When is the most profitable time to trade?

One of the key things you must learn to make money trading football on the exchanges is to minimise the risk and maximise the profit. It sounds obvious but how do you do it?

One way is to work out when the most profitable periods of the game is for certain markets and it's important to study past game scenarios to understand when these occur.

I've taken the English Premiership game that occurred just over a week ago as an example between Swansea and Wigan. The game was evenly priced and not one that I would normally get involve in, particularly early on. The home win price at kick-off was 2.06 with prices of 3.6 and 4.3 for the draw and away win respectively.

Championship select

I don't fancy much in the Premiership today and have my eye on a few games for tomorrow in the Norwegian Eliteserien.  However today I'm going to be looking to lay the draw in 3 games in the Championship.

1. Brighton v Peterborough
2. Middlesborough v Coventry
3. Millwall v Barnsley

I will keep an eye on how the other games progress and depending how they go look to trade some of the under's markets.

Another busy week

Another busy week at work so not much chance to add the updates.

Slow progress this week with a big single loss of £40 which hampered the progress that should've been made but finished with an increase of £19.87.

I over traded again on Monday and when I should've called it a day with a £20.50 profit with my planned trades I decided to continue with some additional matches and ended up around £20 down.

Anyway here are the trades and I hope to have a good weekend and break the £400 barrier:

Market	Profit/loss
Soccer / Barcelona v Porto : Match Odds	5.66
Soccer / Bochum v G Furth : Match Odds	9.50
Soccer / Bolton v Macclesfield : Over/Under 3.5 Goals	-2.30
Soccer / Bolton v Macclesfield : Match Odds	-1.51
Soccer / Bristol City v Swindon : Match Odds	1.71
Soccer / Plzen v FC Copenhagen : Match Odds	0.00
Soccer / Benfica v Twente : Match Odds	6.91
Soccer / Udinese v Arsenal : Over/Under 2.5 goals	0.00
Soccer / Northampton v Wolves : Match Odds	19.00
Soccer / Olhanense v Setubal : Match Odds	-40.00
Soccer / Man Utd v Tottenham : Over/Under 2.5 goals	0.00
Soccer / Olhanense v Setubal : Over/Under 2.5 goals	0.00
Soccer / St Pauli v Duisburg : Match Odds	0.00
Soccer / Molde v Lillestrom : Match Odds	6.65
Soccer / IFK Goteborg v Gefle : Match Odds	14.25
Total	19.87

Sunday Update

I been busy this week so haven't traded on a few days, missed a couple of lays which I wanted to get on Saturday but family commitments prevented me from doing so. I managed a few successful trades over the weekend though so managing to get the balance up a little. Here's to a successful week ahead.

Trades for today for a profit of £24.22

Market	Profit/loss
Soccer / Sao Paulo v Palmeiras : Over/Under 2.5 goals	1.14
Soccer / Marseille v St Etienne : Match Odds	4.75
Soccer / Sao Paulo v Palmeiras : Match Odds	1.15
Soccer / Hannover v H Berlin : Match Odds	0
Soccer / Bolton v Man City : Match Odds	8.06
Soccer / Kilmarnock v Hearts : Match Odds	2.1
Soccer / Middlesbrough v Birmingham : Over/Under 2.5 goals	1.33
Soccer / Motherwell v Rangers : Over/Under 3.5 Goals	1.9
Soccer / Wolves v Fulham : Over/Under 3.5 Goals	3.79

Man City v Swansea

Back to winning ways laying the draw in tonight's Man City game. After yesterday's losses I didn't want to risk too much so layed £15 at 4.4 for a liability of £51. It took them a while to settle down but Man City were all over Swansea after the first 10 minutes, hitting the cross bar twice. The 1st half ended 0-0 but after the way they played during the 1st half I decided to leave the bet active as I was certain a goal would come. And come they did, with 3 goals within 13 minutes. Sergio Aguero looked awesome and they'll be some expectation from him after tonight's 2nd half showing.

So a profit of £15 less commission and I left it there. A little nearer to the £400 mark than I was after yesterday :)

Too cocky

With the warm feeling of success on Saturday still present, I made the fatal mistake of over trading yesterday and a made a loss of some £40.
It all seemed too easy, some success on the Man Utd game which I did remotely while having a couple of pints with a mate, only to get home and trade the evening games with disastrous results.

Some great text book games this weekend which I will analyse shortly and these will provide some good templates for trading going forward.

I'll post these in a few days and try to stop over trading in the meantime!

