Under 2.5 Goals Strategy | EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

i have traded a lot of under 2.5 gold markets and is in fact my favorite betfair trading strategy for football in this complete strategy breakdown video i have broken down everything that i know about this strategy and i'm confident that you're going to learn many things about implementing the under 2.5 goal strategy on betfair as you can see this is quite a long video and i do recommend watching the video a couple of times at least to fully digest all of the content i have structured the video into several sections so you can come back

to different sections at any time that you like firstly i'll explain the theory and the background of the strategy i will then explain in great detail the different entry points that you can use for the strategy which will be subdivided into two sections entry points based off odds and entry points based off timing when you should enter the market the next section will be dedicated to exit points and once again they'll also be subdivided into two sections one regarding timing and one regarding odds in which you should exit the trade and then i'll go in

depth regarding selecting the right matches to implement the under 2.5 gold strategy on to be profitable in the long term and in that section i will also explain why i believe this strategy does have an edge in the market and at the end of the video there'll be a bonus section all about tracking your results and what you can do to cut out losses and increase your wins i do have a bit of a disclaimer to make straight from they off here if you are looking for a step-by-step strategy that you simply can blindly follow

to guarantee a profit you aren't going to find that here i'm going to save you the time until you're not going to find that anywhere for any trading strategy all trading strategies carry an element of risk in this video you'll learn the pros and cons and breakdowns of every aspect of this strategy but it is down to you to adapt what i'm saying to your own trading style sports trading is not easy it requires a lot of time and effort in this video i'm saving you a lot of that time by putting every piece of

research i've ever put this strategy all into one place however you're still gonna need to put the effort in to be profitable at betfair trading when first starting with a strategy i initially recommend using minimum stakes and just getting stuck in the rather than sitting around for hours and hours about pondering strategy and what you should do it is much more effective to learn by doing rather than learn by sitting around thinking and boiling [Music] it's important to start with the background of the strategy what is it why under 2.5 goals not 1.5 goals or

3.5 goals and what makes this strategy so popular the under 2.5 goal strategy isn't an outright bet on the number of goals that will be scored in a football match by the full-time whistle as traders we are not motivated by the number of goals by the end of the game instead our aim with a strategy is to back on the 2.5 goals at the start of the game and then weigh under 2.5 goals or back against it after the odds of shortened due to a slow start this will ensure a guaranteed profit irrespective of the

number of goals by the full-time whistle this is an important point this strategy is all about exploiting slow starts in football matches all of the sections in this video from entry points to exit points to match selection will all be viewed through the lens of exploiting slow starts in football matches so keep that in mind as we progress through the rest of the video anyways let's get back to the background of the strategy at the start of any game the chance of the being under 2.5 goals by the end of the game is represented by

odds on betfair the odds themselves represent a probability in percentage of the game finishing with under 2.5 goals take this game for example the game starts with odds of approximately 2.36 and that is a 42 chance of the being under 2.5 goals by the end of the game unlike other popular sports to trade like horse racing tennis and some forms of cricket football matches don't end by reaching a predefined condition of winning for example a horse crossing the finishing line a boy you're reaching a certain number of sets or a team getting a certain number

of wickets instead football is time based so after 90 minutes irrespective of the scoreline the game will end so what does this mean in short it means that football is responsive to time with every second that ticks by the current outcome becomes slightly more likely to occur by the end of the game for example if the game is nil nil on the 10th minute mark by the time it's the 20th minute the probability that the game will finish nail nil has increased compared to what it was 10 minutes ago this higher probability is represented by

a decrease in the odds on betfair the concept of the odd shortening due to time is referred to as time decay time decay opens up the opportunity for you to simply profit through the passage of time with the under 2.5 goal strategy to explain the strategy with an example if you back under 2.5 goals like i do in this game odds of 2.28 there is a 44 chance of being under 2.5 goals by the end of the game so either zero one or two goals once the game goes in play time decay starts to take

place and the odds gently start to come in more and more with each minute that passes by this is because 44 likely at the start of the game gradually tends towards being 100 likely towards the end of the game as long as there are no goals scored in the game if you lay at any point in the period in which the price is contracted you will go on to make a profit which is what i do in this example by weighing at 1.74 which translates to a 57 chance the longer you leave the trade open

for the shorter the odds become this means that your potential profit is increased but there is a risk because the price moves out massively in the event that a goal is scored in the period of time that you've got the trade open for and in this event you unfortunately have to cash out for a loss the reason that this strategy is so popular is because the average number of goals in football matches tends to be around 2.5 this makes the average odds in the under 2.5 golf market tend to be around 2.0 50 this attracts

