Trading tennis might be quite daunting at first but when you actually look at some key points in tennis matches this can be a great introduction into the bewildering world of sports trading. There are so many opportunities to make (and lose) money in this activity, that many “match bettors” that have made the progression from having their betting accounts “gubbed” to gravitating to the only real option left open to them in their betfair account. With there being so many markets available every day and so much “advice” being forced on naive beginners, many lose money and therefore lose interest. In this series of blog posts I will aim to point out some of the more obscure trading opportunities I have discovered which are of less risk and more reward. Sports trading is a risk, and while you are never putting your full stake at risk there is always the greater probability that the trade will go against you and you will have to trade out of the market for a loss. This can be for a variety of reasons, lack of knowledge and lack of research being just 2. Many beginners to trading will perhaps watch a couple of YouTube videos where the presenter makes trading look so easy and lucrative that they just jump into a similar market that was shown and try and do exactly the same with catastrophic consequences. As a potential trader you must have, at the very least a working knowledge of how various markets behave. Tennis, to my mind, could be the sport where this can be learned quite easily and with a relatively low risk to your stake.
The Racing Post, a respected and some would say a vital part of British and Irish racing. The content of the paper and on line version of the only real guide to days racing is second to none but should we do our own research or just back the runners that are in BOLD in the race preview that can be found on many betting sites. I think that the Racing Post has a reputation to uphold so why would bookmakers willingly put the racing post preview at the head of the race page. Sceptical attitudes may say that if the bookies are willingly publishing these views by “Verdict” from the racing post then statistically they (the bookies) will win over all. Todays meetings come from Bellowstown, Kempton, Doncaster, Uttoxeter, Stratford, and Chelmsford City.
Looking for Level Stakes profit to £1.00 stake for all races Lets see how they get on.
First meeting in order of timing today is Bellewstown 13:20 Fast Tara (Abandoned) 13:55 Master Garvey (Abandoned) 14:30 Ten to Ten (Abandoned) 15:05 Escapingthejungle (Abandoned) 15:40 Tawaazon (Nap) (Abandoned) 16:15 Theonewedreamof (Abandoned) 16:50 Star Kissed (Abandoned)
Kempton Meeting starts at 13:30 13:30 Burgar LOST 14:05 Phantom Flight LOST 14:40 Brains LOST 15:15 Aztec Empire (Nap) LOST 15:50 Fix You 16:25 Cuban Breeze 17:00 Simply Sondheim
Doncaster next and the first race goes off at 13:50 13:50 Valadero LOST 14:25 Dirtyoldtown LOST 15:00 Asjad LOST 15:35 Awaal (Nap) 16:10 Poker Face 16:45 Ribal 17:20 Aldbourne 17:50 Aone Ally
Uttoxeter 14:10 Tonto Foley LOST 14:45 Sporting Ace LOST 15:20 Corey’s Courage LOST 15:55 Blackjack Magic 16:30 Gold Emery 17:05 Had to be Hugo (Nap) 17:35 Mistral Milly
The final meeting of the afternoon is from Stratford 14:17 Beau Balko LOST 14:52 The Grey Falco (Nap) LOST 15:27 Weebil LOST 16:02 Lamanver Bel Ami 16:37 Go Steady 17:12 Banteer
The sole evening meeting is from Chelmsford City and first race goes off at 17:30. 17:30 Vitralite 18:00 Boasty 18:30 Prenup (Nap) 19:00 Iconic Moment 19:30 Beyond Equal 20:00 Pending Appeal 20:30 Heath Rise
I have annotated the Nap selections for each meetings but will list them again here Bellowstown 15:40 Tawaazon (Nap) Kempton 15:15 Aztec Empire (Nap) Doncaster 15:35 Awaal (Nap) Uttoxeter 17:05 Had to be Hugo (Nap) Stratford 14:52 The Grey Falco (Nap) Chelmsford 18:30 Prenup (Nap)
Can I do better than the professional tipsters who advertise plenty and perhaps don’t always come up with the goods? Boasting huge profits of thousands of pounds these tipsters are no more than Value bettors who rely on the concept that if you back enough horses at odds better than the exchanges are offering then you will win in the long run – of course you will is stands to reason that if you back 5 horses each at odds of 6/1 or better then you will only need one winner to be “profitable” This is all well and good when you are staking £100 per point but who actually can afford to do this- certainly not me. This for them is a business they charge upwards of £30.00 per month for their “service” which they presumably use to place their £100 bets and if they are at all savvy will promptly lay them off at the exchange. Betting for the average punter should be a pleasurable pastime, something you can enjoy and afford. To this end I will post and bet £1.00 each way on a horse once a day – Max Loss £14.00 or 3 pints of beer or a bottle of gin on Tesco club card price 👌
Friday 24th March 2023
15:00 3:00 Musselburgh
Lock Down Luke
Runner up twice from his last two outings and beaten favourite last time out when he started at 7/2 he has won just twice over hurdles from a total of 14 starts. He may well do the deed today and even start favourite again but there is danger from Faithful flyer amongst others in this race. Prudent 1 pt E/W
Paying on 4 places with all the major bookmakers except stingy #BetVictor
Tonights premiership clash is between London Clubs Crystal Palace and Arsenal.
