In play trading – Betornot

Betting Trends at Wimbledon: Analyzing Top Seed Losses

Before the year 2000 you would have to go back to 1962 to find a player out of the top 5 seeding in the ladies tournament that won. Since and including 2000 there have only been 10 players that were within the top 5 seeding that have won the ladies tournament. Where did these players fall by the wayside and what odds on the exchange could you lay them off at?
2024 saw 31 seed Krejcikova winning the tournament with a 2-1 victory over 7 seed Paolini, but the top 10 seeds started falling out in the 1st round with the dismissal of Zheng and Vondrousova with sportsbook odds of 1.17 and 1.13 respectively. Round 2 saw 5 seed Pegula lose to unseeded Wang, her sportsbook odds were 1.25. The third round was a disaster for the seeded players with 1 seed Swiatek (Odds 1.08), 9 seed Sakkari (Odds 2.2) , and 10 seed Jabeur (Odds 1.5) all crashing out. This left just 4 of the top 10 seeded players progressing into the 4th round which also saw casualties in the form of 2 seed Gauff (Odds 1.29) and 11 seed Collins (Odds 1.44). (I have included Collins at 11 seed because No 3 seed Sabalenka withdrew before round 1 and did not play in the tournament). Both remaining top 10 seeded players, seed 4 Rybakina and seed 7 Paolini made it safely through the quarter finals but the semi finals were the limit for seed 4 Rybakini (Odds 1.2) who lost to eventual winner Krejcikova. As mentioned before Paolini was the last of the top 10 seeds to fall and became tournament runner up with match odds of 2.2.

The implications of these events warrant some serious investigation into either backing the underdog at sportsbook odds if you haven’t got an exchange account or laying the seeded player on the exchanges.

2024 Round 1 Matches

Wimbledon 1st round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

The table above shows the results and profit had you backed the underdog with Bet365 sportsbook for a £1.00 level stake. As you can see your profit would have been £1.00

Wimbledon 1st round matches laying the top 10 seeded players.

This second table shows the results and profit achieved when laying the top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability at the exchange with a 0% commission If you factor in a 2% commission then the profit would be £3.02 instead of £3.25.

2024 2nd Round Matches

Wimbledon 2nd Round Backing the Underdog at £1.00 Level Stakes

In the 2nd round just 1 seeded player was knocked out and the “underdog” for the match was Wang Xin who was 3/1. Total stakes for round 2 was £8.00 producing, after Wangs’ win, a total loss of £4.00. This brings our total P/L for the tournament if we were backing the opponent of the top 10 seeded players to -£3.00.

Wimbledon 2nd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players for a £1.00 liability

This table above shows the results if we had laid the remaining top 10 seed players. Our loss after 2% commission would be £3.74 giving a total loss of £3.72

2024 3rd Round Matches.

Wimbledon 3rd round matches Backing the underdog for a £1.00 level Stake

2024s’ 3rd round saw 3 of the top ten seeded players get knocked out including No 1 seed Swiatek which produced the highest individual profit of £7.00. The overall profit for round 3 backing the underdogs at Bet365 was £5.30 giving us an overall tournament profit of £2.30.

Wimbledon 3rd round matches laying the remaining top 10 seeded players to £1.00 liability

The dismissal of 3 of the remaining 7 top 10 seeded players has put our P/L back into the black with a 3rd round profit of £5.71 before commission deduction. With this factored in the 3rd round profit is £5.51 giving a tournament profit of £1.79

2024 4th Round Matches

Wimbledon 4th round matches backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

The dismissal of both Gauff and Collins in round 4 would have given us a level stake profit of £2.50 backing the underdog at Bet365 the retirement of both Keys and Kalinskaya ensured safe passage to the Quarter Finals of the remaining 2 top ten seeds Paolini and Rybakina. With these two wins in this round our total tournament profit for backing the underdog now stands at £4.80.

Wimbledon 4th round matches laying the remaining 4 top 10 seeds to a liability of £1.00.

Laying players at such short odds at the exchange has paid off in this round giving us an after commission profit of £3.10 adding to our tournament profit giving a total of £4.89

2024 Quarter Finals

Both of the remaining top 10 seeded players made it safely through to the semi finals reducing our Level stake profit when backing the underdog to £2.80. Laying the seeded players also had the same effect on our laying to a liability profit to £2.89 after commission.

2024 Semi Finals

Wimbledon 2024 Semi Final Matches showing the backing of the underdog at £1.00 level stakes

Paolini triumphed in her semi final match against unseeded Vekic but backing Krejcikova to win against Rybakina paid dividends producing an overall semi final profit to £1.00 level stakes at Bet365 of £2.0 giving us an overall tournament profit with just the final to play of £5.30.

Semi final matches involving the remaining 2 top ten seeded players when laying to a £1.00 liability.

Again laying the seeded player instead of backing the underdog produced a greater profit before 25 commission was deducted even with the commission subtracted the profit is £3.28 giving a total tournament profit with just the final to play of £6.17

2024 The Final.

The Final for Wimbledon 2024 where 31 seed Krejcikova beat 7th Seed Paolini 3/6 6/3 6/4

Backing the “Underdog” in the final at Bet365 produced a profit of 73p which when added to our tournament total for backing the underdog at £1.00 level stakes has given us a tournament grand total of £6.03

Laying the seeded player paid off again giving a small profit after commission of 78p

Laying the no 7 seed Paolini at odds of 2.25 has seemed the only sensible bet in the tournament given the odds of the eventual winner, Krejcikova, of 1.8 at the exchange. A profit of 78p was achieved after the reduction of 2% commission and when added to the tournament total for laying each and every one of the top ten seeded players produced an overall profit of £6.95. This is 92p more than backing the underdog at a sportsbook.