a lot of attention from exchange users and it typically makes the under 2.5 gold market the most liquid of any of the under or over goals markets on betfair this is good for us traders because we want as much money as possible as much liquidity and lots of price action instead of illiquid slow markets where little time decay is taking place let's talk about entry points entry points are a key thing to consider for any trading strategy this can be broken down in terms of entry points for both the timing and for the odds that

you enter into the market to begin with let's look at timing for the under 2.5 goal strategy choosing your time for the entry point is relatively simple however there is a couple of caveats as this trade is benefiting from time decay the odds are getting shorter and shorter when you've got the position open obviously the shorter the odds are the worst value it is to back so we want to back at the highest possible odds to get the highest possible value the simple conclusion to make is that we want to back at the start of

the time decay so before the game kicks off essentially just before kickoff is the most logical place to enter into the market because obviously no time decay has taken place and you're at no risk for a pre-matched rift in terms of the odds so you'll be starting the game in the red it's you're in at the start of the game and then you can benefit from titan decay from there and as such as a general rule of thumb this is where i would typically recommend you to enter the market just before kickoff however as i

said there are a couple of caveats and there are two slightly different entry points that you can try the first one is to assess the odds in the hours leading up to kickoff if you believe that the odds are too high a couple of hours before kickoff you could back in early expecting the price to come in slightly before the kickoff of the game and by the time the game has gone in play you will already be in a profitable situation however personally i tend to avoid this type of entry point because i tend to

find that yes it is fantastic when it works when you get in a few hours before kickoff and the price steams in a little bit and you start the game in profit however just as many times you get it wrong get enter into the market and it drifts before kickoff and then you start the game in the red which is obviously not an ideal situation so i'd only recommend entering into the market several hours before kickoff if you are very good at pricing football markets on betfair if you are highly experienced at pricing football matches

and use good models then yes you can probably look at the odds a few hours before kickoff when the market isn't as efficient and have a good idea if the odds are too short or too big for everybody else generally entering just before kick off is the safe play another entry point is actually waiting until a few minutes after the game has gone in play and after the few minutes you would then back under 2.5 goals and that'll be your entry the reason that i'm recommending this is that sometimes in the opening five or so

minutes in games the time decay tends to not be happening very much and sometimes not even happening at all with the market will be static and staying at the starting price and this is the last thing that you want you don't want to be sat in the market with the risk of a goal being scored and your potential reward not to be increasing due to the market being stalled sometimes time decay isn't occurring for justifiable reasons such as one or both of the teams creating many chances and looking like a goal is likely to be

scored however sometimes the price can be stolen for no reason at all there can be no attack momentum for either team and this is very annoying so holding off entering the market for a few minutes and assessing the price when the game goes in play is something that you can attempt to do it also gives you an advantage to watch the first couple of minutes of the game and to see if the game is actually panning out or your pre-match research anticipated it would do and we'll come on to pre-game research much later in the

video the only downside of entering into the market a few minutes after the game has gone employee is that sometimes the opposite of stalling can happen sometimes the time decay can happen really quickly and the market can steam in straight from the start of the game this rapid steam in the price will mean that you've missed an opportunity to enter into the market on that game just because you've held off in your entry point which again is an infuriating situation when it occurs quite a lot to digest though just in terms of entry points i'd

recommend trying a bit of everything that i've recommended and to figure out which is the best thing for your personal trading style in terms of what i do personally i enter into the market always just before kickoff and then as the game goes in play i'm intently watching the market and seeing where the money is being matched i'm seeing if any money is being matched or the price is stalling or if money's coming against my position and if time decay isn't happening for any of these reasons i'll tend to pull out of the market for

either a small win or a very small loss but i wouldn't be finished there i would continue to watch the market intently because i know that the market will start to come back in at some point as long as no goals are being scored at a point where i think the price might be about to come back in after it's been stolen for a while i will then re-enter into the market by backing under 2.5 goals again and if you get your timing of your entry right you'll be able to benefit from a massive correction

in the price and if you miss the market correcting itself that is unfortunate but it's not the end of the world because it just simply means that your position won't have been matched and you'll be at no risk what do i mean when i say the market is correcting itself well depending on the starting odds the price should gently and steadily come in from the starting price all the way down to 1.01 in a nice uniform pattern this is a graphical representation of that uniform pattern i was just talking about the reason the graph isn't

just a straight line from the starting odds to 1.01 is because as the odds get lower and lower the tick values start to represent more and more of the bulk and that's why the graph starts to curve like that if you're interested in the way that the odds change the lower they go i've got a video about that on my channel which feel free to watch to learn more about that concept this is where having software like bet angel is really helpful as you can assess the game before kick off to see what the price

