JAGIS and the Under / Over Markets

Regular commenter JPG (the provocative devil) got me thinking again about the Under / Over Goals markets.

As my regular reader will know, I have written in the past about the futility of these markets, but in the light of JPG’s prompting, I decided to re-evaluate it this week. My thinking is that if JPG can make money in these markets, then darn it, so can I!

Although I have watched football for over 40 years, (and even played for Holland* in my youth), I can’t claim to be able to predict or read a game well enough to make money from it, but trading the Under / Over markets following certain rules doesn’t require an in-depth knowledge of the game.

So as with all trading, we need to determine entry and exit points. Unfortunately the market does not signal the ideal entry / exit point of ‘just before a goal is scored’ but there are others.

It appears to me that the entry points can be narrowed down to two types:

1) Pre-determined (i.e. enter the market prior to kick-off, at half-time, after x number of minutes or after a certain change in price).

2) Event-determined (i.e. enter the market just after a goal is scored (JAGIS), a substitution, a yellow or red card, a change in tactics or conditions etc.)

Exit points can be similarly Pre-determined or Event-determined.

Historically, my entry points have always been somewhat arbitrary, as have my exit points, but after much pondering I have settled on a new strategy. Enter the market JAGIS. My exit strategy remains to be decided upon, but for today’s experiment in the Everton v Aston Villa game it was to exit after a target price had been reached.

It worked rather well. The early goal for Aston Villa meant I could lay the Over 2.5 at 1.56, and go Green-All-Over when the price climbed to 1.68. Then when Everton equalized I layed the Overs at 1.24, greening-up again at 1.34. (I wasn’t totally comfortable with this strategy after two goals because another goal kills the bet – perhaps after two goals, I should switch to the 3.5 goals market?).

Anyway, a nice little profit today but further analysis is required. Not to mention that I still need to address the issue of what games to try this method in, although if one isn’t too greedy, then it may be a profitable strategy in any televised (i.e. liquid) game.

On a side-note, there was some serious damage at the end of this game with an equalizer and then a winner both scored in time added on. £62,313 traded on the draw at 1.01. Ouch.

I’m a firm believer that 1.01 bets can be, and often are, value, but I seriously question whether 1.01 in a one goal game is EVER value in football. Which gives me another idea…

* Holland Sports FC, in Hurst Green, Surrey – not the ‘other’ Holland you may have heard of.