Fan money - don't you just love it??

I am English, and although following the national team brings more than its fair share of heartache I love it when they win. I enjoy trading England matches much more than I do watching though! The reason? Loads of over optimistic patriotic money saturating the markets!

My suspicion is in truth that this money is around in games involving big clubs as well - ie Chelsea, Arsenal and Man U fans piling in on their teams (and loads of other teams I'm sure!). But with England games all those fans come together and lump on the national team thereby exaggerating the effect.

I had no doubt that England would win, and neither did the majority of traders and punters. But match odds in these games seldom offer much in the way of margin. But, at 1-0 after 35 minutes the Any Unquoted price was 4. Irresistible. That figure means that according to the market, with only 55 minutes roughly of football remaining, that England stood a 25% chance of getting three more goals (or, indeed, of Wales getting 4!). In my opinion that was way too optimistic so I laid AU for £25 with a liability of £75.

For a concise but insightful view on trading where the value lies, rather than on what you think is going to happen, have a look at Cassini's post about the match odds market in the same game.