Introduction

As I explained in the 'Betting v Trading' lesson you gain so many advantages by trading.

Even if you only wait 15 minutes before opening your trades, you'll be able to make sure that there's plenty of action and you'll get better prices too.

Not only that, but if a goal is scored soon after you get in then you'll often be able to secure a profit right away and forget about the rest of the game.

I understand why some prefer set-and-forget betting, but personally I would never want to give up all the benefits of trading and make things harder than they need to be.

Live Value Calculator Filters

I ran through the Live Value Calculator filters previously in the 'Research Tools' course.

I'm just going to touch on a few again that will make your life much easier when searching for value trading opportunities.

During the winter league season (and especially at weekends) you may choose to stick with European A and European B leagues. They have the best liquidity which means you're able to get in and out of the markets. It's a very quick way to shorten a long list of qualifiers.

During midweek or international breaks you can add European C to search more leagues.

Many European Summer, Americas and Africa/Asia/Middle East leagues run during the calendar year, rather than the August to May that we're used to with the major European leagues.

Using the "Select Leagues" filter on the Live Value Calculator.

You can hide games in leagues that are at the start or the end of their season. There are often surprise results at these times of the season, though if you're looking at goals trades it may not matter.

It does make sense to hide fixtures with missing calculations.

Using the "Show/Hide by Status" filter on the Live Value Calculator.

If you're trading at certain times during the day, use the 'Show/Hide by Kick-Off Time' filter to quickly shorten the fixture list.

Using the "Show/Hide by Kick-Off Time" filter on the Live Value Calculator.

Remember if you use this filter, otherwise the fixture list will be shortened the next day too!

Building a Shortlist

Every fixture that has a tick in the 1, 3, and 10 year row has perceived value. You can add them all to My Games and leave it at that.

If you prefer, you can ignore games that have particularly high or low Betfair prices.

For example, you may be comfortable backing 'Home' at 2.60 in the Argentinian game below but not as high as 5.20 in Paraguay. That's a personal choice that you'll discover over time.

Fixtures with 3 green ticks in the "Home" column.

Deciding When to Enter a Trade

Once you have your shortlist for the day, you're just waiting for opportunities to enter the right trades at the right times and at the right prices.

If you're a Goal Profits member, you can load your shortlist into the Live Stats Module and that will track all the stats and prices for you, send you Telegram alerts and much more.

If you're not a Goal Profits member, you can use something like Flashscore. It's not built for traders so it has very limited features, but it's free.

There are many ways to trade and each trader will have their own preferred entry/exit points. I'm going to show you how I trade in the next few lessons, but first I'll show you what I check for.

My checklist is...

Ticks
Liquidity
Stats
Price

If you want a mnemonic to help you remember it, try 'Total Losers Skip [the] Process'.

1. Ticks

In the 'Live Value Calculator' lesson I explained how prices often move before kick-off as money comes into the market. This is a very quick check to make sure that you're still looking at a value trade.

Simply refresh the 'Live Value Calculator' after kick-off and confirm that your proposed trade still has 3 green ticks.

It's also a good opportunity to see if any other fixtures now qualify and can be added to your shortlist.

2. Liquidity

In order to trade, you need liquidity so that you can get in and out at correct prices. In other words, you need an active market in-play with other traders backing and laying.

If there's not an active market, there will be gaps between the back and lay prices. This means you will have to wait longer to get in at the price you want or accept a lower price and more risk.

Then, after a goal is scored, you will have to wait longer for the market to settle. Gaps between back and lay prices in this scenario means you'll often end up with less profit than you should.

More risk for less reward is not a good combination!

For example, this 'Both teams to Score?' market in Saudi Arabia has £568 matched with 11 minutes played and you can see some gaps between the prices.

You'd probably be able to get in and out with £10 stakes but it would be risky to try £100 stakes.

An example of a BTTS market showing gaps between back and lay prices.

Over time, you will get a feel for the amount of money you need to see matched in each market to suit your particular staking level.

A few things to know...

Match Odds and Over 2.5 Goals markets tend to have the best liquidity and they're often the most active in-play. This will change as the game progresses and goals are scored (or not).
Liquidity in first half markets can often be challenging, especially when looking at smaller leagues and at peak times (e.g. 3pm on a Saturday afternoon).
European A leagues have active in-play markets almost all the time but European C leagues are often not tradeable when there's competition for liquidity from bigger leagues, especially when there's a busy fixture list.

In summary, you can be confident when trading the most popular markets in the biggest leagues but be careful when looking at less popular markets in smaller leagues, especially at peak times.

3. Stats

This is a very important check. You have a potential value trade in a market with good liquidity, now you need to determine whether a goal may be imminent.

Unfortunately, there's no magic formula.

A goal could be scored with the first shot of the game, or there may be plenty of action throughout the game and neither team manages to hit the back of the net. That's football!

The best that anybody can do is pick out the games with plenty of attacking action and avoid the games that are quiet. We will all get some right and some wrong, but long-term we'll be ahead.

If you're a Goal Profits member, the Live Stats Module is going to make this decision a breeze. Our 'Live Stats Guideline (LSG)' tracks in-play stats and highlights the games that have action.

If you're not a Goal Profits member, you can use Flashscore. It has stats for each game (though not on one page like the LSM) and it's a case of determining which games have enough action to give you confidence in a trade.

You can look at shots, corners, dangerous attacks and even xG to make your decision.

Ideally, you want to see both teams attacking. One team attacking an opponent that's playing all-out defence is not ideal, even if you want that team to score for a home or away win trade.

This is especially true in the first half when no team ever has to score.

A more open game with both teams managing some shots at goal is the scenario that you want to target and in-play stats will point you in the right direction.

Remember, nobody can tell the future. If you're trading with value and picking out games that have teams actively trying to score goals, that's the best that you can ever do.

4. Price

3 green ticks means that there's perceived value, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind in terms of price.

Firstly, make sure that you always back above 2.0 and lay below 2.0. This ensures that your potential profit is always more than your potential loss.

Secondly, the longer you wait, the better your risk/reward. For example, laying at 1.50 rather than 1.80 means less risk for the same potential reward.

You will be well rewarded when you show patience. Yes, you will miss some trades when goals go in too early but you will also miss some losses at bigger prices than they could have been.

I'll discuss price a bit more in the following lessons.

In Summary

The checks for 'Ticks', 'Liquidity' and 'Price' are very simple and become habit in no time.

It's judging the 'Stats' that requires a bit of practice. With experience, you will soon get the hang of it though and the Live Stats Module at Goal Profits gives you a massive advantage.

Over the next half a dozen lessons, I'll explain how I trade various qualifiers. I'll start with the easiest trades first and go from there.

Introduction to Value Trading

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