Analysis of the tournament.

Without doubt had we laid the top ten seeded players then our profit would have been more than backing the underdog at the bookmaker. However there is the fact that bookmakers need to create at least a 7% overound and we may well have benefited more by backing the underdog at an exchange especially if you have a promotional 0% commission. Without the top seeds falling by the wayside early on in the tournament the profit would have been less or even a loss might have occurred, certainly our profit was boosted by the single fact that Swiatek crashed out in the 3rd round!
Overall a success and in fact a low risk strategy. Laying to a liability of just £1.00 means that we can monitor and control any losses. We can make the lay bets in the knowledge that if we start with a small bank of just £10 and not let any emotion enter into our decisions we can keep this strategy fun.

How the seeded players faired in previous years.

2023

Top 10 Seeds

Swiatek – Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.19)
Sabalenka – Lost in Semi Finals (Odds 1.7)
Rybakina – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.71)
Pegula – Lost in Quarter Finals (Odds 1.76)
Garcia – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 2.05)
Jabeur – Lost in The Final (Odds 1.5)
Gauff – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.34)
Sakkari – Lost in round 1 (Odds 1.36)
Kvitova -Lost in Round 4 (Odds 1.8)
Krejcikova Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.35)

Swiatek
Reached the 4th round where she lost to Svitolina After losing 3 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £5.26 giving a profit of £2.54
Sabalenka
Reached the Semifinals where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 5 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.43 giving a loss of £3.57
Rybakina
Reached the quarter finals were she lost to Jabeur. After 4 losing lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.41 giving a loss of £2.59
Pegula
Reached the Quarter finals where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 4 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £1.32 giving a loss of £2.68
Garcia
Reached the 3rd round where she lost to Bouzkova. After losing 2 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won 96p giving a loss of £1.04
Jabeur
Reached the final where she lost to Vondrousova. After losing 6 lay bets at £1.00 each we would have won £2.00 giving a loss of £4.00
Gauff
Lost in the 1st round to Kenin. We would have won £2.94.
Sakkari
Lost in the 1st round to Kostyuk. We would have won £2.78
Kvitova
Reached the 4th Round where she lost to Jabeur. After losing 3 lay bets of £1.00 each we would have won £1.25 giving a loss of 1.75
Krejcikova
Reached the 2nd round where she lost to Andreeva. After just 1 losing lay bet of £1.00 we would have won £2.86 giving a profit of £1.86

Conclusion.

We would have lost £5.51 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.

2022

Top 10 seeds

Swiatek – Lost in Round 3 (Odds 1.2) – P/L £3.00
Kontaveit – Lost in Round 2 (Odds 1.50) – P/L £1.00
Jabeur – Reached the Final (Odds 1.83) – P/L -£4.80
Badosa – Reached the 4th Round (Odds 3.4) – P/L -£2.58
Sakkari – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.20) – P/L £3.00
Pliskova – Reached the 2nd round (Odds 1.71) – P/L £0.41
Collins – Lost in the 1st Round (Odds 1.79) – P/L £1.27
Pegula – Reached the 3rd Round (Odds 1.57) – P/L -£0.25
Mugurusa – Lost in the 1st round (Odds 1.25) – P/L £4.00
Raducanu Reached the 2nd Round (Odds 1.70) – P/L £0.43

Conclusion

We would have Won £5.48 over the whole tournament this year if we had laid each of the top 10 seeds to the end.

Betfair Historical Data – Easy When You Know How

Betfair Historical Data has been, for some time now, openly available for free but it seems that no one is prepared to share just how you open the damned stuff!!!
There are plenty of sites out there willing to share their python knowledge but stop short of a full explanation – very frustrating.
At this point I have to give credit to “Trading The Market” guys who have finally given me the Eureka Moment!
If you follow the steps below you will soon have all the research information to back test your systems.
To begin with you do need to have a betfair account and to access which data you need you will need to be logged in and at the following page
https://historicdata.betfair.com/#/home

For the purposes of this post I will be using the basic plan which costs nothing and has a data frequency of 1 minute. If you need more frequent data logs then you will have to purchase your data by the month but there are free plans available for limited months mainly in 2020.
In this post I will be analysing the data from the North London Derby – Arsenal v Tottenham on the 1st October 2022
The easy way to handle this data is to “purchase” a month at a time so I will “Buy” the Soccer data from OCT 2022
To do this simply select the plan, sport, and month you need in the drop down boxes and click “Add to Purchases” and then the “purchase” as in the screen shot below

You will then be asked to confirm your purchase – Check that you haven’t included the wrong plan by mistake as the fee will be taken straight from your betfair balance. If everything is ok click confirm and you will see the following screen.

As you can see from the screen shot there are over 250000 markets! for our research we only need 3 or 4 of these so we need to find them.
I want to know how the under/over Markets behaved when each goal went in during the match. To do this click on the “My Data” Tab as shown below and you will see your most recent purchases as well as plans you have bought before.

We now need to populate the down load fields with the information that we need so if we look at the match stats we can see that there were 4 goals scored in total.

