The Footy Trader

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.

I have just been checking the stats on the Soccerstats site and in particular the under 2.5 goals stats. As you know I believe the getting value with your bets is important. So I took the data from Soccerstats and put it in to Betcalc.com which has a value calculator. The reason I did this was because the stats this season indicate more goals and more games where the final score is more than 2.5 goals. Last season I remember it being around 48%.

With 48% you needed to get odd of at least 2.10 to have a value bet and now with 43% as the statistic for games under2.5 goals you need odds of 2.35 to be getting value.

I don’t think that the odds for the unders on Betfair or Betdaq has reflected this change in the numbers, so that is not such a good thing. You need to be getting value because if thing do go wrong and you have to leave a trade as a straight bet then you want to know that you have the value.

If you get bets at odds of 2.30 on the unders on 43% in the stats then after one hundred bets you will have lost 1.10 pounds or Euro or whatever. If you get odds of 2.35 then you should make 1.05 Euro or pounds.

Lets look at the odds available in the premiership games on today

Chelsea v Newcastle – 2.38
Aston Villa v Man Utd – 1.98
Liverpool v Fulham – 2.04
Man City v Arsenal – 2.28
Middlesborough v Bolton – 1.82
Portsmouth v Hull – 1.82
Stoke v West Brom – 1.87

So you can see that in most of these games there are poor odds where getting a value bet is concerned. I think also that this can affect how fast the odds change at the start of a game too. Obviously the higher the odds the faster they will fall when five, ten, fifteen or twenty minutes have gone in the game and no goals have been scored.

What you could do is to look at the odds after a goal has been scored. Often the odds go up fairly high and then have a sharp fall for the next five or ten minutes of the game. It could be a better strategy than taking the poor odds at the start of the game. All you have to worry about then is the quick equaliser goal. I dodn’t know what the stats are for that occurance but it should be slim enough that the overall strategy will be a winner.

Liverpool deserved a draw from the game at home to Athletico Madrid  although Madrid were very unlucky to go home with a draw. Work that one out. Great game to watch and Liverpool were playing well but couldn’t get the ball in the back of the net. At the finish on 95 minutes Liverpool were awarded a dubious penalty and Steven Gerrard put it away.

Sometimes you have to think that footy is a weird game, but then that’s what makes it so compelling to watch and enjoy. You never know what is going to happen next.

Chelsea losing in Roma was a shocker too when you consider the form they are playing with lately. A couple of 5 – 0 wins lately in the Premiership.

Four games to look at today and The Everton vs Man United game will be a hard fought game. West Brom will have their hands full with Hull City. Spurs have a Sunday game, playing at home and who knows, maybe they will win a game some time soon.

I am not  an Aston Villa supporter but still would like to see them win at Wigan tomorrow. They did well in the European game mid week with a 2-1 win. Gareth Barry putting in the winner.

As for trading today I might keep looking at the Football Cash Generator because it still needs some more testing to be long term enough to be useful.

I was asked about trading on the backing the draw in the same terms as doing the under 2.5 goals. I need to think about that some more. The differences will be where you have one team score 2 goals and the odds will be very different in the way that they operate compared to the unders market. I plan to make some comparisons with different games by looking at the graphs of the changing odds.

I suppose there will be a difference in the fact that the under 2.5 goals market is ended whe the score has gone to 2-1 or 1-2 but with the trading on the draw rather than the unders you still could have a position on the game. I suppose it depends on the probability of a draw and the odds that are available, and getting value. With the unders you should be looking for odds of 1.9 or above so that you have value. I will find out what odds are required for the draw.

Just looked at the stats so far this season and to back the draw and have value you need odds of 5 or above.

I would also like to go back to the correct score dutching. Last season I was looking at the dutching of the correct score and it worked pretty good. Better results that I have had from the Football Cash Generator so far.

Just looked at the live scores and Man U went ahead a goal at 22 minutes and in the Sunderland Newcastle game there is a goal for the home team after 5 minutes. UPDATE – Everton Man U finished 1-1 well done the toffees. And the Sunderland game is 1-1 after 60 mins too.

Have a look at the two graphs from the Sunderland Newcastle game, and notice what a difference between the two.

When these pictures were taken the score was at 1 -1. With the unders you would not be making any money and with the draw you would have made money. Ass soon as the second goal went in the draw odds went to where they would have been without either of the goals happening. The first goal went in at 20 minutes and the equaliser was 30 minutes.

With the unders look at the odds after the second goal. There was a sharp move down of the odds. Obviously 5.00 was way too high and the market adjusted itself downwards. Of course it is a bit risky as one more goal would close the market but if you were not greedy they you could make a decent profit on the trading.

It seems to me that the rate of movement downwards with the match odds on the draw is not that rapid. But it could still work well especially if you got a bet in after the first goal, but that could be risky too as you have to guess that there is going to be an equaliser. In that case you are using football knowledge and or game knowledge rather than probability and what is most likely to happen. You would have to study what games go to 1-1 and then one team or other wins.

I suggest you get BetIE and try these things out in try out mode. You can test your ideas without risking your cash.

After the Third goal in the Sunderland game. Pretty close to the end of the game…

England playing and winning. Manchester United beating Celtic and the first two goals being offside. That was bad luck for Celtic. There was a Rooney goal disallowed for offside which should been allowed, offset the previous bad decisions halfway though. When there is such bad refereeing decisions you have to wonder how they can wonder why they need the Respect campaign for the Referees.

But then again there is the thing about this problem of human fallability which makes the game so interesting. There would be some much less for the commentators to talk about and for the fans to complain about if all the decisions had to be confirmed by an extra official watching the game on a TV and getting out a measuring tape to access more accurately the decisions.

Mind you that could stop all of the play acting though by the players pretending to have been badly injured when the tackler didn’t even touch them.

I found a download available to be able to trade on Betdaq. It is a java application so it works native on my Mac. It is an early version so not very stable but interesting to have a look at and try, especially seeing as Betfair have this thing with wanting to charge successful traders more money. Many people have moved to Betdaq and the liquidity is getting better too.

Here is the latest video podcast, Netcast, Wizardcast, Internet TV show or whatever you want to call it from Wizardgold. I show you the Football Cash Generator in action.

Good Luck

Looking to get some feed back from you. I have been reviewing the Football Cash Generator and do you want more info about it and how it works.

Is there anyone else out there that has tried it for real, give us a comment on how it went for you?

Tell us what size of bank you think is necessary to make it work from the start?

Do you have a staking plan that you follow when you use the Football Cash Generator?

What about the insurance bet, I know some don’t do one at all and others use all sorts of percentages, What is you preference?

Are the odds that you have found to work better for the Football Cash Generator? What is the max liability you will go for or the max odds you will work with?

Leave a comment or fill in the contact for below….. Looking forward to hearing your views and looking forward to some more football tomorrow, Don’t you just love Saturday and the Premiership.

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Betfair want to rip off their customers that do well so Betdaq are taking advantage of the general unrest in the Betfair side of things by offering 2% until the end of the year. All you have to do is to send in an email and ask for it.
It would be a good thing if the numbers go up on Betdaq so the liquidity is better, which will lead to improved betting and trading.

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As you can see from my postings of late I have been trying out the Football Cash Generator and in this podcast I give a review of it. It is the first part of the review because it still needs some more testing.

Have a listen to get the low down on the Football Cash Generator. Does it work? What are the possible pitfalls? How can it be used to best advantage?

Here is the mp3 version which is a bigger file but here in case you have problems with the enhanced version