Start of the Premiership

Decided not to go to the Leicester game and after listening to the match on BBC Leicester was glad I didn't.

Traded a number of the matches kicking off at 3 today, predominantly from the Over/Under markets but also from the Match Odds market too.  A current profit of £23.77

I did some additional trading on some later games to win some more for a daily profit of £35.35.

Here's a list of the trades I was involved in.

Market	Profit/loss (GBP)
Soccer / PSV v Waalwijk : Over/Under 2.5 goals	1.8
Soccer / Lyon v Ajaccio : Over/Under 2.5 goals	1.9
Soccer / St Etienne v Nancy : Match Odds	0
Soccer / Toulouse v Dijon : Over/Under 2.5 goals	2.09
Soccer / Newcastle v Arsenal : Match Odds	4.65
Soccer / Sion v Luzern : Match Odds	1.14
Soccer / Watford v Derby : Over/Under 2.5 goals	2.05
Soccer / Leeds v Middlesbrough : Match Odds	2.09
Soccer / Birmingham v Coventry : Over/Under 2.5 goals	1.9
Soccer / Liverpool v Sunderland : Over/Under 3.5 Goals	4.27
Soccer / Wigan v Norwich : Over/Under 3.5 Goals	1.99
Soccer / Millwall v Nottm Forest : Over/Under 2.5 goals	1.82
Soccer / Leicester v Reading : Match Odds	5.66
Soccer / Wigan v Norwich : Match Odds	1.71
Soccer / Fulham v Aston Villa : Match Odds	2.28

Friday 12th August

Not much action today but may see how a couple of games pan out in the Croatian and German leagues and steal a few ticks.

Everything gearing up for the start of the premiership tomorrow :)

Should I go to the Leicester v Reading game tomorrow or stay at home and trade?

Match Analysis - Coventry v Leicester 06 Aug 2011

I'm intending to do some post match analysis on a regular basis to build up a knowledge base of how events in a match have an affect on the price.

Unless you understand this,  it's not possible to trade as effectively as possible.

The 3 dots indicate match events; the first 2 are the red cards for Leicester and Coventry respectively, the third is Leicester's goal.The box indicates the half-time period.
You will see from the first red card that it had the effect of bringing the price of the draw in quicker than usual.  As is normal with the draw price, it reduces steadily until a goal is scored and if no further events occur it drifts out until the end of the game.

Sheff Wed v Blackpool

Not much action tonight other than this Carling cup game. In the last 10 meetings between these 2 there has only been 1 draw. Current odds are around 3.7-3.8 to lay the draw. Both teams have had winning starts to their respective league campaigns.

The plan is to lay the draw after 15 minutes once the odds have dropped and trade out when a goal is scored.

Trades 10 Aug 2011

A profit of £17.62 tonight.  This might not seem like a lot but equates to over £100 / week.

Although friendly games aren't the best ones to get involved in they do present some opportunities and it's just a matter of picking the right time to get involved whilst minimizing your exposure to your liability.

I had one losing trade which could have been a £20 one but I managed to trade the position down to a negative £5.76.

The final 2 games; Bosnia v Greece and France v Chile were the best executed trades with very little risk.I should try and adopt this approach more often and as my bank grows, for larger stakes too :)

Market	Profit/loss (GBP)
Football / Bosnia v Greece : Match Odds	1.94
Football / France v Chile : Match Odds	1.98
Football / Scotland v Denmark : Match Odds	0.1
Football / Italy v Spain : Match Odds	-5.76
Football / Rep of Ireland v Croatia : Match Odds	2.94
Football / Oxford Utd v Cardiff : Over/Under 3.5 Goals	2.48
Football / Oxford Utd v Cardiff : Match Odds	1.99
Football / Belarus v Bulgaria : Over/Under 2.5 goals	2.28
Football / Belarus v Bulgaria : Match Odds	1.33
Football / Latvia v Finland : Over/Under 2.5 goals	0.94
Football / Latvia v Finland : Match Odds	0.37
Football / Russia v Serbia : Over/Under 2.5 goals	2.57
Football / Russia v Serbia : Match Odds	1.47
Football / Kazakhstan v Syria : Over/Under 2.5 goals	0.97
Football / Kazakhstan v Syria : Match Odds	2.02

Update

I have identified 3 trading techniques that seem to be working quiet well and have managed to triple my original starting bank. This has taken slightly longer than anticipated and I'm still making some mistakes along the way; primarily linked to greed.

As yet I haven't posted any of my trades but will endeavor to do so going forward. I'm hoping this process will make me stick to my trading plan.