action is likely to be and you can do that using the soccer mystic tool in build inside better angel you can check what the expected odds are likely to be after the first five minutes of the game provided that there's no goal scored during that opening five minutes and then once the game goes in play you can track what the odds are doing and then map it on to what bet angel predicted before the start of the kickoff you can see the price is reacting the way that it should do if it's stalling or if

it's coming in too quickly in the event that the market is stalling you'll be backed up by soccer mystic data of what the price should be at that particular moment in time and then you can enter into the market by backing if you think there's a big enough discrepancy between what the odds are currently are compared to what they should be from bet angels calculations oppositely if the price has come in too quickly compared to what soccer mystic said you could begin to think about x in a trade earlier than you anticipated to as the

price decay can start to open much slower to correct for that initial big steam in price if you don't have bet angel software you obviously won't be able to rely on knowing what the price should be at any particular point in the game and instead you'll have to use your judgment and experience to assess the market to see if the price is stalling or if you think the price is coming in too quickly this might sound like a difficult fee but the more and more experience you get of trading these games you start to see

similar patterns of knowing when the market is stalling or knowing when the price is coming too quickly and then it's going to begin to slow down that's enough about talking about entry points in terms of timing backing just before kickoff is the simplest and safest approach however you can implement the various things that i've talked about to get an optimal entry point and increase your profit obviously okay let's take a look at the entry point based on the odds now finding the right entry price the value price is obviously a very important thing to do

when you trade him on betfair finding the right odds to enter at is inextricably linked to match selection which we're going to cover in significant detail later in the video for now we're going to talk generally about how the different types of odds you know the higher odds or the lower odds impact the under 2.5 goal strategy you do see a large range of starting odds in the under 2.5 goals markets from odds well above odds of three towards around 2.0 and towards well below 2.0 you know like 1.6 1.5 even i've seen and even

lower depending on which league you're trading in i'm not sure what you think but when i first started trading this strategy my intuition was that it was better to back at higher odds rather than lower odds obviously because there's more value in terms of backing at higher odds and i used to think that if there was a goal when you're backed at war rods then your loss would be absolutely enormous making it not worthwhile to enter in at war rods my initial thinking was somewhat true however in terms of the size of the loss you

would expect to see in the event of a goal you need to know that all the gold markets on betfair are linked together so that's a 0.5 1.5 2.5 3.5 and so on goals are all linked together if the price for under 2.5 goals is relatively low for any individual game then the price of the under 1.5 goals market for that same game is also going to be relatively low that means if there is an early goal for a game that started with relatively short odds in the under 2.5 goals market the odds are going

to move out relative to the size of the market and showing you on screen two games one which started at world wars and one which started at higher odds in the event that does goal in either game the odds move out massively of course but they don't fly out to the same odds for both games obviously due to this link between the different goal markets your potential losses are somewhat similar as a percentage of your overall stake regardless of what the starting odds for the market were but yes my initial assumption is true that the

shorter the odds that you back at the worst value you end up getting as your potential win decreases compared to the iran's example mainly just due to the fact that the odds are so short to begin with that there's that little room for the time decay to take place compared to high odds where it's got a massive movement to go from whatever it started at all the way down to you know 1.01 there's more ticks in the market to move and you get you know quicker time decay relatively so you get a higher potential win

it'll be easy if i just show you these three examples of markets that i've traded one was at odds of 1.7 one at 2.3 and one out 3.0 i've adjusted the stake to 100 pounds for each of these free trades just to make it easier for you to visualize what i'm showing you on screen you see the potential wins and the potential losses over five minute segments all the way through to the 25th minute both in terms of there's a goal scored or there was no goal scored you see that the potential losses are somewhat

similar across the free markets all be it the iraq's example does in fact have slightly larger losses than the shorter odds examples however importantly the potential winning returns in the higher ups examples is significantly higher than the wards example with the returns becoming twice as big in the market that started at 3.0 compared to the game that started at 1.7 based on that data it does seem logical to think that it's better to back when the game starts at higher odds however this isn't taken into account something very important and that key fact is what

is the actual likelihood of a goal being scored in these games yes the higher the odds the more potential profit you can make but there is a reason that these odds are so high to begin with obviously the market thinks that goals are likely to be scored in this type of game compared to the game that's starting off with odds of like 1.7 or lower so you will win wider amount when you trade games that start off at higher odds but you're probably gonna win less frequently just due to the fact that goals are going

