New blog post by Martin Futter! Football Trading on the Betfair Exchange - Substitutions Can Matter!

BTC

At BTC we have noticed the effect of sunstitutes on a game, read why it happens and how to handle it when football trading!

Wow another international break has finished and my god it felt like a long one. The good news? No more interational breaks for nearly four months!

I was glad to see Wales qualify being a country I lived in for a year when I met my then girlfriend, now wife. I actually like to see all the home nations do well when they aren't playing England, I guess I find it more interesting collecting the Panini stickers of teams who I know a lot of their players rather than some of the obscure players from Eastern Europe! On the subject of Panini stickers, I told myself I wouldn't waste any money on them this year but as my son will be approaching four years old come the summer, I'm pretty sure I will cave and use it as an excuse to buy them! Maybe I should start saving now.....

Probably time to talk football trading!

The big topic of this week is how substitutions can effect a football match -

This may sound a little obvious but I think all inplay traders need to take this into account. There are three outcomes of the effect of a substitution:

The match becomes less open and a more defensive affair due to the fresh legs tightening things up in midfield and at the back.
The match becomes more open and more attacking as the fresh legs are able to run at the back line and cut through the midfields.
The match stays the same, the change of player makes

Option number one is a big problem if you are looking for a late goal. Many times I have opened a back trade on a late goal only for a substitution to totally kill the open nature of said match. As a result I have either had a loss or been wise enough to get out of the trade for a minute loss. On the flip side if you are backing unders this is a good spot to open a trade.

Option number two is a big plus if you are looking for a late goal. The game has opened up and it can be a great time to open a late goal trade. Conversely if you have backed unders it is time to get out of that trade!

Option number three is a real non issue, if this happens we can treat our trade the same way that we were before the substitution.

So in conclusion, watch the impact of substitions of the game's 'flow', if it changes you will need to review your trade.

Reducing the impact of Variance -

One really easy way to limit the impact of variance in football trading to keep track of the inplay stats and ensure that the stats are consistenly going the way you would like them to. So if I want a goal, I would like to see a few shots on goal every 10 minutes or so to make sure the game is open and attacking, staying that way for a decent period of time. For example, I am currently testing a late goals strategy in our statistics software and I find that when I combine the pre-match stats with the inplay ones and both point to a late goal, then I have a very high level of success! At the time of writing it is winning 81% of the time, which given the odds you can get on a late goal (average odds are 1.65 and often close to evens) means a very good profit.

So let’s get onto our football trading filters -

If you are a member of BTC you would have been receiving my lay the draw at half-time strategy selections via the daily email. I have now tested it for three months and the results are here to see: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UQYxOh-mUHfAm9OByLhzX0ooiQQUqYshfnDJLWRYHUY/edit?usp=sharing

83% of the trades won! Even if you let the trade run after a goal it won 68% of the time! I am very pleased with this. Given that the average odds are around 2.8 to lay the draw at half time you would be looking at a very good profit on these.

Here is a video of the filter:

As our members know we are always looking to improve our service here at BTC and continue to make you money!

So I thought I would update you on a couple of things: We are working on editing the member's filter we share with you all and making sure we have the best ones shared, we also want to add them to the strategy section with explanation videos and the day's selections hosted all together.

As you know, we are always developing new strategies and systems for football trading, so that we can continue to be the best education service for those traders looking to make a living full-time football trading on the Betfair Exchange.

That’s all for this week so look out for another post next week!