SPREAD BETTING HINTS
Football Spread Betting Hints
With live matches on TV around four times a week through the season, it is understandable why football, in percentage terms, is the fastest growing sport in gambling. Once upon a time you could only bet on the home team, away team, draw, first goal scorer and correct score. Now, thanks to spread betting, the discerning punter can literally bet on hundreds of markets on a football match.
This was born from the advent of sports spread betting in the early 1990’s, when Sporting Index introduced a vast array of spread bets on a live football match. The fact that people could watch the prices changing during the game and open and close bets “in running” was an attractive proposition and changed the face of betting on football for ever.
One bet that stands out amongst a host of winning and losing wagers on football, is the client who decided that Sporting Index’s forecast on the ‘Shirt Numbers’ of the goal scorers in a European game involving Newcastle, was too low. After 20 minutes there was no score, and the ‘Shirt Numbers’ total had plummeted down to between 26 to 29. He came on and placed a wager by buying (going high) at £3000 a point at 29.
Five minutes later Alan Shearer wearing shirt number 9 scored twice and then to put the icing on the cake, Hugo Viana wearing shirt no 45 scored his first goal for the club. With further goals from Shearer and one for the opposition the total added up to 82 and the punter won £247,000.
Was the punter lucky or did he see value? Here are some things to consider when thinking about spread betting on football:
Football is a funny old game
There will always be a percentage of surprise results during a season, but it does no harm to check statistics between both teams. It is surprising how many teams have the ‘evil eye’ on some of their opponents and sometimes this is a sequence that keeps going.
Research and then more research
After perusing through the spread bets on offer, always check the probable line ups from both teams, what record the referee has with brandishing cards and what the weather will be like come kick-off time. For example, heavy pitches and windy weather can equalise the skill levels between teams.
Control your risk
Take care to control your risk and always calculate how much your worst scenario could be if your judgement turns out to be completely wrong. There is nothing worse than going high (buying) the time of the 1st match goal in a game at around 40 minutes and then seeing someone score after 90 seconds. It does happen!
Try and stay in touch with the match you are betting on, and monitor the changing spreads on the game as it goes along.
Novelty Football bets
With most football spread betting markets, there is a mathematical figure that can be produced for all bets such as the number of goals in a match, corners, times of the first goals and even player goal minutes. With most novelty wagers it is a different matter. How can a market maker or trader know how many times a celebrity is going to be caught on camera, who is going to sing their National Anthem or how many times a goalkeeper will punch a ball. This gives people the chance to have widely different views to the prices set.
"Let me Entertain You"
90% of people who sit down to watch a football match want to be entertained. They want plenty of goals, referees continually reaching into their back pockets, plenty of shots on target and loads of corners. Don't always bet with your heart as games are not always the exciting “goal fest” we hope for.
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Horse Racing Spread Betting Hints
Spread betting on horse racing offers the strongly opinionated punter a real chance to back his racing judgement. The ‘Racing Menu’ includes backing or opposing favourites, betting on the aggregate ‘Winning Distances’ at a race meeting, and backing or opposing individual horses in races.
The person who bets on horse racing in spreads, loves to believe he has an edge on the trader. It could be that he has heard that the favourite has been working badly, the ground is softer than officially given, or a jockey is riding with flu. That’s the romance of racing, believing you have inside information, and thereby an advantage over the bookmaker.
It doesn’t always have to be like that. Just common sense can prevail and give you a return by not just following the crowd. In 2002 the Irish equine hero Istabraq was seeking a fourth Champion Hurdle triumph, but all had not gone well with his preparation. Niggling problems and getting soundly beaten in his prep races, strongly suggested he may not be at his best.
Nevertheless the Irish punters backed him as if defeat was out of the question, despite bookmakers standing up and taking them on. Sporting Index made Istabraq 27 to 30pts on the Champion Hurdle ‘Race Index’. This is where the winner gets 50pts, the runner-up 25pts and the 3rd 10pts. If there was ever a time to oppose the favourite this was it.
For people who opposed Istabraq and sold (went low) at 27pts they never had a moments anxiety. The favourite blundered at the first hurdle and was pulled up before the second. Connections had taken a chance, but had “gone to the well” once too often. For those who took the opinion the favourite was the wrong price, they were rewarded with a 26 times their stake profit.
One spread betting market that gives punters a real chance to back their opinions is a ‘Match Bet’. This is a head to head contest between two horses and it doesn’t matter where they finish in a race. It only relates to their relative positions to each other in lengths, where ever they finish, even last and second last.
There will normally be a favourite and the spread is structured around the superiority (or expected margin of victory in lengths). Very occasionally a contest will be too close to call, and the spread bookmaker will quote ‘your choice’ which allows you to choose your favourite out of the two horses. This gives the opinionated punter a chance to delve into the past history of the two horses. One likes soft ground, the other is trying the trip for the first time. Will the pace be strong, who has the best draw? All these pointers are put into the melting pot and if one horse ticks all the right boxes, here is the opportunity to place a ‘Match Bet’. Remember, the maximum make-up for flat races is 12 lengths and for National Hunt racing 15 lengths.
So if you are thinking of having a horse racing bet, look at the form of the horse, the form of the stable, the form of the trainer, the weather and the draw. These are just a few key things to consider in helping shape your view on the outcome.