to be more likely to be scored in these types of games when it comes down to match selection away from the video i will go on to suggest that it is still better to back at higher odds and i'll explain that later in the video however you can still get lower odds to work for you with this strategy which again is why i advise you trying a bunch of different things but for higher odds and lower odds and average odds to see what impact it has on your psychology when you're trading because at the end

of the day if you're trading something you don't feel comfortable you put yourself at a hindrance to begin with so the general principle on odds is this the higher the odds are the more the odds can shorten during time decay meaning your potential reward is higher however there is more risk involved because the higher the odds are the more chance there is going to be a goal and the more chance of you making a loss it's all a risk versus reward strategy there's no one type of odds higher or lower that is the perfect odds

to back up the actual edge in the mark isn't coming directly from choosing games with the right odds it is in fact coming from capitalizing on slow starts in games which again we'll cover in the match selection section of the video and the last thing i want to discuss before i get on to match selection is all about exit points exit strategy is obviously very important you need an exit strategy both for winning trades and also a plan for what to do when things go wrong the pessimist in me wants me to start off with

what you do when things go wrong however there is a good reason for this because as a trader your first point of call is to always minimize your risk if you focus on fine-tuning a solid exit strategy for what you do when the strategy goes wrong you will cut out any large unnecessary losses you'll feel more in control of your trading and have a much more robust psychology and ultimately a larger p l okay so how do you lose in the other 2.5 goal strategy well it's obvious i've discussed it already and that is if

a goal is scored at any point that you've got the trade open if this happens the odds will fly out from the current position and you'll act away for a bigger price than you backed up which means you'll be in the red and you have to catch up for a loss the first question you need to ask is what will the price fly out to in the event as a goal the easiest way to predict this is to have a look at the under 1.5 goals market the current odds in the under 1.5 gold market

will be relatively similar to what the odds will be in the under 2.5 gold market in the event that a goal goes in so it is always handy to keep your eye on the under 1.5 goals market to calibrate your position in the trade a goal goes in the odds fly out to approximately what they were in the under 1.5 goals market just before the goal goes in what can you do you can either cash out for a loss right there or then or you can hold the position anticipating that the price will come back

down as time decay will start again and then you can recoup some of your state back and even break even or even go back into the green i strongly advise cashing out in the event that goal goes in rather than holding on to your position the entire under 2.5 goal strategy is predicated on selecting games that have a slow start which means that you are selecting games which you think have a low chance of the being goals in the opening period of the game if you have sights of the game that meets his criteria and

a goal is in fact scored your prediction about the game has been incorrect clearly holding on to the position might feel right the right thing to do because you obviously don't want to take a loss but this goes against the logic of why you entered into the trade in the first place you thought it was not going to be goals and you was wrong because there was a goal you cannot shift the goalposts of what you're thinking about the trade you thought the game had a low chance of goals being scored in the opening period

stand by that decision and cash out if you've got it wrong and a goal goes in because another thing that happens when a goal goes in you tend to see that the market begins to stall and this is obviously not ideal because you want the market to start time decaying again and then it will become closer and closer to breaking even or getting to the profit but if the market price is stalling you're just a sitting duck exposed to complete risk of another goal and a massive lost with very little upside because the market isn't

even going back in your favor that's my personal opinion anyway however if you do want to stick in the market after a goal has been scored here are a couple of tips for you firstly bet angel is a good tool at simulating how long you'll have to wait after a goal goes in before you'll be able to break even again and again you'll still be able to check the under 1.5 goals market be able to see what your expected loss will be in the event that a second goal is scored in the game in terms

of what your expected losses are likely to be in the event that a goal is scored in a game it depends when the goal is scored worst case scenario if the goal is scored in the first couple of minutes of the game you are looking at a loss between about 45 and 55 may be slightly higher of your overall stake if you decide to not cash out and hold your position and there are two quick goals in the first 10 to 15 minutes you're looking at a loss of at least 85 on your stake the

good news is that your potential loss decreases the later and later the goal goes in if the goal comes after 10 minutes your expected loss drops from 45 to 55 all the way down to 35 to 45 this value drops again to around 25 if the goal comes in around the 20th minute mark and typically just after the 30th minute mark maybe at the 35th minute mark you tend to see that if a goal is good at that point you'll still be in a profitable situation so you'll be able to cash out for just a

very small loss but most likely it's very small profit even if a goal is scored after 30 minutes i don't want to grab on about losing too much i've already spent enough time about it at the end of the day you have to figure out your losing gexing strategy based off what works best for you as a trader for me i find it just simple to cash out straight away in the event a goal goes in it reduces the potential for those massive losses and it's psychologically reassuring that you don't have to sit and watch

