Risk Free Football

Theory – Trade an In-Running football game with zero risk to make a profit.
Principle – The aim of these two methods is to make several back and lay bets throughout a football game as you are watching it to ensure that you never have any risk attached to your current exposure. This is done by never having exposure on the team that is currently attacking.
Method One:
After the game has started and the In-Running market has resumed normal liquidity (usually takes about 90 seconds), while the score is still 0-0, lay the underdog (so long as the odds are not higher than 11.00) while they are not in possession of the ball.
As soon as you have placed your lay bet, you should prepare the betslip with a Back bet on the same team, to the same stake and the exact same odds. As you are watching the game, if the underdog puts an attack together that could result in a goal, you simply back them. The obvious trend of a game is for the odds on both teams to gradually increase and the draw odds to gradually decrease before a goal is scored, so you will never find yourself backing at lower odds than you have originally layed.
You may wonder why you enter the exact same odds and not higher odds if higher odds are available. This is simply to ensure that your full bet is matched because Betfair automatically gives you the best odds on offer. You just enter the same odds as a safety net, but you should get higher odds for at least most of your bet.
So what next? Well, if the underdog fails to score, you will have a small profit on the underdog with zero risk on the other two outcomes. You just need to hedge this profit to create the same profit regardless of the result. I.e. if you have layed the underdog for Ł1,000 at odds of 7.00, then backed them at 7.40, you will have a profit of Ł400 (less commission) on the underdog. If you then lay them again at 7.40 with a Ł54 stake, you will show a profit of Ł54.40 on the underdog and a profit of Ł54 on the draw and the favourite. You can use a ‘bot’ to calculate this for you with a hedging button (explained later.) You then place your Ł1,000 lay bet again but at the new odds of around 7.40.
If the underdog do happen to score during the attack, you will still show a Ł400 profit on them, but their odds will have decreased significantly when the market is reformed meaning that you can create a higher profit margin. If the odds were 7.40 when you backed them as they were attacking, the likely odds on the new market will be around 2.80. You simply hedge again with a Ł143 lay bet at 2.80 to show a profit of Ł142.60 on the underdog and a profit of Ł143 on the draw and original favourite. You stop the first method after a goal is scored and move onto method two (explained below.)
This method is a way to make small gains as the match progresses and the underdog look like creating chances; however the ideal situation is for the favourite to score first. In this scenario, you will have an untouched lay bet on the underdog at odds of 7.00.
You will now have a profit of Ł1,000 on the draw and favourite, but the odds on the underdog will have drifted out to around 30.00. You simply make a hedging back bet on the underdog to guarantee a high profit. If you back the underdog with Ł233.33 at odds of 30.00, you will guarantee a profit of Ł739.74 on the underdog, and Ł739.84 on the favourite and the draw.
Method Two:
Once a goal has been scored (hopefully by the favourite) and you have guaranteed yourself a profit regardless of the match outcome, you can either just stop trading there if you only want to spend a small amount of time on each game, however you can carry on with method two to make an even higher profit on each game!
In method one, we made a profit when the match was goalless by laying the underdog as we knew that the natural progression of the game would see their odds rise (until a goal is scored), however now that a team is winning, the natural progression will be for the odds on that team to decrease until either another goal is scored, or they have won the match.
With our starting stake returned and profit guaranteed, you can then back the team that is in the lead with the entire starting bankroll (Ł6,000 if layed Ł1,000 at 7.00 to begin with), plus the locked in profit on the draw and other team.
For example, if the favourite scored first, we have a guaranteed profit of Ł739.74, so you can back the favourite with a stake of Ł6,739.74. You then need to prepare the betslip with a lay on the favourite to the same stake and the same odds (the odds will be decreasing as the game goes on, however if you offer the same odds, your lay will be taken at the lowest odds available.) As the game goes on, only click the lay bet if the other team looks like scoring an equaliser. As before in method one, you simply hedge after each back and lay to create a level profit across all three outcomes.
Important Information and Get-Out Times:
Matches to trade – ONLY trade matches that are domestic to your country. I.e. if you live in Britain, only trade English/Scottish football games. The reason for this is that pictures are quite badly delayed if they come from a different country. Terrestrial television is the quickest, closely followed by satellite from your own country.
Method One – You should stop trading when the underdog's odds drift higher than 11.00, because the exposure will be too high and the profit margin too low. You can still have a position open if you layed under 11.00 and the odds have drifted above 11.00, however once you trade out, you should accept the profit you have and wait for a goal to be scored to move onto Method Two.
Method Two – Once the team in the lead’s odds come down as low as 1.12 you should stop trading and hedge your profit to give the same profit regardless of the outcome. This is simply because the profit margin is too low.
Equaliser – If you have traded with method one, moved onto method two, but an equaliser is scored, simply wait for the market to reform, hedge your profit, then revert back to Method One (providing that the underdog’s odds are no higher than 11.00.)
Alternative Trading Options:
The idea behind laying the underdog to begin with is that statistically speaking, the favourite usually scores first and you will make a higher profit when the opposite team that you have layed scores first. Having said that, there is nothing to stop you from laying the favourite if you don’t think that they will score first (this means that you will have lower liabilities also as the odds will be lower, but you will probably be more active throughout the game by trading out every time they create a chance.)
A common pattern that I use is to lay the underdog to begin with, back the favourite if they score, then either stop if they score a second goal, or if there’s an equaliser and the odds on the underdog are above 11.00, I’ll lay the favourite instead at lower odds. The more trades you can make in a game, the more profit you will make.
Another method you can use is to simply lay one of the teams when you think the opposite team is about to score – if they fail to score, simply trade out. You probably won’t make any profit on the small trades due to the back and lay bet being so close together, but as soon as you catch a goal with this method you will make a significant amount.
Betting Bots: You can manually place all the bets mentioned above; however with In-Running football there is a 5 second delay to place your bets. If you use a bot, the bets are entered straight into Betfair’s API, which cuts the In-Running delay on football down to just One second. You can also use preset buttons to enter the stake and odds that you require to place the bets with one click, rather than having to click submit then confirm. The best feature though that makes it worthwhile, is a “hedging button”, meaning that after you’ve closed each trade, instead of having to work out the amount to back or lay to give an equal profit, you can simply click the “hedging button” which will do this for you automatically. I would highly recommend using a bot as it makes the whole experience of trading football games an easier and smoother process.

1 comment:

  1. The problem here is that a underdogs odds will not rise quickly, since it is already rather high. It will only rise in the very end of the match, 15 min and onwards. This means that if they get 5 dangerous attacks before this time, which you have backed in case of a goal, you would have lost your whole profit should the game end 0-0 or a win for the favorite due to the difference in lay and back odds.

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