Tag: Online Betting

Betting Exchanges

The innovation of the betting exchange gave the gambling industry it’s biggest shake up for years. The betting exchanges totally transformed the online betting landscape and forced the conventional online bookmakers to awaken from their complacency, as they realised that us mug punters no longer needed to continue hand feeding them our hard earned cash.

I now rely on a betting exchange for all of my football trading and some of my football betting. In my opinion, they are brilliant for online betting, and my football trading couldn’t operate without them.

I actually have accounts with two betting exchanges, Betfair and Betdaq. There is a good reason for this, I use my Betfair account for my serious football trading, and I use my Betdaq account for my speculative, bit of fun bets.

Betfair currently charge commission at a rate of 5%, while Betdaq charge only 3%. The reason why I use Betfair and their 5%, is because they have more markets and far more liquidity, and for the markets I currently trade in, I need plenty of liquidity.

The 3% commission from Betdaq is great though, and as a result I am happy to use them for my speculative bets. The big games is where I have an opinion (that is usually wrong), and there is generally just about enough liquidity to get my ‘mug punter’ small bets matched in running on these games.

Unfortunately though, there is just not enough liquidity with Betdaq in the markets for my Over/Under 2.5 goals pre match trades, and Assured Soccer Profits, so I have to lump the 5% commission and stick with Betfair to trade these markets.

If you do prefer football trading to football betting, then a betting exchange account is a must. This is highlighted by the fact that Assured Soccer Profits and the Pre Match Trading, have both built and sell their trading products based on Betfair usage.

A betting exchange account is also needed for matched betting. With how matched betting works, without a betting exchange account it would be virtually impossible to implement this system.

While I’m on the subject of matched betting, Betfair offer a £20.00 free bet if your first bet loses, while Betdaq offer a £30.00 free bet if your first bet loses.

Cashing out these sort of free bets using the matched betting method is a bit of a pain in the backside. So an alternative to this is to open accounts with both, find an event with two ‘runners’ and back one with Betfair and one with Betdaq.

To qualify for the Betdaq free bet, your first bet has to be placed at odds of 2.00 (Even money) or greater. So basically find a bet at over 2.00 on Betdaq and put £30.00 on it. Try and find an event with odds of around 2.1 for this.

Then have £30.00 on the other runner with Betfair with odds of around 1.9 and have £33.00 on it. This way whoever wins, you will get back just over £61.00, and it will have cost you £63.00 to place the two bets.

But you will now have either a £30.00 free bet, or a £20.00 free bet, which you can now guarantee a profit with using the matched betting method.

Pre Match Trading – Week 8 Results

Week 8 Results

17th October Poland v England / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Won £4.75
20th October Tottenham v Chelsea / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Lost £1.39
20th October Liverpool v Reading / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Won £1.04
20th October Norwich v Arsenal / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Won 85p
20th October Palmeiras v Cruzeiro / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Won 15p
21th October QPR v Everton / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Won 80p
21st October Osasuna v Betis / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Won £1.92

Profit of £8.12.

Total Pre Match Trading Profits to date – £44.94. Betting bank now stands at £144.94, started off the experiment with £100.00 betting bank.

On the whole I would take that as a decent weeks pre match trading profits. But there was a couple of mitigating circumstances. First, the Poland V England. Trading this game was a fairly easy trade and in hindsight I could (and should) have made far more that I did. Second, I made a bit of a cock up on the Tottenham V Chelsea game.

In fact, the Tottenham game absolutely infuriated me. About 20 minutes from kick off, I was just over £2.50 green on both sides of the trade. I sat there and looked at the market in the knowledge that it was a bit spooked by the (just announced) absence of Gareth Bale.

This had resulted in Over 2.5 goals drifting out two or three ticks, so I thought that was probably as far as it would go and backed it – in the belief that the market had maybe over reacted to Bale’s absence, and would subsequently correct itself.

No, the market continued to drift, I sat there continuing to watch it in the belief it would soon turn back, and guess what? It didn’t. The match was about to kick off, so I traded out for a loss of £1.39.

I was at least happy with my discipline in trading out for a loss pre kick off. I said in last week’s round up that I needed to start to close my position pre match. This enables me to have true pre match trading records.

Back to the Spurs game, and at that moment I made my mind up there and then that from now on I am going to move on to the next match as soon as I manage to green up a trade. I’ve have since had a slight rethink about this though.

It did infuriate me though, hence my reaction to start to believe that once I was green I move on. I followed this procedure for the next few games I traded.