games praying for a second goal to not be scored in the match and on to some positive now let's talk about winning [Music] what is the optimal way to exit the under 2.5 goal strategy for a profit you have two important decisions to make when exiting the market for a profit firstly in terms of the times of your ex it's like 5 minutes 10 minutes 15 minutes and so on and secondly if you want to exit in a single chunk or using multiple stakes to exit out of the trade and that question is what we're

going to address right now generally speaking excellent at single points this is where you back all your stake at the start and then weigh that entire same state when you exit the strategy this leads to a higher profit compared to extinct in an incremental manner an incremental exit strategy would be excellent to the strategy in four equally sized stakes or a quarter the size of your initial backstake generally speaking exiting with a single exit point increases your potential profit from the strategy however there's a consequence to that because your risk would also be higher doing

this compared to exiting using multiple increments extend with multiple increments yes your risk is lower but your profit will also be lower than the single exit point so again there is a balancing act on here they have an example here between chelsea and everton which perfectly demonstrates which of the two are better you see that a into a trade with 10 pound stake at odds of 2.32 for this example i've decided to arbitrarily exit out of the market at odds of 1.9 you can see that if i was to exit out of this strategy using

the single point exit so i'll be backing at 2.32 and then extinct at 1.9 using the same stake i'll be able to make a four pound 20 free bet profit or a 2.20 fully hedge profit here just like to point out quickly that when i cash out to the market i edge out rather than cashing out for a free bet this is a personal decision rather than letting the free bet run for more profit but there's nothing i can explicitly say to say one is better than the other at the end of the day you

should just plan this out beforehand and stick to that decision for an incremental exit strategy what would my profit be if i exited four 2 pound 50 increments so from the entry point of 2.32 to the exit point of 1.9 there was in fact 26 ticks separating the two so let's look at what happened when i exited this mark with four 2.50 increments approximately equally spread across to 26 ticks my first 2.50 increment gets matched at odds of 2.20 so by checking the under 1.5 goals market again we can determine what our estimated loss would

be if there was a goal that was scored and we can compare that value to what it would be if we still had 100 of our stakes still at risk at odds of 4.8 we'd be cashing out for a 38 loss if a goal was to be scored compare that with a 52 percent loss if we'd still kept over 100 stake in the market there is a big difference there of course with cashing out one quarter of our stake we have decreased our potential loss by 14 in the event that a goal is scored there

is a consequence of doing that of course because if we look at our potential winnings from this stream now by checking the odds of a predefined exit point at odds of 1.9 we see that our potential profit has dropped from 22 with the single point exit down to 18 using the multipoint exit the second 2.50 increment gets matched at odds of 2.08 if we look what impact this is on our potential winnings from the trade compared to the single point exit our potential winnings dropped to around 16 and our potential loss based off odds of

4.4 decreases to 22 in the single point exit strategy at this stage our potential loss in the event of a goal will be up at 47 percent the third 2.50 increment gets matched at odds of 1.97 the potential was if a goal was to be scored drops down to a mere six and a half percent compared to 43 with a single point exit strategy however our potential win using the multiplying exit strategy drops down below 15 and that 15 is what we ended up cashing out of this market for when we exit out of the

market with our final 2.50 increment this data set is pretty conclusive to me yes you lose around seven percent of your profit from exiting using a multi-point exit strategy having a single point exit strategy and i don't want to play that down because yes seven percent is a significant difference in terms of your potential profit it might only be seven percent when compared to the stake but when the two values are compared to each other a single point exits profit is actually close to being 50 bigger than the multi-point exit however there's one thing that's

just unavoidable to notice at this point and that is the potential loss in the event our goal is scored is significantly worse in a single point exit compared to the multi-point exit the potential loss was always hovering in and around the 40 percent mark in the single point exit but by the time we've got a third of our stakeout to the market our potential loss is down to weight six and a half percent in the multi-point exit this is a really significant difference it is crazy to think that in the event a goal is to

be scored after we have got our third 2.50 bet matched the loss you would get in the single point strategy will be close to 500 bigger than it would be if he was using a multi-point exit strategy the difference between the two is just light and day it's impossible to ignore and that is why i suggest exiting in a multi-point exit strategy compared to a single point exit strategy how many increments you're exiting is entirely up to you obviously the trend continues that the more and more increments that you exit out of your potential profit

decreases but your potential risk also decreases so yeah it's a risk versus reward scenario again i recommend playing around with a few scenarios to determine what is the best strategy for you in terms of what the size of your increments can be one thing to note here is that betfair obviously have a minimum stake of two pound which means your minimum increment can also be two pound however bet angel has allowed me to place bets that'll be a little too bound so you've got bet angel there you go given that we've established the superiority of

