Three games in the Europa League that I'm aware of yesterday evening in which two goal leads evaporated! PSV v Happoel at one point was 1-3 and ended 3-3 (what odds that score at the off I wonder...?). AZ 0-2 up at Austria Vienna at half time pegged back to 2-2. And finally our own Birmingham City snatching a 2-2 after Brugges took a two goal first half lead.
Sure there were other games where 2 goal leads stood or were extended, Fulham and Braga for example. As both were firm odds on favourites I would expect that at 2-0 or 3-1 both could have been laid at very low odds. Would there have been any point? As it turned out no, but, as always with trading you must consider both the maths and the implications of further goals.
Turning to the maths first... and this is simple... if you lay at just under evens you need to win more times than you lose to make a profit. If you lay at 1.2 you need just a 21% strike rate to be ahead, and if you lay at 1.05 that strike rate drops to just 6%. But that's gambling talk - and this is a trading blog :-) so let's consider what a goal or two, or indeed no goal imply for the trade.
I got home from work last night and the first of the in-play early kick off Europa games to catch my eye was the PSV match - with, incredibly, PSV 1-3 down at home. Happoel were available to lay at 1.44. Bearing in mind that 50 minutes had passed this in itself suggested a PSV fightback was very much on the cards so I was happy to take them on and oppose them. A 59th minute goal from PSV enabled me to take a handsome profit at Happoel's odds flew out to 2.46.
As has been said on here and elsewhere apart from goals and red cards time decay is the major reason for odds changes in football matches. But with over half an hour left I knew the Happoel price would stay in that region for a good fifteen to twenty minutes as long as there were no goals or cards. As it transpired Happoel did get a red card just after 70 minutes which probably slowed the steaming of their odds as full time approached. Sure enough the equaliser did eventually arrive, but I was long gone by then.
The point I'm labouring to make is that when you enter a trade like this you need a plan. Decide what to do if the losing side score and stick to it. You can 1) green up once the market settles (as I chose to do in this match) 2) reduce your liability on the leaders to nil or what you consider to be an acceptable loss to leave a nice green on the draw or the current losing team or 3) let the whole thing run in expectation of an equaliser. The other thing to decide BEFORE entering the trade at all is how long you stay in / how much loss you take before getting out of the trade if there is no goal.
It's probably fairly safe to assume that if you enter a trade like this and a two goal lead becomes a three goal lead that your trade is dead and buried!
These opportunities present themselves on a daily basis. If it's an area of trading that you wish to explore why not try with low stakes and watch how the market behaves and what you can learn from that. I promise you it's a fun and exciting trade and potentially a very profitable one with a relatively small downside.
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