to use the free money from the online book makers.

One idea you might contemplate is to attend one of Peter Web’s courses in which he shows you how to trade on the betting exchanges. Specifically using BetAngel but that is such good professional software though it would be a very useful course to follow. In fact I suggest it would be an excellent use for the money you pull in from the matched betting.

BetAngel is Revolutionary Software and I am sure you will find Soccer Mystic pretty interesting also. Both are from the same company and they have just come up with a BetAngel for Betdaq that you can try for free.

I have been using it and I am impressed. In fact there are parts of the software that I ahave no clue whatsoever about how it works. But it is there for me to learn about later, which is nice.

Although I am a Birmingham City supporter (for my sins) it was good to see that Aston Villa could pull back to 2- against Arsenal. I saw the game on Match of the Day on the BBC and thought they deserved to draw if no win the game. My team here in Spain is Barcelona and like all the teams in La Liga they are having a break at Christmas, which is quite different to the way it is done in the Premiership where they even have to play on Boxing day. I expect that they have to go easy on the eating on Christmas day or roll around the pitch the day after.

Thanks for coming to the blog during the course of 2008, I appreciate bot the readers of the blog and also the listeners of the podcasts. I am pleased that the numbers have been rising in my podcast statistics. I have about 2500 – 3000 downloads of the podcasts each month – nice to know that people are taking the time to listen to or watch my ramblings.

Lets all hope that 2009 is a good year for us all.

Testing some software and it didn’t work and the video show what happened. It was some Beta java based software that works with Betdaq.

You can use software successfully with Betdaq, Have a look at BetAngel for Betdaq. They made that software in response to Betfair getting more expensive. They started charging the more successful traders more money and annoyed a lot of people. The makers, users and coders of BetAngel in that group.

In this short podcast I show how to set up a dutch on a correct score market on Betfair using BetIE. Really easy and I show how you can get a good ration of reward to risk. The stats combined with this strategy will mean that in the long term you will surely make money.

You will be surprised how easy it is to do this using BetIE, which as other tools and functions that can help you with your trading on Betfair.

Here  is a super example of what happens to the odds at the start of a game when no goals are scored. Neither West Bromwich nor Portsmouth have found the back of the net and the odds dropped down from around 1.90 at the start to about 1.35. Clearly a trading opportunity.

I just went out to walk the dog and it was necessary, there was business to do. I get back in the house and look again at the graph for the under 2.5 goals in the same game. I know straight away that there has been one goal scored from the movements on the graph. See below in the graph what happened to the odds after the goal. They rocketed back up to 1.90 and then started to head downwards again. By the look of it the downward trend is similar to the previous trend before the goal in terms of speed of the movement. More evidence of a trading opportunity. The only thing is that there has been a goal scored and you only have to see one more goal to be in a losing situation.

What is the answer here? Really it would be best if the reward was higher as the risk is a little higher, There is only a one goal cushion.  It would be good to see a steeper line after the goal is scored. You could move to the under 3.5 goal market and see what the odds are like there. You could perhaps go into the under 2.5 goals again but only for a short amount of time. Get in there and get out taking a smaller amount of profit from the trade.

Seems to me a quick in and out is the way to go on this market.

Here we go again and there has been another goal there has been an equaliser. The graph shows the odds on the game ending under 2.5 goals is up to 3.50 and then sharply down to 2.50. Great care needs to be taken when two goals have been scored as only one more goal and that is that – all done and dusted.

The movement of the odds just after the goal is a lot sharper though. If you could get a betting bot to throw in an order for a bet as soon as the market got started again and then do the hedging bet very very quickly after that you could make a nice profit from it.

Have a look at BetIE for your trading – It has the advantage of having a once off price and no monthly fees. I think the interface is fairly basic but despite that it does have quite a few tricks up its sleeve. You can do hedging, dutching and trading. The best of all is that it can do a learning mode which will allow you to try out things without risking your betting bank.

You could also look at BetAngel which is the Rolls Royce of the betting softwares, it does everything bar make the tea. It does have a monthly cost and you have to bear that in mind when you work out if it is for you or not. I recommend looking at what you expect to make from your trading each month and it is obvious that you have to make more profit than what you have to pay for the software each  month. Still though for the professional trader then I think it is the best choice. At the moment you can try out the BetAngel Betdaq version which is new and it will not cost anything.

