Football Trading: How To Profit MORE From Late Goals

If you have been trading football on Betfair for any length of time you will know that is usually the late goals that can mean the difference between taking a profit that is average and taking a profit that is quite significant. The good thing about late goals in football is that they are actually quite frequent there are more goals in the final 10 minutes then there are in the first 10 minutes. Due to the good prices on offer, laying the current Correct Score or just backing the next Overs goal market in the late stages of a match can prove to be quite fruitful although this does not mean you can just do it blindly and expect to make money.

So just how can we profit more from late goals when they occur?

Look For Signs Of A Late Goal

It might sound like stating the obvious but if you are going to enter the market looking for a late goal then at least wait until all the signs are there that a late goal might be coming. Usually you need the match to not be “over” with either team thinking they can still win it or one particular team pushing hard for an equaliser. So if you have Man Utd drawing 2-2 at home to a team like Aston Villa then you can bet they will be pushing hard for a late goal and you should not be surprised if they nick it 3-2 in injury time. On the flipside, if Barcelona were leading 5-0 heading into the final ten minutes then then game is pretty much done and you are relying on Barcelona pushing for more goals that they actually do not need. Hence the urgency will not be there as much. If you are seeing the match go end to end or attack after attack heading into the final 10 minutes then this is usually a good sign you should get involved.

Lay The Team Defending The Lead

If you are looking to profit from a late goal then you should consider which team you think is more likely to score the next goal. If both teams are going for it then you can lay the draw or lay the correct score but if only one team is going for it then there are other options available.

For example, if you have a team leading 1-0 heading into the final 10 minutes and you notice the winning team is just defending and not chasing more goals then you can get a better price by just laying that team in the Match Odds market rather then laying the current Correct Score or the Goal markets. For example, depending on the match odds situation you might find a leading team available to lay at prices sub 1.30 heading into the final 10 minutes yet you might still have to lay the Correct Score at prices around 1.80-2.

If you do not feel that the team winning has much ambition of scoring more goals then this is a better value position to take. This article showed some great examples of when best to spot this opportunity.

Be Aggressive and Keep Laying More

If you are watching the match live in the closing stages and you can just “smell” the late goal then you can be more aggressive and keep adding more liability to the position. The beauty of this is that as time ticks on, the odds go lower, so you are actually getting a better value price as it goes along. If you are seeing the pressure increasing then this can definitely end up paying dividends.

For example, you have a home team trailing the away team 0-1 and they are pushing hard for an equaliser. So around 77 minutes you lay the 0-1 Correct Score @ 2 with £100. By 85 minutes the home team still has not scored however they are pushing hard and have had a few shots saved dramatically. Instead of sitting there you can then add more to your position. By this time you can lay the 0-1 Correct Score @ 1.50 with £100 for a £50 liability.
By injury time if you still fancy the goal to come you can probably lay again at prices around 1.25. This would mean that if the goal does arrive you are now looking at a profit of £300 for a risk of £175. Definitely feels better to get a bigger profit considering all the sweating you are doing waiting on that late goal!

This is obviously a much more aggressive approach but so many late goals do arrive in injury time and this is a great way to increase your profits.

Look At The Amount Of Injury Time

If I am considering a lay going into injury time then the prices usually have to be lower then 1.20 and I would also want at least 4 minutes injury time. I don’t have stats to prove this but it definitely feels like when the injury time is 3 minutes or less then an injury time goal is less frequent.

So be sure to see how much time is actually left on the clock as even just the announcement of the time added on can unsettle the defending team and spur on the attackers.