I want to see the following market odds
O/U 1.5
O/U 2.5
O/U 3.5
O/U 4.5
O/U 5.5
O/U 6.5
and the Match.
To do this we need to populate the download files panel as follows:

In the Plan Box (which is at the top but hidden in this screen shot) enter Basic
In the Sport Box enter Soccer
In the From and Upto Boxes enter 1 Oct 2022
Leave the event ID Blank
In the Event Name box enter Arsenal
In the Market Type box select the markets you need and in this case its Match_Odds
Over_Under_25
Over_Under_35
Over_Under_45
Over_Under_55
Over_Under_65
In the Country Box select GB (There is no UK)
and in the File Type Box select M
Click the Add to Downloads button
You now should have 12 files ready to down load.
Click the Yellow Download button

You will find this file in your downloads folder as a Data “tar” file

Double click the file to un pack it in your unzipping program

Keep double clicking until you get to the actual data files

You should now see your 6 “bz2” files
To make them easy to find Create a new folder on your desktop and name it ARS v TOT

You can now drag and drop the files into this folder from your unpacking software

We now need to convert these files into a readable format and Betfair provide one such program easily available from their website.

You will find this here

https://www.betfairhistoricdata.co.uk/

The first file we want to see is the Match Odds and this will usually be the largest file as most volume would have passed through that market. In this case we are looking at File 1.203213491

These are not very user friendly file names so I am going to rename them. to do this we simply select a file from the list using the betfair Historical Data Processor as below and note the file number and which market it contains. In this case File 1.203213498 is the O/U 6.5 goals Market. We dont want to do anything else yet. We are just identifying the files for our convenience

We can then repeat the process with all the files noting the file numbers to the markets and then rename all the files as below

We are now going to convert these files into meaningful excel ranges where we can look at them in more detail. To do this we again select a file from the folder using the Historical Data Processor and click the download settings button as shown in the screenshot below

This will open the settings dialog box as shown below

We now need to populate our spreadsheet with any relevant information we will need by clicking the drop down box arrow and selecting the fields by ticking the relevant tick boxes (dont worry if you put too much info into the spreadsheet as we can delete it later)

Once you have selected what you need close the drop down box by clicking the “up” arrow and because we are just interested in the in play data slide the “preplay” button to off as shown below and click save

We are now ready to download the file as a CSV file into Excel we do this by simply clicking the “Download CSV” button as shown and let the wonders of better brains than our own do its stuff.

This will put a zipped file into your downloads folder with the original file number

If we double click this file it will unpack and be available as a csv file which we can open with excel.

It may be a good idea to move this file to a new folder on your desktop and rename it as I have done here

If we open this in excel this is what we get.

We can now start to manipulate the data to best suit our needs. We can start by removing some of the columns we dont need. I have removed the following columns to be left with the following spreadsheet.
Market ID
Selection ID

The next task is to make the published time more reader friendly. as you can see this is total jibberish, it means nothing. If you select cell A2, in the address window you will see that the full date and time is shown

So that column A shows the time in hrs and minutes we need to select hh:mm from the custom cell formats as shown below.

When we click ok then cell A2 will show the actual time of the published data for that row

To convert all the row simply select Column A and repeat

When you click ok your spreadsheet should look like this

you will notice that the times are repeated 3 times this is because there are 3 separate outcomes within this betfair market – Arsenal to win The Draw and Tottenham to win.
If we now draw our attention to Column F this is the last traded price column and we could do with tidying up this so that all the figures are shown to 2 decimal places. To do this simply select Column F and using the cell number format dropdown box, select “Number” as shown below.

Your spreadsheet should now look something like this

A bit more tidying up by changing the column headers and this is what you should be looking at.

This is your basic data spreadsheet for the entire match for the Match Odds Market You can now save it into a folder and repeat the process with the other 5 markets

In my next post I will show you how to manipulate the data so that we can see what happened in each market as each goal went in

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Trading Tennis No 3. Dutching a Tennis Match

Dutching a Tennis match may seem a little bizarre as there are only 2 players but with the volatility of the market during in-play it is possible to trade in this way by backing the underdog at the outset at the same time as placing a back bet order into the market at odds higher than the current odds with the view that it will get matched at some point during the match. Some pre match research is essential when attempting this sort of trade so that you know roughly at what point your order is likely to be matched. This is done primarily with Bet Angels “Tennis Trader” tool. If you have read my previous posts on trading tennis you will know that this can be an invaluable way of predicting a feasible exit point for your trade and giving an insight to your potential risk to reward.
It is a fact that in Tennis the WTA is the most prolific for having breaks of service, even with the most accomplished players and the fact that that players who are vastly overwhelmed by their opponents experience can overcome some of that prowess by playing in “overdrive” in the first set. This can mean that players who start the match at odds in the region of 1.05-1.2 can see their odds of winning the match increase to a point where this strategy can yield a 10% return on your stake.
To illustrate this I have put a screenshot of the log I recorded yesterday of the match between Zidansek and Zheng. Zheng is seeded 19 and Zidansek is a qualifier.

As you can see Zheng started the match at odds of 1.16 but 10 minutes into the fist game her odds had risen to 1.34 before dropping back down to 1.18 and then back up to 1.3 and then back to 1.13. If we look at the actual game scores we can see that Zheng won the first two games breaking Zidansek’s serve in the second, but in the 3rd game Zidansek broke back to win the 3rd game and this is where these odds of 1.3 + would have occurred. This doesn’t mean that Zidansek was on to win the entire match it was just the market reacting to the in-play state of the match. Below is a screenshot of the first few games of the first set and as you can see Zidansek gave a fair account of herself.