That was until my last trade of the weekend in the match between Osasuna and Betis on Sunday evening. I greened up and then watched the market for a while. It suddenly dawned on me that 1.99 on Unders and 2.02 on Overs was just continually getting matched.

All in all I went in 4 times over trading £100.00. There was less than a grand at a time on both markets and the money just kept turning over.

So looking back I believe it is just a judgement call about when to pull out of trade and finish with it.

In hindsight, maybe I should have left the Spurs game alone when the news came out about Gareth Bale not playing. But I imagine there will come a game some time soon in which I make a couple of extra quid on the back of a spooked market from some team news. It really is a hard one to call.

Football Online

Learning where and how to follow football online is almost paramount if you want to be a successful at football betting or football trading.

There is no end of useful football online resources at your disposal. For a start you can check stats from previous matches, you can get team news from all over the world, you can get opinions and views from people watching games you haven’t access to, you can even get live updates from people actually at games you might be betting on.

Certain online bookmakers these days streams matches live, I’d say it is probably worth having accounts with some online bookmakers or betting exchanges just to be able to watch live football.

Twitter is another useful online resource. Similar to forums, you can discuss bets with other football traders. You can pick up helpful snippets of information from seasoned football watchers as too how a team has been performing lately.

You can also pick up team news fairly quickly on Twitter. This can be especially useful if like me, you like to bet using the pre match trading method. With using pre match trading, getting the team news fast and early can enable you to make a nice profit from the massive price swings you can get depending on the make up of a team, or the system that a team is playing, or if a top scorer is out.

Checking match statistics on the numerous football stats websites out there is also helpful and strongly recommended. For example, you can find out which teams score more goals in what period of a match, first 20 minutes, 2nd half etc.

If you fancy having a bet in running on a match, online football resources can be handy if the match you are planning on betting on has no live TV pictures. Again using Twitter you can communicate with people who may be at the game, or someone who has a live stream to the match.

You can also pull up live stats to see how a game is developing. If a game is 0-0 and you are considering laying the draw, you could pull up some live stats to see if there has been a lot of attempts on goal, or corners, etc. Or if one side is dominating possession, or a team has a lot of players on yellow cards – meaning a potential red card is a strong possibility, so you wouldn’t back them to win.

Ok, so it isn’t an exact science, but what is in football betting, or betting of any sort for that matter? What I do believe though, is that using online football websites is a helpful tool that could save or earn you money in the long run. So therefore it is something worth learning about.

Over £36 made from Coral free bet

Earlier this year I started to look into ways of generating money from free bets from online bookmakers using the matched betting method. At the time I wasn’t really updating this blog, but I was writing one elsewhere and I have kept records of what happened and how much money I made.

I’ve just been revisiting those postings and here is what happened when I cashed in a £30 free bet from Coral last March.

I actually opened the Coral account via the cash back site, Top Cash Back, as they were offering a £20.00 cash back for opening an account and placing a bet (I’ve just checked and it is currently £12.62 to do the same at the moment).

I placed my qualifying bet with Coral (I needed to do this to entitle me to the free bet) on a 50 Over Cricket match, as it was a 50 Over game, it was only a two horse race. This made matching up the trade much easier and allowed me to just back the other team on Betfair for a scratch trade.

I then placed the £30.00 Free Bet on Anzhi in the Russian league at 6/5 (with Coral), which would have won £36.00. After I had placed the free bet I then placed my lay bet of Anzhi on Betfair, leaving me with just under £20.00 red on Anzhi and £16.90 green (£16.05 after commission) on an opposition win and the draw.

This guaranteed me a return of around £16.00 risk free no matter what happened. Had Anzhi won, I would have picked up £36.00 from Coral, and lost £20.00 on Betfair, giving me £16.00.

Had Anzhi not won, I would have lost nothing with Coral as it was a free bet, but I would have picked up £16.05 from Betfair for my lay. It was a no lose situation.

That meant I got a return of just over 50% profit on the free bet, which is a general rule of thumb I try to hit.

The added bonus in this transaction came in the form of the cash back. It took a few weeks to come through, but when it did arrive at the start of May, I got another £20.20 from Top Cash Back site.

So in the end I made £36.25 just for opening an account and placing a qualifying, and then a free bet.

Of the Anzhi match, the game actually finished 0-0 which resulted in the Betfair side (the lay) of the trade winning (£16.05). I would always rather have the money end up in the Betfair or Betdaq account rather than the online bookmaker account.

The more often you lose with the bookies, the better the customer you are in their eyes. This should result in the bookmaker wanting your custom, meaning in some cases they might offer you more free bets to entice you to use them more.

