Finding value in the (any) market?

What the FECK are you saying?

Become a politician...................speak and pretend you mean what you spout! WITHOUT ACTUALLY SAYING "ANYTHING"......A BIT LIKE K

You need to see how much is in the pool if thousands you wont get matched straight away, a teams odds shorten the longer a game goes if they are in front, and lengthen when they are behind.


When your talking about 2 cents being the diff between matching and not, I wouldn't worry about it if your backing the team infront, just take the $2.58.

If you want to back the team not winning I'd post a slightly longer price than is availible as it will become availible in a few minutes and you'll be at the front of the queue,possibly.

You're so close in understanding me gold.  I'm talking about if i posted at 2.6 before the game started(when 2.42 is availible) and it being matched before the game, as the odds move up (and down) due to say a large amount of bets being put in/against this bet or a key player gets injured.  How much does the odds fluctuate and do they go both ways (say go up then down, if so how often).

This would be a premier league game, where the man utd stoke is currently 250k.  how often would it not match as a percentage.

The odds can move a great deal in the days before a match.

It's hard to say which way they will go though

One thing i've noticed in the last few weeks is that almost all the favourites for premier league games have drifted a lot.

Before the boxing days matches i asked for a back of Man City at Newcastle @2.48 (they were 2.36 at the time) and it was matched within a few hours.

When i tried to lay several favourites though and asked for prices a bit lower than was available , none of them were matched, and the prices went out in the other direction.

Arsenal at Birmingham 1.53 to 1.74
United at West Brom the same
Liverpool amd Chelsea drifted before their home games last week 
United 1.30 to 1.44 v Stoke tonight

Don't know why this should be happening or if it will continue.

Tobermory, I think a lot of the price drifting is explained by the fact that at this time of the year there are many games in a short period of time and managers are often making many changes from game to game. I think Sir Alex made 6 last night and one of those was no Rooney, the markets will clearly react with news like that. Additionally, at the moment, 'pool and Chelsea can't buy a win and are invariably quite short at the outset.

Invariably when a high profile player (Rooney) is left out, the market moves markedly, and yet there
is no evidence to suggest poorer results without same player. This has been covered before and the
difference with or without the key player is minimal.

Soccer is a game I'll never be able to price pre-match, but why would sides sign expensive players if they make no difference - or is it that if a player is out of form enough to be left out then a poorer player would do just as well?

They do make a difference.

Kevin Pullein did some research which showed the points per match gained by teams with and without Rooney ,Torres,Fabregas,Ronaldo etc was not much different .But from what i recall the research did not make allowances for the difficulty of the fixtures in question. Because you are more likely to rest Rooney or Fabregas at Home to Wigan,a game you will probably still win without them. You don't rest Ronaldo or Rooney when you are playing Chelsea or Barcelona, they will play in the toughest matches unless they are injured or suspended.

I do agree the market overeacts though .The United drift to 1.44 was crazy, they had been 1.18 for the the fixture 2 years ago against a Stoke team no worse than the present one. I know United have slipped a bit since then ,and Roony was out, but the market seems not to consider that previous results in fixtures like this, which entitled them to be no bigger than 1.30 ,were acheived with the same policy of leaving out some key players on th basis that the oppositon were nothing to worry about.Also Rooney has had little to so with United being top of the league as he was missing for months anyway.

Cheers tobes, that makes a lot of sense.

What price were United before the drift please ? I know i came a cropper on that one ,losing 143 pre match 

I would agree if there was evidence that these big players only
miss the softer matches, and without such evidence, the figures
are all we can go by. I believe certain key positions are more
significant than others, goalkeeper for instance, (where would
B'ham have finished last season without Joe Hart?), but IMO there
is definitely are over reactions. A good example is the aforementioned
Rooney, but then some would say they would be 10 points clear if
had played every game ! The percieved star player is one of 11, that
shouldn't be forgotten, also what about Ronaldo ? What difference
was there in the form of ManU and Real, without him, and with him
respectively ?

Man United back and lay was 1.3 and 1.31 on 2nd Jan and on 3rd Jan it was 1.33 and 1.34

thanks UA