What Are The Best Matches For The Lay The Draw Strategy?

Most football traders are well aware of the “Lay The Draw” strategy. Some do well with it, whilst some struggle and then complain that it does not “work”.

Well the truth is, it does still work to this very day but things have changed much in recent years. These days in order to make this strategy “work” you need to have good match selection. This is probably the same with any aspect of trading and the days of easy money are long gone.

But just which matches are ideal for Lay The Draw?

A Novices Misconception

Many people misunderstand the LTD strategy and think of it as being a strategy that needs “goals”. So they will just look for a football match that promises goals and think that will suffice. They figure that whoever scores will make the draw price rise and they can cash in.

But this is a BIG misconception.

For the LTD strategy you do need goals but you ideally need them to be scored by the favourite for a stress free trade. Since the draw price is only really likely to rise significantly if it is the favourite who goes in front.

Therefore, you actually should only be looking at matches with a strong favourite who is preferably priced odds-on.

For example,

Here is a recent Premier League match between Sunderland and Newcastle. As you can see, the markets have them as being very evenly matched up and the draw price starts @ 3.25 to lay.

Above you can see the markets just after Sunderland took the lead which was in the 45th minute. The draw price has drifted to 4.4 despite the favourite taking the lead.

This is not a big drift and if you were trading this then you would be able to lock in a profit of about 25% of your stake. So if you were to lay with £100 then you would be to lock in about £25 now.

This might sound like a reasonable return but you are starting out with a liability of £225 and so your exit point would be crucial if you were to maintain a decent risk-reward ratio in this sort of trade.

And certainly not worth trading when you consider there are matches where the draw price could allow you to lock in 40-50% after a goal.

So what matches should we look for?

When trying to select matches to LTD you should be looking for a few of the following things:

A Strong favourite priced odds on
An odds on favourite taking the lead is likely to make that draw price drift extremely high after a goal when compared to a match with 2 even teams.

A favourite you EXPECT to win
The secret to LTD is not to look for matches that promise goals but to look for favourites that you expect to win. If you expect them to win then it won’t be a draw and by laying the draw you are covering yourself in the unexpected situation where the underdog goes on to win.

A favourite you feel will score early on
If you are laying the draw from the start of the match then you really want to trade on favourites who score their goals early on. You do not want the teams that start slow and usually score their goals late on.

A favourite with a strong defence
The worst nightmare when trading LTD is the underdog taking the lead or scoring at any point. Look for teams that keep regular clean sheets, especially when playing at home.
We have spoken much about how to exit lay the draw once you are in and this article has 8 LTD exit strategies that are all worth considering and using.

If you are interested in learning more about profiting from this type of trading, then you could check out my “How To Master Lay The Draw” playlist on youtube, check that out here!

Or check out our FULL Ultimate Lay The Draw guide here!