So when we look at matches such as these “uncompetitive” matches as far as the starting odds would have it, there are some distinct possibilities that occur during the match and in particular in the first set that we can take advantage of. This is the essence of the trade I am going to outline in this post. If you have read my previous posts on tennis trading we are looking for the most reward against the least risk taken and to that end I am going to show you one match where there are two possible ways of making the same trade. For this I am going to turn to Bet Angel once again because it is the easiest way to place this trade into the market but this can easily be done manually as well by using a simple dutching calculator available for free on the internet. I will show this method later in the post. But first to Bet Angel. The screenshot below shows the Bet Angel dutching screen and the match loaded is between Vondrousova and Parks. Vondrousova is odds on to win with odds available to back at 1.10 Parks, the rank outsider is 10.00. We know that Vondrousova will 90 times out of 100 win this match, the odds tell us this so we would expect Parks odds to drift out to 1000 by the end of the match and we would be able to get any odds between 10.00 and 1000 matched at somepoint in the match so logic tells us that we should back Vondrousova at the start of the match and put an order into the market on Parks that is pretty certain to be matched at some point.

The Bet Angel Dutching tool enables us to select a margin of profit and total stakes If you look at the screen shot above the software is set to back Vondrousova for a stake of £9.99 and place an order into the market for a penny at odds of 1000 this, if it were possible, would net us 97p at the end of the match if Parks lost. The problem we have in this trade is that we would be risking £9.99 for a reward of 97p
If we now switch this around so that we are backing Parks at the onset of the match and placing an order to be matched in play on Vondrousova the risk to reward has been turned upside down

This trade would now put an order into the market on Vondrousova at odds of 1.25 for £8.89 and place a bet that would be matched straight away on Parks for £1.11 at odds of 10.00. We now are risking just £1.11 for a reward of £1.09 – Even Money. So what are the chances of Vondrousovas back bet being matched in play? If we look at Tennis Trader (Screenshot below) We can see that it would only take a break of serve in Parks’ favour and for her to hold her serve until the 6th game for this bet to be matched.

It would not be advisable to blanket dutch all matches that have a favourite starting the match at odds of say 1.20 or less in this way as you would need to research the players to get some sort of feel that is the underdog capable of breaking the serve if he/she goes all out in the 1st set. But for the purposes of this post I will do just that on all of the WTA 1st round matches on day 2 in the French open today that have a favourite that starts at odds of 1.2 or less and post the results tomorrow.

Now I said earlier that you can perform this trade without the aid of Bet Angel by using a simple Dutching Calculator. For this I will use OddsMonkeys very capable dutching calculator which is available to use for free (I will post a link below) In the sceenshot below I have populated the fields with all the relevant information
Stake £10
Parks Odds 10.00
Vondrousovas Odds 1.10
Commision 2% for both bets
I have set the stake to be split over all selections and for the individual stakes to be rounded to a penny.

As you can see we need to adjust the odds for Vondrousova to make the profit show our 10% target for this trade which is about a quid.

1.20 is not enough as it only produces a 66p profit over all

1.3 is too much as it gives a profit of £1.43

Bingo! we have our desired odds at which we will place our order on Vondrousova and what stakes to use AFTER we have placed our bet on Parks. There is just one thing to remember and it is vital. Once you have placed your Vondrousova order into the market you must set the bet to “KEEP” otherwise when the market goes in play your order would be cancelled and you would in effect have a quid on Parks to win only. One more thing to remember is that if you are doing this manually on betfair your minimum stake is £1.00 so you may need to adjust your total stake to bring that to that amount.

Link to OddsMonkey Calculators

If you are interested in using Bet Angel for free for 2 weeks click here for a 2 week free trial

Understanding the movement of in-play odds in the Over/Under goals Markets

Understanding the initial direction of the Over or Under goals markets on a betting exchange when the game goes in-play and the different speeds that the market moves is key to judging your risk when trading. Grasping this and understanding what happens when a goal is scored is half the battle to making profit in these markets.
As a game goes in-play the probability of a goal being scored begins to diminish when you are trading the Over goals market which means that the odds will increase as the minutes tick away. Depending on which Over market you are attempting to trade, when a goal does go in, the odds will take a very steep drop to a level where the probability of the market being fulfilled will reflect in the odds depending on what time the goal was scored. For instance If you had laid the Over 2.5 goals and the first goal went in after 5 minutes then there are 85 more minutes of the game left for the remaining 2 goals to be scored and the probability of this happening will reflect as very high and the odds will plummet to a point which would put you into a loss position in the market. If, however, the first goal wasnt scored until the 85th minute then the probability of 2 more goals being scored in the final 5 minutes is very low and the movement in the odds would be slight, if at all.
To demonstrate this visually I am going to use a smart bit of software called BetAngel and a feature in the program called “Soccer Mystic”. This will “predict” the odds during a predetermined game if or when goals are scored. There is a game tonight in the English Championship between Barnsley and Swansea City and for no other reason that it is first alphabetically will serve my purpose admirably.
At the time of posting this the predicted lay odds on the Over 2.5 goals market is 1.91. While this is just a predicted odds level at kick-off the market can be different depending on factors such as team sheet announcements, but for the purposes of this it will suit. If we say that we have a lay bet of £5.00 at odds of 1.91 this would give us a liability (total ammount we can lose) of £4.55 at kick-off. We can use “Soccer Mystic” to see our profit/loss should a goal be scored in the fifth minute. The screen shot below shows the predicted odds if no goal is scored in minute 5 and the predicted odds if there was a fifth minute goal

Barnsley v Swansea predicted odds after 5 minutes

As you can see we can determine our risk if there was a goal in the 5th minute and this would be a loss of £2.08 if we traded out. In the next screen shot Soccer Mystic also gives a visual representation of how the market “recovers” as the match progresses and can give us an indication as to when we could trade out for no loss if while watching the match we ascertain that the first goal was a fluke i.e. own goal or a lucky fumble in the box and decide to let the bet run to our predetermined exit point.