the multi-point exit compared to a single point exit the next thing to look at in terms of exit points is all about timing [Music] this is something that's heavily linked with match selection and when goals are likely to be scored for that particular game anecdotally it does appear that the time decay gets slower and slower the shorter the odds become as the tick values represent larger and larger percentages of the overall book however the return per 10 minutes is relatively uniform look at these two examples which start at vastly different starting prices we see that

the profit increases after each 10 minute increment and as a percentage of the overall potential return from the trade the potential returns are quite similar for each 10 minute increment as long as the market is behaving itself and not stalling at any point let me explain that more clearly look at the difference between a 10th minute and a 20th minute mark in terms of the potential return you can make compared to the 20th minute and the 30th minute as percentages of the potential return they are close to being identical this all suggests that timing isn't

crucial in terms of a lost value perspective the market is fairly efficient in that respect but obviously the longer you leave the goal open for the more you're exposed to the chance of a goal being scored at the end of the day goals inevitably get scored in most football matches that take place so there's a balance to strike in terms of weaving the trade long enough to net a large enough profit but also short enough where you're not exposing yourself to an enormous risk that a goal is going to be scored during the period of

time that you've got the trade open for that's why personally i aim to exit out of the strategy between the 15th and the 25th minute but it does depend on the game that i'm trading both the pre-match research and the input statistics to see how the game is panning out why but i'm never too rigid to say that i need to exit between the 15th and the 25th minute sometimes i'll exit after the 25th minute mark if the game is really dull of fur and sometimes i'll exit very early on a few minutes into the

game if i see that the game is more lively than i anticipated this has been quite a hefty section about exit points so i'm going to give you a little summary now of the important factors that you should take away from this number one use the under 1.5 goals market to predict your potential loss in the event a goal is scored number two it is recommended to cash out immediately in the event that a goal is scored whilst you've got the trade open number three in the event of a very early goal your expected loss

is going to be in and around a 50 mark however the later and later the goal arrives in the game the lower and lower your potential loss will be if a goal ends up being scored number four exiting out of the market with a multi-point exit strategy is fair beneficial from exiting using a single stake and number five there is a balance to find in terms of the timing that exit out of the market you want to be in the market for long enough to get significant profit but short enough we are avoiding the chance

of goals as much as it is possible to do so with all of that theory and execution out of the way let's look at match selection [Music] this is where your edge from this strategy comes from so let me explain what the edge is and where your potential profit comes from people price football markets fairly accurately on betfair which means the odds for the under 2.5 goals market started the game are very reflective of the true probability that they'll be under 2.5 goals by the time the game concludes if the odds are 2.0 then 50

of time the game will actually finish with under 2.5 goals the edge is actually coming from a slow start and by slow start i mean the start of the game where no goals are scored if in this game that is priced at odds of 2.0 75 of the goals that are likely to be scored are likely to be scored in the second half then there is a large opportunity here i believe that a slow start cannot be factored in to the starting odds in the under 2.5 gold market the only way that it could be

factored into the market would be for the starting odds to be shorter than they actually are to make up for the fact that goals are very unlikely to be scored in the first period of the game or the first half in general however you have to think that if the odds were shorter to reflect the potential slow start that would mean that the odds would become way value for people who are accurately pricing markets because the odds wouldn't be accurate reflecting the true probability of the game finishing with under 2.5 goals after 90 minutes due

to the majority of the goals being scored in the second half of the game i hope that makes sense essentially the starting odds represent the probability that they'll be under 2.5 goals by the end of the game but the market cannot take into account the fact that there might be a slow start in the game because if it did take that into account it would have to disregard the sections of the game which are more lively and have the higher chances of the goals being scored it can't factor in both the things it can't factor

in slows periods and quick periods of the game it has to just factor in the entire probability of the market finish in a certain way if there were instances where it did factor in the slow start all that would mean is that the opportunity for the edge in the market would simply be transferred to the section of the game where the goal is likely to be scored because the odds for a goal to be scored will be higher than they should be and that will be back value so the reason we're looking for a slow

start we're having a slow period anywhere else in the game is simple because the odds in the under 2.5 gold market are at the highest right at the start of the game and this is where we're going to be back in because it's the highest back value and gives you the most profit long term the first thing i look at when i'm selecting a game to trade is the percentage of games that finish with under 2.5 goals for that particular league there are many ways to find this personally i go into soccer stats website select

