New blog post by Martin Futter! Betfair Trading - The Holy Trinity - Part 1 Pre Match Research
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Betfair traders often search for the 'magic formula' of sports trading. Ryan and myself often respond to this by mentioning that there is no 'secret sauce' that when applied to Betfair trading will yield magical results. The truth is that professional Betfair trading requires dedication, hard work and extreme discipline.
However, that being said, if there was something that was close to the perfect formula this series of posts is it. There are three key metrics that must be considered when trading sports (I will use football as my reference point but there are plenty of overlaps into all sports) on Betfair and they are:
1. Thorough pre-match research
2. Applying inplay data to reinforce a trade
3. Using motivation and situational advantages
The one thing I want Betfair traders to take away from this series of posts is this: ALL THREE TOPICS ARE NEEDED FOR SUCCESS!
I cannot stress this enough, today's post is on one of these subjects by the key is to combine them.
Imagine them if you will as 'an edge on the market' each one a potentially different edge. That is three potential edges on one market. If you only use one of these topics and not all three you are only getting the benefit of one 'edge'. However, if you use all three your trade will be much stronger and likely to yield a profit.
Today, I am going to talk about:
Thorough Pre-Match Research -
Why is pre-match research so important when trading on Betfair?
I think if you asked most pro traders they would single out pre-match research as the most important ritual of a trader's daily routine. I would personally find it hard to take any trader seriously who did not do sufficient pre-match research. The reason being that the single biggest trend you have for future performance is to check past performance. This is a fact although some try to argue otherwise! Every profession in the world uses this kind of statistical analysis to try and predict what is going to happen and Betfair trading is not exempt from this.
Pre-match research is the foundation of any trade, if we can narrow down the number of selections each day to find the best available through research, then why in the world would we not do it?
This is where https://betfairtradingcommunity.com/en comes in! We created software for you so that you can narrow down your list of selections and apply your filters automatically each day. Your selections are handed to you on a plate! So not only do you save hundreds of hours in time a year, you also can use the time saved to further analyse your shortlist of selections and truly find the day's best matches to trade.
Even if you don't want to create your own football strategy or filter in our software we already have proven ones in there for you to use. You can even edit those if you wish! They are all here: https://betfairtradingcommunity.com/en/statistics?advagg=0
So, what do I do once I have my shortlist from the software?
This is where steps two and three begin to come in play. Remember, I do not act on the shortlist alone, I want the inplay data during the game and the situation of the match to also be strongly in my favour before I enter a trade. For me, one of these things is not good without the other. In the next post I will discuss applying the inplay trading data to boost the success rates of our trading.
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Thanks ill take a look
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@martin-walker if you click edit filter on the late goal/ltd one you will see what I use for selections. I then look at factors such as teams motivation to win and whether it is too close to the start or end of a season. i also try to factor in the weather if there are extreme weather conditions!
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I should probably of just asked ages ago in the private coaching haha
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I only trade one strategy, second half goals. Id be interested to see how the pros would research this. I have my ways now but sometimes its hard to rule games out as im not sure where to draw the line on some stats. For instance keiths filter that was average 3 goals per game, i now factor that stat in. I think i heard ryan say he likes the average h2 goals to be 1.6 and above.
Im now looking into scored/conceded, a lot of teams score 70% in h2 but i have no idea if i should be looking for higher than this.
Just a few thoughts id been having and it would be brilliant if a pro would explain their thought process on it. Thanks -
@martin-walker I do talk about it a lot on here, what specifically do you want to know? i'm happy to explain the process
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I think it would be good to delve into what people actually do for pre match research. We always say how important it is but im unsure what people actually look for. Would be interesting to see what exact research the pros do
