Trading 101 – Information
One of the simplest ways of making money in gambling is trading information as soon as it is announced. A number of AFL games over the past few weeks gave you the perfect chance to create guaranteed profit as soon as final teams were announced. Two matches in Round 17 worth looking into are the Eagles vs Swans match and also the Lions vs Roos match.
The Eagles were smashed in betting all week with an expected diminished Swans team to line-up, but no one expected Buddy Franklin to be a late out. As expected, the market reacted within 5 minutes of the announcement with the price coming in further and line pushing out. For those with the game market loaded up and ready to place a bet… with the AFL twitter page, Swans twitter page and Eagles twitter page all open and notifications setup on their smartphone, it was all too easy to make a profit.
Final teams #AFLEaglesSwans – Buddy is OUT. Replaced by Brandon Jack. Subs: Scott Selwood (@WestCoastEagles) and Tom Mitchell (@sydneyswans)
— AFL (@AFL) July 26, 2015
A similar event occurred in the Lions vs Roos match with two huge outs in the form of Hanley and Beams. As a result, the Roos shortened $0.05 in betting within 13 minutes of the announcement. This wasn’t a surprise with those key player outs, neither was the fact that the Roos covered the line with ease, which from memory was -29.5 at the time of the announcement.
Pearce Hanley and Dayne Beams will miss tonight’s game, with Bewick and Beasley the replacements. McStay and Thomas subs. #AFLLionsNorth
— AFL (@AFL) July 25, 2015
Most importantly in this instance, you were alerted to the outs first by an AFL employee tweeting the news, not the AFL… and they retweeted him…. So notifications were useless. Watching the feed got you the early news!
Big outs for the Lions – Hanley and Beams both late withdrawals.
— Michael Whiting (@AFL_mikewhiting) July 25, 2015
So how do you make money from such information? Very simple. In the instance of Beams and Hanley being dropped, two critical players for the Lions, the play was to back North to win. As you can see from the screenshot provided below (using the program BetTrader), $814.50 was bet on North Melbourne to win at the odds of $1.32. A lay bet was then placed against North Melbourne to win at $1.28 for $839.95. This leaves us a middle, or hedge, or $25.45 profit. In BetTrader, you can click one button instead of having to figure out how much to lay, and it will automatically do it for you.
So why would you do this for just $25 profit? It’s $25 free. You did nothing for it, no risk at all. There is generally enough liquidity in the market to get more than just $814 on as well pre-match on most games. A $4000 backing of North Melbourne at the $1.32 as an example and hedge at $1.28 would have netted a handy $100 profit, and remember, it’s tax free.