Crystal Palace v Arsenal
As you can see from the screenshot of my Premiership workbook above this game scores highly at 59/110 with Arsenal making up 42 of those points. Arsenals first half over 0.5 goals percentage is 92% with their average opening Goal scored before the 20 mins. They have also managed to score the opening goal in 9 of their 13 away games with all of them coming in the first half. Slightly concerning is Crystal Palace and their 67% of games where they managed to keep a clean sheet in the first half. Even with the caveat of Crystal Palaces’ clean sheet record I would still be confident that there will be at least one goal in the first half and at odds of 2.8 might be temped to back Arsenal to win the half.
If you are interested in this workbook and others I have produced for other leagues please visit this post linked below where they can all be downloaded for free Please take care to update the workbooks before each game. full instructions are on this post also. https://bet-or-not.com/2022/03/28/backing-over-0-5-goals-in-the-first-half/
Horse Racing is fickle, we all know this, and if a horse loses everyone blames the driver. But what if the driver is in form. Sam Twiston Davies recently had just 3 rides at Market Rasen and won all 3 with his final ride of the day coming home with an S.P. of 4/1 (5.0). The BSP for this race was 6.4 and had we B2L at 10 ticks the profit would have been over 18% of our stake. Another leading Jockey, Brian Hughes, had a win in the first 2 races at Sedgefield on the 24th March his next ride went off at 15.5 on the exchange and traded as low as 2.0 in running. A B2L trade of 10 ticks would have produced a 44% profit on our stake. Jockeys with 2 or more wins at a single meeting are quite rare and logging each race winning jockey can be a laborious task especially when you are trading other events going on at the same time The Automation Guru, Dallas, at Bet Angel has come up with a nifty little bit of automation that will “After each race when Betfair closes and settles the market it will store the name of the Jockey on the winning horse, if the same jockey rides two winners a it will trigger a pop up alert displaying the name of the Jockey” As an aide to this I have started to produce an excel workbook which will show, at the click of a tab, the form of the jockey from his/her last 50 rides. While it is limited at the moment to the following jockeys, you can download it for free below
Sam Twiston Davies Rachael Blackmore Brian Hughes Craig Nichol Bryony Frost Nico de Boinville and Charlie Deutsch
The next piece of research comes from the In-Running Trading Tool From this I can see at a glance the jockeys next ride of the day and determine as to a back to lay trade is on the cards. I will post any 2 time winners and further results form todays racing Later.
Emotional gambling, hunch betting and chasing losses are just 3 reasons why punters lose and bookies win. How then can we take some of this uncertainty out of the equation and put some solid research together in an ordered and unbiased way that will enable us to make a more informed and unemotional decision of where to risk our money? Creating a flow chart that defines definite criteria for us to follow is certainly one way and with excel this task can be done with relative ease.