the league from the toolbar at the top and then scroll down to the bottom and you see this little data table here and as you can see there you see the number of games in terms of percentages that finish with over 2.5 goals obviously that's over 2.5 goals so to convert that to under 2.5 goals we simply do 100 percent minus that value so 100 percent minus 53 percent so that makes you 47 you can convert this percentage into decimal odds by doing one divided by the percentage so that'll be one divided by 47. after

you've done that you multiply the number by 100 and that gives you decimal odds of what the average price should be for games in that league at the start of games for the under 2.5 goals market this value calculates to be around odds of 2.12 so that means at a time of recording this game the average odds for the under 2.5 goals for the premier league the starting odds should be about 2.12 this value varies across leagues and it is a useful reference point to calibrate whereabouts your game fits in to the league statistics is

the market predicting an average game or is the market predicting more goals than average or less goals than average the simple reference point but it's very helpful as i discussed earlier in the video my personal strategy is to back at higher odds so i'm backing at odds higher than this reference value that i calculate for the league this doesn't mean that i never trade games below the average value however generally i always try to look for games above it first and then look at the lower games after that because they've got less value on offer

to simply just hire a reward to back in those games that start at higher starting price this is somewhat ironic really because in a strategy that relies on profiting based off no goals being scored the way i look for games is by looking for games that have the highest number of goals being scored and looking to target teams where a majority of their gains finish with more than 2.5 goals because i want to find those games that have the highest odds and the reason i have their highest odds because they're most likely to have the

highest number of goals obviously once i've identified the teams in the league that's called the highest number of goals i then check to see which of these teams have the fewest number of goals scored in the opening periods of the game itself to find this i break down the goal scoring habits of the team to do this i check both soccer stats goal time statistics and i also check footy stats soccer starts gives you an easy numerical breakdown of the times in which the team scores where footy stats shows you a graphical representation showing where

each of the goals are scored during the games that the team plays i then break these stats down into home and away depending on where the team is playing due to the fact that teams tend to play differently when they perform home in a way what we ideally want to find when we look through these statistics is teams that score very few goals in the first half or for the first period of the game where you plan to have your trade open for and on top of that we want to see lots of goals being

scored in the second half if you just had a well chance of goals for the entire game the odds would tend to be too low in the strategy but there's not many goals in that first period of the game but lots and lots towards the end of the game this is the ideal game to target for the under 2.5 goal strategy everton have been a great team for the under 2.5 goal strategy this season because if you look at the starts you see that about 60 percent of their games finish with over 2.5 goals compared

to the week average of 53 so you would expect to see the starting price for the under 2.5 goals market in everton games to be much higher than the average odds of 2.12 but both home and away everton score about 75 of their goals in the second half and also concede a majority of their goals in the second half at home especially 62 of everton's games finish with over 2.5 goals so if the markets on betfair are efficient the average starting price in the under 2.5 gold markets for everton's home games should be around odds

of 2.6 however staggeringly only 30 percent of the total goals for everton's home games actually occur in that first half with the um team on average scoring up to 60 minutes and the away team on average scoring up to 55 minutes this is why everton have been an ideal team for this strategy this season the odds start high because the overall chance of the game finishing under 2.5 goals is relatively low but the market cannot accurately factor in the low chance of scoring in that opening half without ultimately disregarding the fact that by the end

of the game is likely that there will be over 2.5 goals in this game the high starting price offers you a great opportunity in everton games because of the significant time decay you'll expect to see and the reduced risk due to the low scoring patterns of everton games you can't guarantee profits of course because goals can be scored at any point in the game but it's all about risk versus reward and these types of games are very highly rewarding for little risk and again if you think that the slow start to these games must be

factored into the market then you've got to explain why people who price the markets don't just weigh the price or back overs if the price is too short to account for the high scoring possibility that'll be in the second half obviously for this strategy you can't just look for one team there's two teams playing you need to compare the two team stats to see if the opportunities are ideally both team stats somewhat line up well lots of goals are in the second half and a few goals are in the first half and in particular the

first 20 minutes if a team that scores a lot of early goals comes up against everton then obviously it makes a trade a little bit more risky because you've got two things that are balancing out though you've got to think which is more likely everton's good defense and lack of scoring or this other team's high scoring capabilities you also have to consider the fixture on its own as well which teams are playing which and what are the motivations of the two teams if it's a crucial game at the top of the league or a crucial

game at the bottom of the league the reward of winning might not be as big as the risk of losing that game therefore teams could settle more defensively than they traditionally would therefore the goal scoring patterns of previous games may not map on to the current game that they're about to play a useful tool to determine what the best time is to exit the trade can be found on 40 stats if you highlight over this graphical representation a vertical line will appear and a stats breakdown will appear in this time analytics box at the top

