Lay The Draw Method
Perhaps the most common, oversold, but important method for trading football on Betfair is the Lay The Draw method.
This is a proven method which, if used wisely, brings home the green time and time again.
In the 2009-10 season, the Premier League saw 94 drawn matches out of 380 games. That's a draw strike rate of 25%. In other words, if you layed the draw in every single Premier League game of the 2009-10 season, you'd have won three-quarters of the time.
Unfortunately it's not as simple as that. The reason? Betfair odds vary.
For example, as I write this, Arsenal are due to play West Ham at the Emirates. The odds? Arsenal are 1.19, clear favourites to win. West Ham are 21, and because of the perceived gulf between the two sides, the draw is 8.4 to back, 8.6 to lay.
Now if you lay £10 at 8.6, you risk £76 to win £10! It's a lot of risk for little gain and for the Lay The Draw method you would avoid any game with draw odds over 5.
This is a proven method which, if used wisely, brings home the green time and time again.
In the 2009-10 season, the Premier League saw 94 drawn matches out of 380 games. That's a draw strike rate of 25%. In other words, if you layed the draw in every single Premier League game of the 2009-10 season, you'd have won three-quarters of the time.
Unfortunately it's not as simple as that. The reason? Betfair odds vary.
For example, as I write this, Arsenal are due to play West Ham at the Emirates. The odds? Arsenal are 1.19, clear favourites to win. West Ham are 21, and because of the perceived gulf between the two sides, the draw is 8.4 to back, 8.6 to lay.
Now if you lay £10 at 8.6, you risk £76 to win £10! It's a lot of risk for little gain and for the Lay The Draw method you would avoid any game with draw odds over 5.
Another thing to watch out for is teams which are prone to draws! For example, Wigan Athletic drew 7 of their 19 home games! Birmingham drew 9 of their 19 away games!
Obviously if you used this method on Birmingham away games in the 2009-10 Premier League season, you'd have been staring at a huge red in no time.
So on the flip side, there are teams which don't seem to draw very many at all. For example, in the same 2009-10 season, Chelsea drew just one home game, and that was 3-3 at home to Everton.
The rest ended in results one way or the other, which would result in a win . However,the beauty of trading is that you can cut your losses in play if you're not sure of the result.
Taking the Chelsea v Everton game as an example, the game was 2-2 at half time, with both sides creating chances. This should start the alarm bells ringing in any trader who is laying the draw.
In this situation, you should get out at half time for a small loss, or look to “take the green”, or trade out for a profit, as soon as the next goal went in.
In this case, Chelsea once again took the lead through a 59th minute Drogba goal, which would have given you four minutes to get out with a profit before Saha equalised in the 63rd.
The best piece of advice I can give about laying the draw is to use your head and if in doubt, get out! If you're not sure, then it's best to take the small loss and get out than losing a huge amount of bank. One of the biggest pieces of trading advice I can give you is make sure you live to fight another day.
You mustn't be afraid to cut your losses and trade out for a red screen. Unfortunately it happens sometimes. You're a great trader and should be happy if you make sure you get more green screens than red screens over the course of a season.
There's a great ebook on the psychology of trading available for download on my products page. I can't recommend it enough and one of your biggest weapons will be knowing when to take the loss and get out of a trade.
Lets get back to the Lay The Draw method with an example.
The Champions Legaue game between AC Milan and Real Madrid should be an open attacking game and the Lay The Draw Method could be perfect here as the draw odds are fairly low. Even though the game is in Milan, Madrid should be strong enough to win and a win will all but secure top spot in the group so both teams will play to win here.
Obviously if you used this method on Birmingham away games in the 2009-10 Premier League season, you'd have been staring at a huge red in no time.
So on the flip side, there are teams which don't seem to draw very many at all. For example, in the same 2009-10 season, Chelsea drew just one home game, and that was 3-3 at home to Everton.
The rest ended in results one way or the other, which would result in a win . However,the beauty of trading is that you can cut your losses in play if you're not sure of the result.
Taking the Chelsea v Everton game as an example, the game was 2-2 at half time, with both sides creating chances. This should start the alarm bells ringing in any trader who is laying the draw.
In this situation, you should get out at half time for a small loss, or look to “take the green”, or trade out for a profit, as soon as the next goal went in.
In this case, Chelsea once again took the lead through a 59th minute Drogba goal, which would have given you four minutes to get out with a profit before Saha equalised in the 63rd.
The best piece of advice I can give about laying the draw is to use your head and if in doubt, get out! If you're not sure, then it's best to take the small loss and get out than losing a huge amount of bank. One of the biggest pieces of trading advice I can give you is make sure you live to fight another day.
You mustn't be afraid to cut your losses and trade out for a red screen. Unfortunately it happens sometimes. You're a great trader and should be happy if you make sure you get more green screens than red screens over the course of a season.
There's a great ebook on the psychology of trading available for download on my products page. I can't recommend it enough and one of your biggest weapons will be knowing when to take the loss and get out of a trade.
Lets get back to the Lay The Draw method with an example.
The Champions Legaue game between AC Milan and Real Madrid should be an open attacking game and the Lay The Draw Method could be perfect here as the draw odds are fairly low. Even though the game is in Milan, Madrid should be strong enough to win and a win will all but secure top spot in the group so both teams will play to win here.