Flow chart for Laying the Draw
The screenshot above is an example of a flowchart I have been working on to help me identify football games where I can trade laying the draw in either the half time or full time markets using set criteria to avoid making uninformed decisions. While this is still in its development stage I hope you can see the advantages of using a tool such as this may help you in the quest for making a bit of money from the bookies instead of handing good money after bad to them.
Betting on whether or not there will be a goal in a football match must, to many seem like a pretty sure thing. It is not until you start looking at the statistics that this may not be the cash cow it may look like. With average odds of over 0.5 goals barely reaching 1.15 for a full time result, to be in profit you must win at least 12 times out of 13. When you consider that the average percentage of games that end 0-0 is somewhere around the 8% mark then this doesn’t seem as inviting after all. I recently read on the OLGB forum of a “system” to make £50000 from £10.00 in 3 months making just 1 bet per day, while the maths is sound and the theory is feasible, in reality one game will wipe you out!! Just imagine you are on your last day and you risk your £46,000 and the game ends goalless🤑😭. Backing over 0.5 goals in the first half provides better odds (averaging at about 1.5) but with this comes the added risk of the shorter time the teams have to score a goal. If we look at the Spanish La Liga 2 and the games played on the 25th and 26th March 2022 there were 5 games, 2 of which ended 0-0 at half time. If we say that you put £10.00 on each game at odds of 1.5 then your loss would be £20.00 and winnings would be £15.00 leaving you £5.00 down. As with everything to do with football betting the Bookies do their research and to level the field a bit it would be foolish to not do the same, otherwise you will be just handing over good money after bad. To this end I have created a series of excel workbooks that will hopefully take a bit of the guesswork out of selecting suitable games that have a higher probability of that first goal going in before the half time whistle. It uses first half statistics from the football leagues and allocates a points system depending on various criteria ranging from time of first goals to number of goals scored in the half. To demonstrate I have taken the 5 games played in the La Liga 2 on the 27th March : Mirandes v Ponferradina OGS 10 mins Burgos v Tenerife OGS 62 Mins Alcorcon v Valladolid OGS 3 mins Malaga v Huesca OGS 47 mins Almeria v Girona OGS 13 Mins (OGS = Opening Goal Scored) As you can see 2 of the 5 games ended 0-0 at half time
Mirandes v Ponferradina
If you look at the screenshot from the workbook pictured above you will see a score of 63/110. this was the highest score of all the games today and at half time the score was 2-0 The next highest score for statistics was the game between Almeria and Girona which was 53 points and the OGS was 13 minutes into the game.
Almeria v Girona
With 52 points, the next game was Alcorcon v Valladolid and it took just 3 minutes for our bet to be settled
Alcorcon v Valladolid
2 games had sub 50 scores Burgos v Tenerife (47 points) and Malaga v Huesca (33 points) and both of these games ended 0-0 at half time.
Burgos v TenerifeMalaga v Huesca
Even with these 5 games there is perhaps a pattern emerging. Games that have scores above 50 points might be worth considering but those games where a sub 50 points score should be discounted out of hand
Todays game between Las Palmas and Leganes carries a point score of 68 making this a definite consideration
Las Palmas v Leganes
I have produced a few of these workbooks so far and have provided download links below
To update these files you have to refresh the queries associated with the individual files. To do this simply open the data tab on the ribbon at the top and click the refresh button in the queries and connections box as shown below
There are 4 bits of information that needs to be added manually These are
1 Half time back odds for the home team on the betfair exchange (insert into cell D15) 2 Half Time back odds for the away team on the betfair exchange (insert into cell H15) 3 The Half Time over 0.5 goals back odds on the betfair exchange (insert into cell D16) 4 Select the favourite team from the game in Cell J1 (this has only 2 options and is a drop list)