The predicted odds are shown by the red line in the graph and as you can see after the first goal going in at the 5th minute the odds plunged to 1.34 but then as the game progresses and no other goal is scored the market recovers slowly to rise after about 35 minutes in-play time to a break even point where we can exit the trade for a no loss/profit. In the graph the horizontal blue line is the “profit” line and when we are laying the market when the red line is above the blue a profitable trade is possible.
As with all things betting or trading research is the key and you may have noticed that I mentioned a predetermined exit point. After doing some really basic research on this game tonight I came to a decision, provisionally, that the first goal probably, using previous games as a guide that perhaps, barring fluke goals, the first goal might be some time after the 17th minute. Using this as our control point we can set out exit point at 15 minutes win or lose

In the screen shot above I have pointed the cursor at 15 minutes and in the ringed box shows us that the predicted odds after 15 minutes when the first goal was scored after 5 mins would be about 1.49. This would leave us in a losing position but if we were right and the next goal went in at minute 17 then our loss would be greater. If of course no goal was scored and we trade out at 15 minutes Soccer Mystic can show us our predicted profit as shown below.

I am sure you are thinking “what if I want to back over 2.5 goals ” then the opposite applies and if you had backed this market at the odds shown and a quick goal was scored then the odds would move dramatically in your favour to enable you to trade out at a profit. as shown below.

Barnsley v Swansea back bet 5 minute goal

We would exit this trade at this point for a £1.93 profit and this would be great but again when we go into this trade we need to pick an exit point and having done the same research we think that the first goal will be at about 17 minutes how far past this point do we go if no goals are scored. If we pick our exit point at say 25 minutes and no goals are scored Soccer Mystic can show us what sort of loss we would expect to take as demonstrated below

Barnsley v Swansea 25 minute goal on a back bet

As you can see an overall loss of £1.95 would be our exit loss.
To summarise if we are laying an “Over” market the odds rise steadily in our favour and continue to provide the potential profit but as soon as a goal is scored our profit potential vanishes to be replaced with the very great risk of a losing trade, on the flip side, if we back the “over” market then our position is of a losing trade until a goal goes in and the earlier the better.

Just for fun there are 7 championship matches tonight and the average time for a first goal this season in the championship league is 32 minutes the following 7 screen shots show what you could expect to win if you laid the Over 2.5 goals market and each game remained goalless until this point.

These 7 screenshots predict the odds and probable trade out profit if there were no goals in their respective games

Lay The Draw and Trade out after the First Goal. The Results

The automation files for this trade performed without a hitch and a profit was made even though Manchester City floundered badly losing 2-0 to Crystal Palace.
The lunchtime kick-off was between Leicester City and Arsenal and as we lunched at the Greyhound Inn at Milton Malsor, Arsenal scored in the 5th minute. At 12:36 Betangel detected the goal and duly placed a back bet into the draw market 25 miles away from where I was tucking into my Gammon Egg and Chips and the first trade was settled for a profit of £1.28 whatever the outcome of the game after 90 mins.

The two screenshots above show, firstly, how the bets were placed and secondly the timings, stake, market and odds of each lay and back bets. Nothing in the research predicted the outcome of this match apart from there being at least 1 goal scored which was enough as soccer mystic indicated that which ever side scored first we would see a profitable trade being made.
The second researched game was the Burnley v Brentford game at 3pm. As mentioned in the research there were no previous meetings of these two sides so it all came down to this seasons form in the goals department and again the research bore no resemblance to the actual match played as Burnley opened the scoring after 4 minutes.

£2.10 was the profit taken from this trade but whether it was a VAR factor or a betfair operative going to sleep the market did not become unsuspended for 5 minutes after a somewhat confusing 11 minutes of the game kicking off either way a goal caused the market to move in our favour and a successful trade was executed 11 minutes after the official time of the goal.

Early goals seemed to be the trend yesterday as Liverpool opened their account with a 4th Minute goal from Henderson creating a £4.05 profit for us. 2 minutes after the goal went in the odds of the draw had risen to 12.0 and Betangel duly placed a back bet into the market of £5.83 which was matched 6 minutes and 36 seconds

Total profit so far £7.43

The only losing trade was the Manchester City v Crystal Palace fixture, where, after 6 minutes the second worst thing after a goalless match happened, Crystal Palace scored!! The resulting back bet placed, unemotionally, by betangel made a £9.09 LOSS. This was a slightly better outcome than the scenario projected by Soccer Mystic of a £10.74 loss after a Crystal Palace first goal but at least the bookies are opening the Bolanger this morning.

