We take our football trading very seriously and that is the main reason why we make vast profits from trading it. We often hear about novice traders trying to trade football matches simply by looking at the in-play coupon on their laptop, picking a match and trading it whilst eating a curry, drinking a beer and catching up on Eastenders! That might be a slight exaggeration but if you are going to make good money at this trading game then you can’t be casual about it.
Research…
You might think that trading on a football match starts as soon as kick off and so you would be surprised to hear that we actually being our trading two or even three days in advance. Every week we look ahead to the main TV Fixtures and other matches of interest and also keep track of the prices from when the markets open.
We will look ahead at team news or anything else which might be relevant and we will normally open an early position on the Match Odds market if we feel the price is wrong. We will then let this trade run until the night before where we close that trade before opening a new position on the morning of the match. This new position is something we like to call a Paper Chaser trade where we jump on a new trend which normally develops on the morning of match day.
Prepare….
When we are trading a football match we make sure we are fully prepared. This author prefers to trade in solitary so I will retreat to my study and fire up my two computers to trade the matches. On one computer I will keep Betfair open along with some trading software whilst the other computer is loaded with statistics and spreadsheets but is mainly used as a back up in case my main computer freezes or crashes. Depending on the time of the match I will normally bring a nice cup of Tea with me or if it’s an evening kick off I will just have a glass of water. Before I trade I will make sure I have a nice meal so I don’t get hungry during the match and miss anything of importance. It is easy to lose your focus when you haven’t eaten or you are feeling dehydrated.
Another important part of preparing is making note of any particular strategies that we feel may be applicable in the match we are trading. After all the research we will start watching the match with a certain expectation of how it will develop and potential strategies we can employ if this happens. If the match starts to take an unexpected route then we just won’t get involved or might reassess the situation at half time.
Action!
Once the match begins I like to make sure I am watching it but I will also have other matches that I am not watching but will fancy trading. For these matches, I like to get hold of a stream to keep an eye on the action. I sometimes load up Betfair Live Video or even Bet 365 has quite a lot of action. If it’s a Premier League match then these are harder to come by but its never too hard to find a stream for those matches but I cant state where or how for obvious reasons!
During the match it’s important to keep focus on the task at hand. This author will turn his phone off, and close all Facebook/Twitter tabs on the laptop to make sure I am not interrupted. I used to trade and have Twitter open at the same time to see what other traders were doing but that proved to be too much of a distraction for me. It can be handy for some but I have enough confidence in my own decision making ability and I like to be in my “zone” when trading football.
So that’s how a professional approaches trading football on Betfair. If you aren’t making consistent profits from football trading then you should examine your approach and see if you are cutting corners somewhere as you more then likely are!