Having just belatedly received my Jumpers to follow list for the 2021/22 season (I got it at half price) I thought that following horses halfway through the season might not be an altogether bad thing as you can see how they have done so far in the season. I then got to thinking why not make my own list but not of good prospects this season which are usually aimed at big races but day to day runners which I can back to lay in-running. The sheer volume of horses racing each day could make this a task of monumental proportions so I started to whittle down the most prevalent horses each day, concentrating on predominately front running horses. As I subscribe to The In-Running Trading Tool I can see at a glance horses that prefer to lead races and provide a good opportunity to make small but regular profits win or lose. This, however is not foolproof, and just because it ran well and the traders backed it down to odds on in-running the last two runs doesn’t mean it will do the same this time. There are many factors that will and do change how a horse will run a race such as going, distance, a jockey change or even a stable change. This latter factor may not be as prevalent as the late great Dick Francis portrays in his most excellent novels but it does happen. Once I have a couple of good prospects for the day I can then switch over to the Timeform website and check any pace hints that they provide for the race and if the horse is mentioned I then go to the sporting Life website where I can usually watch the horses previous races to get a feel for how it ran. Having satisfied myself that I can risk a bet I will then look at the exchange – usually betfair – and look at the price changes via the provided chart to determine whether the odds are steadily drifting out or static or starting to come in and try and judge the best time to place a small bet. Once the bet is on then I continue to monitor the odds to note any changes. Once the bet is on I will then place a lay bet at the closest “cross-over” point (Exchange cross-over points are points in the exchange range of odds where the range of odds change and betfair describe them as follows)
“There are points in the Betfair odds system that we call “crossover points”. These are around odds such as 4.0 where the tick below is 3.95 (0.05 away) and the tick above is 4.1 (0.10 away). It often makes sense to lay at odds of 4.0 as your risk is lower than your reward over the short-term.
Because of this, you often see the market pause at price changes. Support and resistance can become imbalanced too, as lots of people are keen place their lay bets. You might also see the market spike downwards if it breaks through a crossover point, as all of the layers scurry to close out of their positions.”
I place this below the backed odds and ensure that I change the Lay from “cancel” at in-play to “keep” This will ensure that my bet lay bet will still be available once the race is off. If the back to lay trade is successful after the race has finished or in some cases before the race is actually at post time then the horse can be added to the “Follow” spreadsheet. To make things easy and to get an alert when the horse is next running I also add it to my Timeform Tracker list which I have set up to send me a “push” notification the evening before the race as well as an email.
The information that is available for your chosen horses is vast so choosing what Information to record can be overwhelming however Excel is a truly outstanding piece of software which can be utilised for as much or as little as you think is relevant. I have provided a workbook for anyone to download and use. It is populated with 1 horse (Best Trition) and a template sheet for you. The front page is an index page which is handy for you to summarise and quickly access the runners record as well as
Having done all this I can now wait patiently for emails to arrive and determine the probability of a successful back to lay bet without trawling through reams of information which might sway me into a bad decision. When you have established your “Stable” and have grown some confidence in your selections you can start to determine how far your lay bet you are willing to make away from your back bet. To help you in this I have also provided a “tick-drop” calculator. This simple spreadsheet will enable you to instantly work out the odds needed for a 10, 20 or 30 tick drop from the actual back odds taken.
Yesterdays Front runners with their BSP and in play low and the number of ticks dropped
Wetherby
11:50
Top and Drop
5.5
1.01
184
Leopardstown
12:05
Doctor Brown Bear
17.38
8.2
23
Chepstow
13:05
Paint The Dream
8.16
4.8
22
Wetherby
14:15
Cornerstone lad
19.35
7
33
Chepstow
14:50
Hold That Taught
11
5.1
31
Leopardstown
14:55
Coko Beach
17
6.6
31
Kempton
15:10
Morning Vicar
14
14.5
-1
Chepstow
15:25
Getaround
6.8
6.6
1
Kempton
15:40
The Widdow Maker
12.37
3.5
54
Wolverhampton
16:40
Aasser
1.71
1.01
70
Wolverhampton
17:40
Winklevi
4.7
1.01
176
Wolverhampton
18:40
Eponina
N.R.
N.R.
N/A
Yesterdays Front Runners
With the exception of Morning Vicar in the 15:10 at Kempton they all traded in-play lower than their BSP. All but 2 (Morning Vicar and Getaround) traded at least 20 ticks below BSP.
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.
Click pic to enlarge in a new window
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
Click pic to enlarge in a new window
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.
Barnsley v Swansea 15 minute goal
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
Betornot 