The lay bet was duly placed and matched (accepted). Therefore, guaranteed profit was made regardless of the final outcome (in this way the event is said to be, “greened-up”). Not a bad effort with just 15 minutes of the game elapsed.
This is a scenario which actually transpired with our bets as described and the result of the game was a hard fought 3-3 draw.
Of course, another option would have been to ‘lay’ the favourite Chelsea at the start and then back them later in the match as soon as their price hit an acceptable level. This would rely on Chelsea either losing the first goal or, being held to a draw for a significant period of time to allow their odds to rise.
However, you should ideally decide the direction of your bet from a statistical perspective and then only bet if the selection contains ‘value’.
Looking purely at league statistics from most European and World leagues, laying the favourite is better done when they are playing away from home.
For example, in the English Premier League approximately 25% of games end in away wins, season after season and so, laying a favourite playing away becomes more statistically viable. Most favourites are the home team in each fixture and home wins tend to float in the region of 45-50% per league, per season.
Hedging on the difference between prices can also be successfully accomplished before a game even starts and is the modus operandi of arbitrage bettors.
Cutting your Losses
Equally important is knowing when to cut your losses if things are not going so well. With homework, experience and gut feeling, our success rate in predicting outcomes on the bets that we select averages out at around 70-75%. Of course, we wish to surrender as little of our hard-earned profit as possible on the other 25-30%.
Therefore, never be afraid to back-out of a bet even if it means losing a little on all of the possible outcomes. Use exactly the same method as described but instead of optimising the winnings between the outcomes, the loss minimisation exercise is all about equalising the losses so that they are the same no matter what the outcome is.
When doing this, always maintain your discipline and never hedge the losses in favour of one result or another. If the situation is going against you it is always best to back-out with grace, take it on the chin, level out the loss, and move onto the next arena.
If you do decide to hedge the loss and hope that a result changing in your favour will justify stacking heavier amounts of the potential total loss against the other outcomes, then please be realistic with yourself. This is pure gambling with no skill involved at all. If this is your mentality then I am afraid that we cannot help improve your technique until you accept that chasing losses is absolutely the worst characteristic a bettor can possess. You are meat and drink to the gambling industry if you feel the compulsion to win back your losses as quickly as possible.
