Get On The Attack

We would all like to place a bet on the exchanges during football matches when one of the participating teams has been awarded a penalty or one of the players has just been sent off. But the time delay that is built into the Betfair system forbids anyone with super fast feed being able to do it. But that does not necessarily mean that we cannot take advantage of teams that are threatening to score.

Football is a vastly different sport to bet on with regard to betting exchanges than other sports. With many of the other sports like Cricket, Golf and Tennis for example, the eventual outcome is decided by hundreds perhaps thousands of individual smaller events that slowly come together to form what is the overall result.

If Michael Vaughan smashes the opening delivery of a test match to the boundary then that is hardly an indication that England are going to romp to victory. Likewise, if Roger Federer loses his opening service game in the first set of the first round of a grand slam then that is not an indication of an upset. These are examples of sports that have a large number of smaller events that contribute to make the outcome.

But football is not like that, only a very small number of key events contribute to the outcome of a football game. So just what can we actually call a key event in a football match? Well the obvious example is a goal and the statistics show that there are not that many of them in top class professional football these days. So what other events in a football match can be classed as key.

Penalties and red cards certainly, the majority of penalties are scored and a player being sent off will effect the result of the match in most instances or it  will effect the flow of the match at the very least. Instances like yellow cards or an injury have much less of an effect and will hardly be reflected in the price. Unless of course it is an injury to a key player like the goalkeeper for instance or the team captain.

Free kicks in non essential areas and an alteration in team tactics effect the game but not dramatically so in terms of immediate price shifts. In reality then what we are actually looking for here is an event in a football match that MAY have a dramatic effect on the outcome and thus the price but hasn’t happened yet. If that event has already happened then the knowledge is useless because two things have already took place. Firstly the Betfair delay system will prohibit you from getting anywhere near having a bet matched and secondly the entire world have just witnessed the same thing as you anyway.

There are many professional traders who work on the betting exchanges and on the stock exchanges who earn vast amounts of money by predicting an events likely occurrence and not by reacting it. If you react to it then you are probably already too late in all probability. The betting exchanges and the stock exchanges are after all, both financial markets.

What I am referring to when I say predicting an event is when a team is attacking. It may seem blatantly obvious but a team must attack and get into their opponents half for them to score. On the exchanges, you cannot sit back and wait before the crucial event that will have a dramatic effect on the price has already happened.

For example lets say that Chelsea are playing Charlton Athletic at Stamford Bridge in a premier league match. Chelsea are 1.40 on Betfair to back just prior to the event starting. After 10 minutes Chelsea’s price has risen slightly to 1.46 due to the fact that they have not scored during that time. Suddenly Chelsea go on the attack and Claude Makelele puts a ball through to Joe Cole out on the right. Back Chelsea at that stage at the 1.46.

The attack is highly likely to fail as most attacks do because as we all know, defences dominate in modern football. But the point of the strategy is that even if the attack does fail, the price for Chelsea to win the game in a few seconds time will hardly have moved at all and you will be able to lay them back at almost exactly the same price if not THE same price for no loss whatsoever.

But IF Chelsea find the net or are awarded a free kick on the edge of the box or a penalty then your bet will have been justified. Chelsea will already start at massive odds on at home to a side like Charlton anyway and this will be reflected even more when they go 1-0 up.

Imagine for a minute what price Chelsea will have moved out to with about ten minutes left to win the game and the score is still goalless. Chelsea’s price by this stage may be as high as 4.0 or even higher but their price should they score with so little time remaining would plummet to probably in the region of about 1.2 maybe even shorter. This can lead to an immensely profitable situation.

I used this strategy with success on the exchanges and the best thing about it is that it is not dependant on you seeing pictures that are in front of everybody else although it would certainly help if you could. What you end up with are an awful lot of bets that cancel each other out or bets that end with a slight loss but these are more than wiped out when the event that you are trying to pre-empt does in fact happen.

The strategy works better by sticking to the better teams when you do this. After all, they will have more possession, more corners, more attacks, better players and are likely to experience one of these important key events that you are looking for.