End of Season Betfair Football Trading
It's that time of the year when as traders we have to make some adjustments to our general trading to keep earning that precious living!
As the main European leagues come to an end there is a clear decision that traders like us must make. They are:
- Carry on trading the football as usual with some adjustments to compensate
- Totally avoid these leagues coming to an end
I would not blame anyone for taking option 2 here, after all there are other leagues or sports to trade during the summer. South America, Scandinavia and Asian leagues are getting into their strides at this time of year. Tennis, cricket and flat racing is really getting into the thick of the action too. If this is the option you take then fair play!
But this blog post would not be a very interesting read if we all take that route, we want to discuss how to make the adjustments necessary to trade these end of season games and make sure we profit as usual.
Once a league gets to 5 games each left or less we have a checklist to use to see if a match is worth trading. We want the answers to these questions to be a resounding YES!
- Does the match mean anything in the grand scheme of things? Promotion, title or relegation implications?
- Are both sides motivated to win?
- Can we get live pictures?
If the answer to these is yes then these matches are still tradable in our opinion. Let's see why this is so important!
1. Does the match mean anything in the grand scheme of things? Promotion, title or relegation implications?
If the match does not have any meaning to the teams you will find that many players will be on their holidays, in this case form goes right out of the window and most professional traders will steer well clear. Remember the 5-5 draw between West Brom and Man Utd on the last day of the season the year Fergie retired? This is the perfect example of how unpredictable these games can become.
2. Are both sides motivated to win?
For us it us not enough for one side to be motivated as what tends to happen is that their odds are shorter than normal anyway. The market takes into consideration the motivations of both teams and therefore the motivated team is rarely a fair price. An example of this: Man United are 1.45 to beat Arsenal this weekend, if Arsenal were not in the Europa League and had something to play for Man Utd odds would be closer to 2.0 if not above.
3. Can we get live pictures?
Just as important is the live pictures. Seeing the teams and how motivated they look early can be the difference between a winning trade and a losing one. This is true all season long but is a fact amplified even more at the end of the season. Juventus v Napoli at the weekend was the perfect example of this. It was clear from the outset that Juve were playing not to lose and Napoli were allowed to dominate in Turin. If this was early season there is no way Juve would not go for the win.
So three simple rules to help perfect your end of season trading. Don't bet on the dead rubbers!