When/if they do, I will just do what I’ve done with this trade – and use them for a nice profit instead, rather than the other way around.

Pre Match Trading – Week 7 Results

Pre Match Trading Results

12th October Wales v Scotland / Over/Under 2.5 Goals – Won 61p

Overall Pre Match Trading Profits – £36.82

A very quiet week with the pre match trading due to the fact it was an international week. I did look at, and toy with the idea of trading some obscure matches during the week, but due to low liquidity and me not knowing a thing about them, I decided not to bother.

I suppose when I’m more confident at reading markets I may well dabble into the unknown games, but for the time being I think I’m going to stick with what I (think I) know.

The one game I did trade – Wales V Scotland – I made a bit of a mess of in the end, despite a moderate profit.

It all started off ok, I managed to get matched and greened up with my first bet for 61p on both sides of the trade almost immediately. I then went back into the market, but after I got my back of Under 2.5 goals matched the price started to drift out.

I thought it was a temporary drift and that the price would come in again meaning I could trade out, but it didn’t. And I ended up having to let the game run for about 90 seconds before I could scratch the second trade, leaving me with just my original green (61p) from my first pre match trade.

I was very annoyed with myself to be honest. I know that I’ve written this before, but letting matches kick off before I trade out is distorting my records really. My records are correct with regard to trading football, but not with regard to pre match trading (if I’m going to be pedantic).

Also, I can’t be doing this if I’m trading with five hundred pounds or a thousand pounds, etc. I’m really going to have to start to close my position out before kick off from now on, whether green or red.

Basically the problem was with the second trade, and along with this match, it’s been an issue I’ve had for some time now.

When the price drifted out on the second trade, I waited thinking it would come back in again. I’ve noticed in the past in these situations that sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t.

This is where the problem lies.

I believe I had two options when this happened. The first was to sit tight, wait and hope (expect) the price will come back in, that the market will realign itself (in other words, it’s a temporary blip).

Or the second option is to trade out there and then for a small loss and start the process again. In this situation I would be expecting the price to stay hovering around the mark I traded out at, and then start the process again from there, trying to lose my red.

The conundrum is, if I take the second option and trade out straight away, and then the price goes back to where I was originally trading it (option 1), I will be very annoyed, as I will have traded out for a loss when if I had waited I would be green.

I’m not sure which is the best way to go here, I suppose experience will tell in the long run. The only other option I can think off is – after securing the original green – to just move onto the next match as soon as I have greened up. Decisions!

Premier League Winner Betting

Manchester United went back top of the league with an easy 4-0 win over Hull City. United have been slightly cut in the online betting, and are now a best price of 11/4. Chelsea are still 5/6 favourites with most online bookmakers.

Remarkably I haven’t heard Alex Ferguson moaning about anything yet. Oh yeah I forgot, they won.

The main problem I would have with backing United though, is their over dependence on Wayne Rooney. If he where to get injured its hard to see where the majority of United’s goals would come from.

Up front Dimitar Berbatov has looked far from convincing, while Michael Owen has had limited chances, but when given one has failed to take it.

Paul Scholes looks on his last legs and hasn’t chipped in with his usual quota of midfield goals, leaving Carrick, Fletcher and Anderson to try and fill the void. Which they can’t do.

Ryan Giggs no longer plays out wide leaving Nani, Park and Valencia to provide the width, it’s hard to see where any creativity is going to come from with these three.

Leaving just Rooney, who it has to be said has excelled in the absence of Ronaldo and Tevez. Who knows how good he might have been by now had Ferguson not continually played him out wide in negative rolls during his early years at the club, wasting his talent and setting his development back years in my view.

Both Arsenal and Chelsea are both to play (on Wednesday) before United’s next game, meaning that Alex Ferguson’s team could be back down to third before they next kick a ball.

Adding to that United’s next game, a week on Sunday (31st Jan) is against Arsenal at Emirates Stadium, meaning the next eight days could go a long way to deciding the outcome of the league title.

Premier League Winner Football Betting

Chelsea are 5/6 with Bet365
Manchester United are 11/4 with Paddy Power
Arsenal are 10/3 with Coral (a £50 Coral Free Bet is available to new customers)
Manchester City are 33/1 with BetVictor

Using the free bets provided by online bookmakers could be a good way to place season long bets such as league title winners. Using this (Matched Betting) method ensures you don’t clog up your betting bank for months on end, leaving it free to be used for football trading.