In contrast to the other games so far it took Chelsea 65 minutes to score the first goal in this game and this gave us the largest profit of the day after backing the draw at odds of 9.4. This made the trade profit at £5.01. I am beginingg to wonder if this is fun or heart failure provoking 🤣.

Che Adams opened the scoring in the Watford v Southampton game 10 minutes after our research suggested. This resulted in our trade making £2.69 profit and as the half time whistles echoed around the grounds we were £1.03 in profit.

Total profit for all researched matches after Chelsea’s 65th Minute Goal came to £6.04
It would be unfair for me not to point out that Laying the draw on the five 3pm games at a stake of £10.00 would need a betfair balance of £250.00.

Laying The Draw and Trading Out after the First Goal – Research

The first Premiership game today is the mid-table clash between Leicester City and Arsenal. The Odds for Leicester are 2.5, Arsenal 3.0 and to Lay the draw the lay odds are 3.75. There has been at least one goal scored in the past 9 games where these two sides have met with just one 1-1 draw in July 2020. This season neither team have scored in the first 15 minutes of the game with Leicester preferring to wait until after the 30th minute to get on the score card. Arsenal, away, have only scored once this season and have conceded at least one goal in each 15 minute time segment. Leicester have scored in all but one of their home games this season only losing to nil against Manchester City. They have also scored 2 or more goals in the last 4 of their matches (Home and Away). Arsenals Away record is dismal but leicster have conceded at least 1 goal in each of their last 8 matches giving hope that at least 1 goal will be scored. The odds for over 0.5 goals is 1.06 suggesting strongly that the market expects.

After opening “Soccer Mystic” in the Betangel software and putting 30 minutes into the time of first goal we can see that a profit would be gained if either team scored.

Alphabetically Burnley v Brentford is the first 3pm fixture and the odds are similar to the Leicester v Arsenal game earlier in the day. Burnley are slight favourites at 2.76 and Brentford a few ticks higher at odds of 2.96. To lay the draw odds of 3.35 are on offer. Burnley have conceded in all of their home games this season apart from the 0-0 draw against Norwich City. Brentford also have a 0-0 score line against Crystal Palace but have scored in all of their other 3 away games. Both teams have scored in the first 15 minutes but Brentford have the edge with 4 of their seasons goals coming in the first half. With no previous meetings of these two teams there are no head to head stats.

Again after loading the relevant information into Soccer Mystic we see that there would be a slightly better return if the form of Brentford ran true and scored in the 16th minute. A few quid lower liability also makes this an attractive trade.

Liverpool v Brighton is next under the spotlight and with Liverpool knocking at Chelsea’s door in top spot are clear favourites to win this with odds of 1.27. Brighton however, in the same fixture last season , beat Liverpool 0-1! Liverpool have scored first in 3 out of 4 of their last home games whereas Brighton have just one opening goals from the same number of away games (4) Using soccerstats opening goals table we can see that Liverpool’s average time of scoring first is 40 minutes at home and when they did concede first it was in the 22nd minute. Brighton’s only opening goal when away was in the 90th minute and their average conceding time was 24 minutes.

After putting an average time of 40 minutes into Soccer Mystic a first goal by Brighton at this point would have the same result as Lille last night against PSG but the difference here is that after looking back at Lille’s Stats they scored first on no fewer than 4 times out of 7 matches. Confident of a Liverpool opening goal this trade looks good on reflection the level of profit just depends on the timing of the goal.

Another outrageously short “odded” Manchester City host Crystal Palace this afternoon in the 3rd 3pm kick-off and going straight to the first goal time table and see that Manchester have scored 3 opening goals at home this season at an average time of 9 minutes and have not conceded a first goal at home at all this season. A good omen. Crystal Palace have conceded a total of 5 goals in the first half away this season and scored none and Manchester City have scored a total of 6 goals this season at home conceding none.
Putting 9 minutes into Soccer Mystic produces the following figures.

A very high liability in relation to the other matches today does reflect the probability of a draw happening but hopefully the stats will bare out and quite a healthy profit can be made. But remember nothing is without risk.

Top team Chelsea travel to Newcastle today in the penultimate 3pm premiership game today. This might be a slightly more dangerous match to lay the draw on as an early goal by the hosts would see the bet “greening” red! They have opened the scoring 3 times at home this season with an average time of 21 minutes and when they did concede first this came in the 13th minute. Chelsea have yet to concede a first goal when away but have an average opening goal time later in the game than Newcastle at the 33rd minute. A total of 4 goals being scored in the first half at home this season might suggest a “quick score strategy” and hope the opposition don’t counter. This of course wouldn’t happen in this case as Chelsea would come back with vengeance but the damage would be done to our trade. Putting this scenario into Soccer Mystic tells the story

While there seems to be little doubt about a goal in this game the distinct danger is that it will be the home side – not a good thing for this trade.

Back to some sort of normality as far as odds go comes the final 3pm kickoff between Watford and Southampton. The bookies favoutite is Southampton with odds of 2.32 but home side advantage and Watfords opening goal record at home may sway. The assurance of at least one goal by either side is bourne out by the fact that 11 goals have been scored in total over 3 games involving these two teams pitted against teams level or lower in the premiership. Watford have no “clean sheets” this season at home so if we populate Soccer Mystic with Watford’s Opening goal timing of 10 mins we get the following scenarios.

The final game today will have to wait as I have to go out soon.

