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Success on a Foreign Field
If you want to trade on the exchanges in the football markets then knowledge can go an awful long way just like it can with any market. But the best knowledge of all is knowledge that few others possess. Knowing that a certain key team member is unfit to play for instance would fall into the category of valuable information or perhaps the tactics or formation that a team may be using for a particular match could prove more than useful to the punter.
For example, lets say that AC Milan are due to play Sparta Prague in their final Champions League group match in Prague. The Italian outfit have won all their five previous matches and proudly sit at the top of the table with fifteen points and having secured qualification through to the knockout stages as guaranteed group winners.
What will be Milan’s outlook in this final game, do they need to risk injuries and possible suspensions in what is essentially a meaningless match to them. But a win for Prague would give them the third spot in the group and a UEFA cup place so they definitely have something to play for. Will the Italians be looking to end with a flourish and look to make it six out of six but they do have an important Serie A match coming up this weekend against their city rivals Inter.
Will they rest players and play a second eleven? Questions, questions and more questions and wouldn’t it be great to know the answers to these ahead of everyone else. But short of actually being on the inside and having connections with the Italian side then there is no way that we can possibly get to know such things…. or is there?
Well that is not entirely true, exchanges like Betfair for instance have football markets now on teams and competitions all over the world. They regularly have markets on US football for instance although the liquidity is obviously not very great in those areas. This is where knowledge of certain team affairs and tactics can pay dividends if you take the time to look. Take a match like Columbus vs New England for instance in the US league, this is precisely where knowledge of team affairs can give you an edge.
Around seventy five per cent of Betfair customers are British based on the latest figures that are available. This means that it may be perfectly possible to get an edge in a certain market where the event is being played abroad and is not receiving a great deal of attention over here in our press. Football is a global game and it is for this reason that the football World Cup is the greatest single sporting event on the planet.
But we tend to be a very insular lot in the British Isles and we don’t show an awful lot of interest in football matches in other countries unless they happen to be in the major European competitions or the major European leagues like Serie A or La Liga for example. Our premier league is watched by millions or people worldwide and is actually more popular in certain countries than their own respective leagues.
That cannot be said in reverse and is a major factor as to why we overate our own league. Football matches on the other side of the world or just a few hundred miles away for that matter would have very little interest over here and it is in this area where the alert punter can uncover tremendous value. There are many football related websites out there with all the latest information on nearly all of these “obscure” matches.
Taking the time and the effort to find that Columbus have had a virus hit the team in the past twenty four hours and that their equally matched opponents should now be very clear favourites is something that can be achieved just by looking in the right places.
The point to all this is that if you were attempting to use this information to place bets with American betting firms then you would be wasting your time. They would have access to this data long before you and the prices would have been adjusted to compensate for the loss of many of the regular players to the Columbus side.
But betting firms around the globe and the betting exchanges may not be so quick to receive this information and they may not even be bothered with it at all if their is little interest in this market. In this situation, what you are actually trying to do is to take advantage of the unprepared punter. The type who doesn’t bother doing their homework and bothers even less about obtaining up to date information on the event in question.
Bookmakers in England and the betting exchanges can sometimes be slow to adjust the prices for events that have little interest abroad. Bookies tend to protect themselves from savvy clued up punters who specialise in obscure markets by limiting the size of the action that they are willing to take and then adjusting the prices when they receive any sign of interest.
Punters on the exchanges however have no such safety net. They don’t have a clue about value or have any idea what a price should be and it is these people that can be targeted on sites like Betfair. The bookies themselves were even vulnerable to up to date team information affecting football matches with regards to fixed odds football coupons. The odds for these matches were priced up several days in advance and the coupons were printed at the beginning of the week and not altered.
Just another example of the up to date clued up punter being able to get an edge by obtaining information from whatever source and using it to their advantage. Do this and you will make money on the exchanges by taking advantage of those who don’t.
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