here so you'll be able to see the average number of goals scored both in terms of absolute numbers and as a percentage of the total goals in the game before and after certain points in a match again your time of exit is game dependent depending on the goal scoring patterns your ultimate responsibility as a trader is to find the optimal time to leave the trade open for as long as possible to get the potential highest payout but also at the lowest amount of risk not an easy task but it is feasible by looking at the

data something useful to consider here is the average number of goals that are likely to be scored in the period of time that you have the trade open for in general terms breaking down 9559 games i have the data for approximately just over 38 of the games have at least one goal scored in the opening 20 minutes of the match which is then broken down into approximately 31 of the games containing one goal and about six and a half percent of the games containing two goals and about half a percentage of games containing three or

more goals in the opening 20 minutes these 959 games have been taken from various leagues as you can see when comparing across different leagues isn't that much difference between this data the background data is always useful for calibrating your opinion about the game ultimately it's more important to look at the actual starts of the teams that are playing but having this background information of the general times in which goals are scored in football matches is something that i find very useful when i'm framing the trade i just showed you an example from the 9559 matches

based off the open in 20 minutes if you want to know the same data based on the opening 15 minutes or the opening 10 minutes or the opening five minutes or even on a minute by minute basis i've got an in detail blog post on my patreon which breaks this data down in detail so you can check my patreon out in the link below game selection can take a long time that is why i find it best to sit down at the start of the week just to set aside time to walk through matches to

find your opportunities for the next seven or so days you can even do this by systematically going through every single game in each of the leagues that you most frequently trade that way you'll be guaranteed to not miss a single game alternatively i tend to use this footy stats filter here to organize the tail by teams that have the highest percentage of over 2.5 goals i will then check out these teams look at their goal stats and then also check which teams they're playing to identify if there is an opportunity for a slow start though

in this section i have focused heavily on entering into markets that have relatively high odds indicating that a lot of goals are likely to be scored but as i've alluded to throughout this video it doesn't mean you cannot implement this strategy on markets that start with a lower under 2.5 goal starting price because at the end of the day if there is a disconnect between the total number of goals which are expected to be scored by the 90th minute mark and the distribution of where the goals are likely to be scored there will be an

opportunity for you to enter into the market and get a profitable trade you just get higher value on the higher market games but obviously them games aren't there every single week so sometimes you do have to go into the lower odds markets to find opportunities in terms of where there isn't an opportunity for the under 2.5 gold strategy well if the two teams that are playing both score very early and concede very early in games clearly there's no opportunity though and it tends to be no opportunities where the team tend to score evenly across the

90 minutes as in this instance the starting price for the under 2.5 goals will accurately reflect the actual percentage probability the game finishing under 2.5 goals and the time decay will be proportional to the probability of a goal being scored so there's no opportunity in those types of games i have a bit of a bonus for you for making it this far into the video and that is all about tracking your results as this is a trading strategy it isn't about winning every single time it's all about winning more than you lose i always recommend

tracking results for this strategy or for any strategy in particular using an excel spreadsheet it doesn't have to be anything too fancy just something that shows your winning trades your losing trades your strike rate and then obviously your overall pnl with my very simple results tracker available to download from my patreon if that's something you're interested in but i'd highly recommend attempting to create your own profit and watch tracker as it will develop your excel spreadsheet skills which are very important once you're tracking your results on your spreadsheet you'll be able to filter it and

break down where you're more likely to lose and the games that you're more likely to win in if you see that you're not profitable in certain games say games where it's a favorite against a weak opponent or a game where it's two strong opponents facing or a game that starts at a particular type of odds you can identify these in your results and then filtering them out just stop doing them don't worry too much about trying to improve it just stop them for now and then focus on the opportunities where you tend to win more

frequently hone your skills in those markets and you'll be a much better trader than trying to fix everything because you're not going to be able to fix everything and that is it you have made it to the end of the video many thanks for watching i've got absolutely no idea how long this video is going to be it feels like i've been talking for an absolute eternity as i mentioned at the top of this video this video has contained a lot of information so i'd recommend watching it various times to pick up all that information

and to digest it all i really hope that you found value in this video it's taken absolutely ages to make and do all the research i hope that you can implement many of the things i've said for your own trading likes especially thank my patreons if you want any of the downloads that are referred to throughout this video and you also want to see some of the live trades that i've done you can get that exclusive content only on patreon and the link to that is in the description below thank you for watching and i

wish you all the best implementing this strategy going forward