Lay the Draw and Green Up after a Goal – The results

I highlighted 2 matches yesterday in the post Laying the Draw and Greening Up after a goal The first was PSG – Odds on Favourite to annihilate Lille in Paris and QPR v Notts Forest -an evenly matched championship game between 2 mid-ish table sides with QPR being home favourites by just a small margin. Foolishly I forgot to note the odds of the QPR game but as I noted above one side was odds on (1.41) and the other an evenly matched game.
PSG eventually won the game 2-1 but not before Lille scored first in the 31st minute. As I was trading out of the lay bet after the first goal the scenario outlined in the post came to fruition and the software greened up the bet for a loss of £6.93. I did no research on this match and while PSG eventually won with 2 late goals and a straight lay bet would have won this is not the point of the exercise.
The other game where I did do a little research and concluded that there would be a likelihood of a goal being scored and a profit if either team scored first did come out with a small 83p profit. This game ended 1-1 with each goal being scored in added time of each half (QPR scored first in the 45+5 minute and Notts Forest equalising in the 90+1 minute. A straight lay the draw bet on this game would have been cruelly lost at the very end of the game.
Along with these 2 games I also included the 4 Dutch games played last evening also without research and the following happened
Den Bosch v Jong FC Utrecht
47p Profit
2-1 Den Bosch scored first in the 19th Minute

Emmen v VVV Venlo
£3.33 Profit
1-0 Emmen scored in the 62nd minute

FC Volendam v FC Dordrecht
£1.11 Loss
4-2 FC Dordrecht scored in the 8th minute

MVV Maastricht v Roda JC
£48.00 Loss
0-0 OUCH!!!

I am not put off by these turn of events and this only goes to show that research and testing is key to the conundrum.

Todays Premiership games have already been loaded into Betangel and I will be posting later on my research into these matches

Laying the Draw and Trading Out after the First Goal (If there is one 😱)

In this post I will be looking in depth into a popular football bet/trade “lay the draw” This bet/trade is only available to exchange users as you are betting that the match does not end in a draw. Laying or betting against an outcome of a football match, horse race or any other sporting and political event puts many punters off as the liability can be quite substantial because in effect you are acting as bookmaker to a “bet placer” for instance a losing lay bet of 6.0 at £10.00 would cost you £50.00 to the winner of the bet. Laying the draw can be somewhat safer as there is usually a winner in a football match and usually at least one team scores. If we look at a “Crowd Allowed” season of results ie a non-chinese bat flu season, 18/19 for instance there were less than 6% of games that ended 0-0 in the premier league, that is just 22 games out of 380. This of course doesn’t include score draws but all I am interested in is the games where at least one goal was scored.
If we look at the score draws for the same season (18/19) there were 32 1-1 draws 15 2-2’s, and 2 3-3’s making a total of 71 score and no-score draws.
The odds on a match draw behave with unerring predictability. From when the match kicks off the odds of a draw steadily decrease down to 1.01 at ful time unless a goal is scored whereby the odds jump with varying degrees depending on which team score. If the favourite scores first and early in the game then the draw odds will jump significantly allowing a profitable trade to be reaped. If however the “underdog” scored first and were the away side then the draw odds would not move much if at all.
To illustrate this, and with the kind permission of the support staff at Betangel, the following screen shots utilise the “soccer mystic” feature of their software.
I am using the match between PSG and Lille tonight where PSG are odds on favourites to win at 1.41 at the time of writing.

Soccer Mystic quite accurately predicts the odds of football matches when goals are scored and in the screenshot above you can see that if Lille were to score first in the first 15 minutes then the draw odds would actually go DOWN instead of up as in the case of PSG scoring first. This tells us that if this were the case then the market would believe that a draw was even more likely to happen than if there were no goals scored. Trading out after the first goal then would, in this case, be extremely detrimental to the health of our betfair account balance. These odds however would slowly decrease still until perhaps 2/3 of the game and only then would they start to increase slowly during the match so long as PSG didn’t score. How likely is that???
This is illustrated by the graph shown below (another great feature of soccer mystic)

It would actually take about 50 minutes of game time before the odds began to move favourably and 82 minutes before we could look at taking a profit. This is of course if PSG dont score a goal in the meantime.
This is a worst case scenario and the purpose of this post is to determine whether or not laying the draw is a viable strategy. “Blanket” laying all the 3’oclock Saturday premiership fixtures in any one week to a £10.00 stake would need an account balance in excess of £200.00 and that is just for the 5 games usually kicking off at this time.
How then can we reliably hope to make a profit from this strategy. The answer is research.
If we take tonight’s fixture between QPR and Nottingham Forest the odds of the draw are 3.6 to make a straight lay bet which will create a £26.00 liability for our £10.00 stake. (this means we would win £10.00 for a result other than a draw or if the game ended level we would lose £26.00)
If we remember that we are going to trade out our bet after the first goal we can look at the average times that these two teams scored their first goals. The following screenshot is from Soccerstats.com and shows the timings of goals both for and against when the teams were playing at home and away respectfully.