If you are working mainly with soccer then you will perhaps get better use from Soccer Mystic

It makes sense, as I have said before that there is no point in trading against the statistical information. When you are looking at a game to work with you should give yourself the better chance of success by reading the stats that are real for the market you are looking at. For example with the Premiership and the under 2.5 goal market.

Look at the image of the current stats as taken from the Soccerstats site only a couple of minutes ago. Games that finish under 2.5 goals is the number to look at. 46% of all of the 149 games played so far ended under 2.5 goals.

Now lets go to Betcalc and see what odds we need to get to have value on a trade. You have to enter the 46% and the look at the odds required to give you a profit on a back bet.

You can clearly see that you will have to put in the back bet at more than 2.12 to get value. If you place 100 of 1 Euro bets at that price in that market with those stats you will win 0.28 overall.

So it is going to make sense to try and get odds like that when you trade. OK lets look and see what odds are available now in Betdaq. There is a game on between Fulham and Manchester City today and the odds on the under 2.5 goals is 1.77. If we put 1.77 into the Betcalc value calculator and the 46% likleyhood of there being under 2.5 goals as pwer the stats. It does not look good. After 100 bets like that with the stake at 1 Euro then you are likely to have lost 18.58 Euro. (or pounds or shekels or whatever currency you work with)

So what can we do to try and increase the chances of getting better odds?

The odds are not static during the game which is why we can trade on a game. Buy in at one price and sell at a bettter price and be greened up to win whatever the result. You will see that after a goal is scored the odds will rise dramatically. So you can trade on the rise going up or on the drop in the odds either before or after the goal is scored.

• So at the beginning of a match you can back the under 2.5 goals and as no goals are scored then you can trade out when the odds drop.
• Or you could lay the under 2.5 before the goal and trade on the rise when the odds rise when the goal is scored.
• Or trade on the drop in the odds after a goal is scored. Looking at the graphs from the betting exchange you will see a steep curve downwards usually after the goal

The method I would use is the trading at the start of a game and look at that stats for the possibility of goals happening in the first 10 or 15 minutes of the game. Also the fact that the drop of the odds after a goal is quite steep is also alluring for trading. I would use both of these strategies.

Don’t take my word for it though get your hands on BetIE the betting software which has a learning mode and try it for yourself. Have the back bet in there and either use the built in automatic hedging or use the trading ladder to place the bets manually.

What you might do is place the back bet at that start of the game and trade out part of the bet after 5 minutes and then the rest of it at 10 minutes. That way you remove some of the liability and capture some profit of the trade. The longer a game goes without a goal then the higher the probability of a goal being scored. I mean that is what both teams are trying to do, put the ball in the back of the net.

One of the nice things about BetIE is that there are no monthly charges. You just buy the software and thats it. most of the other softwares charge per month. Those are more for the professional traders that need fancier tools. BetIE does have a good tool set though and more than enough to the small betting exchange trader.

If you are more of a betting professional then I can highly recommend BetAngel or SoccerMystic for those with a football bias.

I have been trying out ZedBet and I have to say that so far I have been impressed. I sent money in via a bank transfer and it got there quickly and I found the site to be easy to use when looking for the market I was interested in.

More important is getting money out when you win and is looking like that will be just as quick. I sent in the withdrawal request email. No online forms on the ZedBet web site just send in the information they request. and I got a reply back within minutes to say that the details had been sent to the payment department and I will be paid as quickly as possible.

They will pay out for free once per month which is good. I have seen this policy on other betting sites also. I will let you know when the money arrives. Now it is Thursday and nearly midnight. I was surprised to get confirmation of the withdraw so quickly as it is so late. I thought that I would get an email back in the morning. Well done ZedBet.

The other good thing to mention is that they have a welcome bonus at the moment and it is up to 100 Euro. Not bad at all. I got lucky with my first bet which won for me, and then I got the bonus of 100 Euro which sadly lost. I had a bet on Slavia Prague playing at home and I thought they might get revenge in a home game as they lost in Hamburg.