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Cricket Spread Betting Hints
Contrary to what you may think, market-makers do make mistakes from time to time. In 1999 the cricket trading team produced the biggest market-making “cock-up” in sports spread betting history.
In the May of 1999 Sporting Index had just unveiled over 100 special markets on the Cricket World Cup; which was less than a week away. The cricket trading team had worked back-breaking hours pricing up an incredible number of markets, but were blissfully unaware of the fact that they were about to serve up the biggest “rick” in the spread betting history. The market in question was a prediction on the total number of wides bowled in the 42 game tournament and was pitched at 245-265.
Now, the traders hadn’t just plucked any old price from out the sky. There had been hours of research on the number of wides bowled in previous tournaments including 1996 (India and Pakistan), 1992 (Australia and New Zealand), 1987 (India and Pakistan), 1983 (England), 1979 (England) and 1975 (England). The feeling was that there were going to be fewer wides than usual in what was now an age of disciplined bowling. It was genuinely felt that the make-up was more likely to be in the 100s than in the 300s and that an average of around six wides a match was spot on. The traders had not however factored the impact of the new white ball in English conditions.
The phones were red hot within hours of the prices being released and cricket spread betting enthusiasts were knocking each other over to buy at 265 and then 270 as word of the pricing error spread. In fact, the price had moved up 100 points inside the first 20 minutes of trading and was close to the 500 mark before a ball had been bowled. It was now public knowledge that the bowlers were going to have extreme difficulty controlling the swing generated by the white ball in English conditions and our prediction was miles out. The entire trading floor realized the firm had made an expensive mistake well before 21 wides were bowled in England’s opening encounter with Sri Lanka. The next day saw another 55 wides bowled in 2 matches and the price continued to spiral out of control. Eventually, when the 979th and final wide was bowled in the final, Sporting Index had lost a shade over £1/2 million on what was essentially a novelty market.
Spread betting market-makers do not always get it right. The tale of the World Cup wides is just the most memorable of a number of misjudgements. It’s often far too easy to forget the fact that you are just taking on other humans and challenging their opinions. If you do your research, you’ve got every chance of beating these guys at their own game. Here are some suggestions that might help your cricket betting…
Wait on the weather
It sounds obvious, but so many punters dive in on player performances or individual batsman test runs before they’ve seen the weather. It really is suicide to bet on markets like these the day before without knowing the conditions. Wait till 40 minutes or so before 1st ball before placing a cricket spread bet.
Don’t spread bet for the sake of it
Don’t have a spread bet for the sake of having a bet; those bets often turn out to be the most expensive! Before you trade, make sure you are confident that you’re doing the right thing.
Don't be afraid to close
It’s very tempting to close a trade that’s going well early for a profit and leave one running that’s going badly in the hope that things will get better.
Don't bet without research
Strauss should get more than 250 runs in the series? We’ve all been there before and dived in without doing any proper research. There are so many statistics available online that you can do as much research as any market-maker and in some cases more.
Make your own prices before trading
Do your research first and then make your own prices afterwards. Only then should you look at what the price is and see whether you and they have genuine differences of opinion. It’s often too tempting to do it in reverse and end up clouding your own original view.
Be aware of the new ball
There is always a danger of being sucked in to buy a batsman or his team runs in a test match when he is knocking it all over the shop. Just be aware of when that new ball is due, it might just be a few overs away and can change the whole match.
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Golf Spread Betting Hints
One golfers final round back nine collapse saw him slump from outright second to sixth and sadly for his fixed-odds supporters, out of the betting money. The majority of firms were only offering place terms that stretched to fifth, so £10 each-way at 66/1 returned nothing when, with nine holes remaining, had looked certain to pay at least £175 (the each way return – quarter of 66/1 = 16.5/1).
The annoying thing for him is that he had picked a golfer to play well from a field of 160 and received no reward when ultimately his opinion was right. Thousands of punters, just like him, choose to back golfers each week in huge fields. Yes, from time to time they’ll get lucky and scoop a win, but in reality they’ll miss out. Betting on Tour events each week is like backing a horse in a field of 160!
An alternative betting option is to have a spread bet on a golfers finishing position rather than have a fixed-odds bet. A finishing position spread bet really is quite straight forward to understand. Sporting Index makes a prediction on where a golfer will finish in a tournament and it is for you to decide whether that prediction is pitched too high or too low. What you then win or lose depends on what stake size you choose to bet with and ultimately how right or wrong you are.
Here’s how it works in practice. Sporting Index predicted that “Golfer X” would finish between 35th and 38th in a recent Major. If you’d fancied him to play well you’d have bet lower than 35th (also known as a ‘sell’), but if you thought he’d flop, you’d have bet higher than 38th (also known as a ‘buy’). The gap in between the finishing position prediction is known as the ‘spread’ and is the bookmaker’s margin.
So, if you bet on him to finish better than 35th by selling; you’d have made 29 times whatever stake size you chose because “Golfer X” finished 6th. Obviously, let’s not forget that if you’d backed him to do badly by buying his finishing position at 38th, you’d have lost 32 times your stake. When you place a finishing position bet, make sure you check what the maximum make-up is. Some will say that the cut off point for the bet is 50th while others may have it at the cut mark of around 70th.
There is certainly no getting away from the fact that a spread bet on a golfer’s finishing position will revolutionise the way you bet on golf. Once you’ve given it a go, you’ll never go back to fixed-odds.
Section 8: Football Spread Betting