Arsenal V Tottenham – Match Betting

Arsenal take on North London rivals Spurs today at Emirates Stadium live on Sky Sports 1 in the dinner time kick off (12.45).

The corresponding fixture ended 4-4 last season and came a matter of days after Redknapp took the job, it is the perfect opportunity to see just how far Spurs have come under Redknapp’s leadership as in all honesty Arsenal were by far the better side last year and should have beat Spurs convincingly.

In the above mentioned game Spurs were helped by an early wonder goal (although I would call it a goalkeeping error) by David Bentley who has hardly been seen since and hung in there and at the end took advantage of a calamitous final 10 minutes to claim an unlikely draw.

This year should be different, the squad is now mainly a Harry Redknapp one and is there to be judged on its performance. Robbie Keane certainly rates it as he has already stated that the Spurs bench is stronger than the Arsenal bench, a remark I would imagine has been taken out of context and remixed by journalists, never the less not a wise one and it would already have done a large amount of Wenger’s team talk for him.

It could be said though that the Spurs squad isn’t as strong as the Arsenal one is, Luka Modric is still out with a long term injury and Harry Redknapp hasn’t been able to replace him. In Arsenal’s case if their main ball player – Cesc Fabregas – was out they have youngsters Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere waiting in the wings to step in.

The loss of Modric has and will continue to be felt by Tottenham and last weeks match with Stoke is a perfect example were they dominated proceedings but couldn’t find that bit of craft or guile to open Stoke and surely the floodgates up.

In today’s game David Bentley looks set to come back into replace the injured Aaron Lennon after Harry Redknapp stated he has impressed in training lately and looks to have got his head down. Jermain Defoe is still suspended so Peter Crouch will continue up front in his absence.

For Arsenal goalkeeper Vito Mannone is set to be replaced by Manuel Almunia who has now fully recovered from a chest infection, Theo Walcott, Denilson and Tomas Rosicky are still out injured but Samir Nasri is available again but more than likely will only figure on the bench.

Onto the football betting and online bookmakers have Arsenal at a best price of 4/7 with Totesport, Stan James and Ladbrokes.

Tottenham are 11/2 with Bet365 and the draw is 3/1 with Paddy Power (a £50 Paddy Power Free Bet is available to customers opening new accounts).

A bet I like is both teams to score at 3/5 with Betfair. There are free bets available that can be used on this match, matched betting or for betting on football online. All that you need to do is open new accounts with online bookmakers.

Rangers cash crisis

Rangers are the latest team to emerge with a major cash crisis this week with something in the region of £25-£3o million owing. The majority would appear to be owed to Lloyds banking group although it is still unclear what the breakdown of the debt is.

The club and bank have both denied that there is a chance the Ger’s could go into administration,  but if I where a fan I wouldn’t be convinced or reassured by their respective comments. 

The club are  looking for new backers to come in and ‘invest’ some funds to enable them to get the bank off their backs. In short they haven’t got the money and need someone with bags of money to waste to bail them out.

Sir David Murray looks to have stopped putting money in and he has now stepped down as chairman.

There appears to be mixed views among the Rangers fans about Murray though, it looks like most acknowledge his commitment to the club over the 20 years that he has been involved. But there appears to be an undercurrent of disenchanted supporters who view him as the problem to Rangers debts.  

Murray may not be the chairman any more but he is still the 90% owner of Rangers shares and his reluctance to put his hand in his pocket to help out with the debts when he was the man who resided over accumilating them seems to be irritating some Ibrox fans.

With a representative of the Lloyds banking group now on the Rangers board it is debatable as to who is really running the club. After no new (permanent) signings during the summer transfer window it looks like the only transfer activity during January will be players leaving the club.

Manager Walter Smith would appear to have had enough as well if his comments over the weekend are to be taken seriously. When his contract runs out in January if Lloyds are running the club will they want to offer him a new one? Even if they do offer him a contract and his squad has been decimated would he want to sign it anyway?

Rangers are also struggling on the pitch and the fans were far from happy with last weeks 4-1 home thrashing in the Champions League to unknown FC Unirea Urziceni. With Celtic also struggling under new boss Tony Mowbray the chance is there for Rangers to successfully defend their SPL title this year, it would appear to depend on what happens over the next couple of months and during the January transfer window though.

Onto the football betting, and with online bookmakers, Rangers are 7/4 with BetVictor to win this years SPL, while Celtic are favourites and can be backed at 8/13 with Stan James (a £10 Stan James Free Bet is available to new customers).

Hibernian are outsiders at 100/1 with Paddy Power and Bet365.