We can see that both teams score most of their goals in the second half but QPR do like to concede in the first half having 71% of goals scored against them this season happen in the first 45 minutes. Both teams have scored in all of their respective home and away games so we can tentatively look at what profit we can gain from laying this draw and trading out or “greening” once a first goal has been scored by either team. Betangel will be our guide for this again and the match is covered by soccer mystic. Using the predicted odds feature, if the first goal was scored by QPR then the odds would rise to about 5.1 to 5.2 up to the 60th minute which would give us a greened up profit of about £3.00 for our £10.00 stake. If Nottingham were to score first then our profit would levitate at about £1.60 in the same time frame. After 60 minutes, apart from the rusty starfish starting to clench due to the diminishing number of minutes left, our profit equalises if either team scores reaching a dizzying £8.97 profit in minute 90 – At this point you would cancel the trade instruction and take your tenner hoping against hope that the opposition didn’t score.
In this instance I will be testing a downloadable file from the betangel forum in practice mode which will automatically place a lay bet at kick off and trade out for an equal profit/loss, if and when the first goal is scored. I will post the resulting conclusion here after the match.
Please like this post if you like it or comment below

Saturdays DOB of The Day

Todays DOB of the day is Dragon Symbol running in the 14:00 at the Ascot meeting. Preferring to lead the race and with the advantage of Oisin Murphy on board today. Murphy has failed to win on Dragon Symbol from the past 5 rides last winning at Kempton on the All-Weather back in April. While the All Weather surface seems to suit Dragon Symbol better he has won or placed in all but 1 of his 10 previous races in a varied going conditions. The racing Press have Napped him twice and has is tipped by 2 others.

Dragon Symbol is currently available to Back at 9.6 on the exchange at Betfair which you would lay off at odds of 4.8 in running (dont forget to click the “Keep” button when laying the bet.) Forecast odds for Dragon Symbol range about the 5.5 mark (9/2)
This is the best DOB selection of the day using my own criteria on the In-Running Trading Tool.
To get your free trial of this very worthwhile trading software please click the link below

In-Running Trading Tool

Making an Exchange Lay Bet and calculating your liability to use in your “Back to Lay” Trade

Making an exchange lay bet is not as simple as calculating your porential profit in a normal back bet. With a back bet you simply multiply your stake with the odds, subtract your stake and hey presto the figure left is your potential profit.
The lay bet calculation is a little bit more involved and has nothing to do with the picture above (That is just the Kelly Criteria equation for anyone who wants to look it up)
To calculate your liability (How much you would lose if the bet “won” remember with a lay bet you are betting your selection will lose) the following equation is used

Liability = (Backers stake x (Lay odds – 1)

For instance in the 15:05 at Ascot yesterday (1st Oct 2021) Chalk Stream was 3.6 to lay. You don’t think as others do and think it has no chance and want to win a tenner if it loses so you need to know how much you would lose if it wins

Liability = (£10.00 x (3.6 – 1) = 10 x 2.6 = £26.00

To win your £10.00 you stand to lose £26.00 if Chalk Stream wins.
This is the basic calculation and you would need to take off your commission from any winnings.
For instance if your Betfair commission rate is 5% then your £10.00 profit would be subject to a 5% reduction equalling 50p leaving you with a total profit of £9.50 if Chalk Stream loses and a £26.00 loss if it wins.

To make this lay bet you would need at least £26.00 in your betfair account. Things get really interesting when you need to calculate your liability when making Back to lay bets.
Lets take todays first Back to Lay selection on the In-Running Trading Tool feature.

Highfield Princess is running in the 13:30 at Ascot total (2nd Oct 2021) and is currently at 4.3 to win so we back her at that price for £10.00 – a simple no-nonsense back bet, we lose a tenner if it loses and win £33.00 if it wins.
I personally lay my “back to lay” selections at a set 15 tick “drop” from whatever price I backed. For this I use my own “Betfair tick counter” in the form of an excel spreadsheet which I made myself and is available free to download at the end of this page.
A 15 tick drop from 4.3 is 3.4 so now I need to calculate an equal profit liability lay order at odds of 3.4 so that if the horse trades in-play at odds of 3.4 I will win whatever the outcome.

To do this I simply use one of the many “Matched Bet” Calculators on the web, my favourite being Odds monkeys free bet calculator as shown below

Click the pic to go to the Oddsmonkey website

As you can see from the screen shot above if the odds in-play reach our 15 tick drop we would win at least £1.72 even if the horse loses.
As promised above my betfair tick counter is available for free download by clicking the link below. It will calculate odds required for a 20 and 30 tick drop as well as my default 15 tick drop by simply inserting the back odds into the relevant cell

betfair-tick-counter1 Download

The example shown on this page wasn’t plucked out of thin air. I subscibe to a website called In-Running Trading Tool which provides daily data on various trading strategies ranging from Back to Lay trading to “DOBBING” or Double or Bust trading on every horse running that day. Highland Princess is just one of several selections highlighted by the site for todays racing. I am currently on a 5 bet winning streak and playing with free money after taking my original stake out after the 3rd bet. These trades were as follows
28th Sept – 13:35 Ayr – Le Cheval Rapide – Trade won Horse lost
29th Sept – 13:40 Bangor-on-Dee – Robin Des Theatre – Trade won Horse lost
30th Sept – 14:00 Warwick – Friend or Foe – Trade won Horse lost
01st Oct – 13:35 Fontwell – Pasvolsky – Trade won Horse lost
01st Oct – 14:45 Fontwell – Keepyourdreamsbig – Trade won Horse lost
A full breakdown of these backed and liad bets can be seen from my downloaded excel file below
I used the minimum stake of £2.00 for the initial bet adding my profit to this each time until I had won enough to bet with just profits.

exchangebets_settled Download

To get a free trial of the In-Running Trading Tool please click the link below

In-Running Trading Tool.