Don't Overreact

I suppose this entry has some relation to my Red Is Bread post the other day. The reason I say this is because there's something else red that can be good news for us traders, and that's a red card given in a match.

Today was a perfect example of this in the Crawley v Stoke match. The first fifteen minutes proved to be a typical giants v minnows match, where Crawley started off with all the over-eagerness of a lower league team, and Stoke couldn't really find their feet within the unfamiliar territory of a crappy ground. Despite the fact that Crouch nearly scored an own goal, I couldn't really see Crawley winning this match - although at that point I didn't really do anything about it.

Then Delap got sent-off (perhaps a little harshly) and Crawley's odds dropped dramatically. It's here we should remember that, although Cup upsets do happen, this was a mid-table Premier League side against a League Two team. In my opinion, the red card should not have caused Crawley's odds to move from 3.5 down to the low 2s. That was just a silly and massive over-reaction. Opportunity knocks.

So as soon as the game was unsuspended, I immediately started trading the match odds by laying Crawley and backing them as their odds started moving back up.

I would have been happy to settle for this kind of trade, but for some reason the sending-off seemed to galvanize Stoke and they started playing much better. This helped because it meant Crawley's odds started drifting a little more quickly. I was then a bit lucky as Stoke were awarded a penalty when I had an open position.

After the goal, I fleetingly thought about trading-out, but that would have been foolish. Creepy-Crawley now needed two goals for my open position to lose (which is the beauty of a lay position), so I decided to just leave the bet running until the end. Happy days for a smallish stake trade.

Absolutely cracking day today (Gromit) on the three televised F.A. Cup matches which, along with some other matches, meant a successful days trading, capping off a good, solid weekend.

Football: £243.81 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £243.81 

 

Football Showing 1 - 14 of 14 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Football / Liverpool v Brighton : Correct Score 19-Feb-12 16:30  19-Feb-12 18:01  -0.07
Football / Liverpool v Brighton : Over/Under 4.5 Goals 19-Feb-12 16:30  19-Feb-12 18:01  4.68
Football / Liverpool v Brighton : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 19-Feb-12 16:30  19-Feb-12 17:46  14.78
Football / Liverpool v Brighton : Over/Under 2.5 goals 19-Feb-12 16:30  19-Feb-12 17:15  14.05
Football / Stevenage v Tottenham : Over/Under 1.5 Goals 19-Feb-12 14:00  19-Feb-12 16:01  11.31
Football / Stevenage v Tottenham : Over/Under 2.5 goals 19-Feb-12 14:00  19-Feb-12 16:00  9.98
Football / Stevenage v Tottenham : Correct Score 19-Feb-12 14:00  19-Feb-12 15:58  24.93
Football / Crawley Town v Stoke : Correct Score 19-Feb-12 12:00  19-Feb-12 13:58  8.28
Football / Crawley Town v Stoke : Over/Under 2.5 goals 19-Feb-12 12:00  19-Feb-12 13:56  1.98
Football / Crawley Town v Stoke : Match Odds 19-Feb-12 12:00  19-Feb-12 13:56  97.72
Football / Lecce v Siena : Correct Score 19-Feb-12 11:30  19-Feb-12 13:24  3.62
Football / Crawley Town v Stoke : Over/Under 1.5 Goals 19-Feb-12 12:00  19-Feb-12 13:15  2.09
Football / Lecce v Siena : Over/Under 2.5 goals 19-Feb-12 11:30  19-Feb-12 12:55  0.00
Football / Granada v Sociedad : Correct Score 19-Feb-12 11:00  19-Feb-12 12:45  50.46